http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/americas-foreign-policy-will-need-rescuing-from-the-obama-years/article/2560268America's foreign policy will need rescuing from the Obama years
By Washington Examiner | February 16, 2015 | 5:00 am
The final collapse of Yemen's pro-American government at the hands of Iranian-backed rebels chanting “Death to America” marks another major failure of the Obama administration's antiterrorism policy.
The extent of this failure was highlighted by the disorderly evacuation that civilian and military staff were forced to make from the American embassy in Sana'a. Despite reassurances from the State Department that it was all planned in advance, embassy staff appear to have fled in fear and without much notice. They destroyed classified documents and caught a civilian flight out of a country that once welcomed our military aircraft. The Marines on site took the last-ditch measure of destroying weapons so they wouldn't become useful to the enemy. Vehicles were left behind unguarded, which the Houthi rebels proceeded to expropriate.
This failure was rather awkward for State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki to explain away in her recent appearance on Megyn Kelly's Fox News show. But who can fault her for flailing in justifying her boss's indefensibly weak position?
Yemen, long a hotbed of al Qaeda activity, is the nation that President Obama specifically cited just a few months ago as the model he wished to employ against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. He mentioned it in describing his “strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines ... that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years.”
Yemen is indeed a fitting model for Obama's overall counterterrorism strategy: Step one, run away. Step two, let Iran fill the vacuum and exacerbate existing problems. Step three, beg for a nuclear deal with Iran, the new regional hegemon in the Middle East.
We refuse to accept or even consider crackpot theories about how Obama is trying to cause America's decline. But we wish he wouldn't make our task so difficult.
Leon Panetta, Obama's former secretary of defense, has blamed him for leaving Iraq unprotected, ushering in a greater Iranian Shiite influence and the rise of the Sunni Islamic State.
Now, with Houthi rebels taking over in Yemen, and with the Islamic State expanding into both Afghanistan and Libya, it is difficult to find any spot on the map where Obama's foreign policy has borne fruit or is advancing American interests. Don't look at Europe, where America's NATO allies are now seeking a separate peace with Russia — something they didn't do even in the face of a much greater Soviet threat during the Reagan era.
Obama is now in his seventh year in power, and it should be clear by now that there will be no improvement in world affairs until he is gone. This underscores the importance that foreign policy issues will have for all the top Republican candidates in the coming campaign. America needs rescuing, both on the domestic and international front, and it is going to take someone who is knowledgeable and comfortable discussing both.
