http://nypost.com/2015/02/14/obamas-so-selfie-absorbed/Obama’s so selfie absorbed
By Michael Goodwin
February 14, 2015 | 11:31pm
Media meatheads are describing President Obama’s plan for confronting Islamic State as a “balance” between doing nothing and all-out war. They remind me of an old friend’s insight that “balance” can be meaningless to the point of parody.
Said he: “If I have one bare foot in scalding water and the other bare foot in ice water, then, on balance, I’m comfortable.”
Obama’s “balance” in foreign policy is just as ridiculous, and a helluva lot more dangerous.
Recent events show a disturbing picture of the emerging world order he favors. It starts with bringing Iran in from the cold, a plan Obama has been working on since taking office in 2009.
His concessions to the mad mullahs’ nuclear program are alarming, but that is only a piece of his strategy. As national defense veteran Michael Doran writes in Mosaic magazine, Iran is key to Obama’s “thinking about the role of the United States in the world, and especially in the Middle East.”
He argues persuasively that the president wants a grand bargain that would, in Obama’s own words, “integrate Iran into the international community” and “make it a very successful regional power.” The president even suggested Iran, a Shia thugocracy, could help fight against Islamic State, the Sunni terrorist group that created a caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria and is now expanding to Libya.
The ramifications of the president’s vision show how warped it is. It means, Doran writes, that we have accepted Iran’s ally, Syrian butcher Bashar Assad, remaining in power despite crossing Obama’s red line of using chemical weapons. It means we won’t contest Iran’s brutal control of Lebanon or its domination of the parts of Iraq not controlled by Islamic State.
But Iran wants more, and last week, one of its proxy armies took over the capital of Yemen. That led to the evacuation of the US Embassy and the humiliating order that our Marines disarm before they left the country on a commercial airliner. The surrender came months after Obama called his strategy in Yemen a success.
In reality, this is what failure looks like. Iran’s sphere of influence now reaches the tip of the Arabian peninsula and rattles our Gulf allies, especially Saudi Arabia, which vows to get its own nuclear weapon if Iran gets one.
As if that is not trouble enough, Vladimir Putin signed a peace plan with Europe, then promptly sent 50 more tanks into eastern Ukraine in an obvious annexation plot. He took Crimea last year, and nobody even talks about taking it back. Also, China is again tightening the screws on Hong Kong, demanding schools stop teaching critical thinking and current events.
These developments create a balance of powers — in the worst possible way. The most aggressive players in the Muslim world, Iran and Islamic State, are expanding their competing territories, Putin is largely free to reassemble much of the Soviet sphere, and China can muscle its Asian neighbors without our objection.
Meanwhile, the West keeps shrinking in power and prestige. Disarmed Europe is becoming strategically irrelevant and America, abdicating global leadership, is reduced to a hemispheric power drowning in debt and obsessed with climate change.
That leaves other important nations to fend for themselves. Egypt, once an American ally, is turning to France and Russia to establish alliances. Jordan, after one of its pilots was burned alive by Islamic State, needs but hasn’t gotten increased American help. Ukraine can’t get an answer from Obama on its request for defensive equipment.
Then there’s Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists on spoiling the party by warning Congress that Obama is on the cusp of making a catastrophic nuclear deal with Iran. For his courage and candor, Netanyahu is slandered by the White House, and former Obama aides are working for his political opponents.
The litany of demoralizing disasters isn’t meant to suggest the president doesn’t have his nose to the grindstone. The spoof video he did with BuzzFeed last week demonstrated that he knows how to talk softly and carry a selfie stick.
The video was a smash hit that drew millions of views. It was surely a coincidence that the yuk-fest took place on the same day that we learned American aid worker Kayla Mueller, a hostage since 2013, was killed by Islamic State.
Our president has no shame.
