Weak Leadership leads to confusion

Among the conversations I had recently in Washington, the most prominent was the discussion related to the foreign policy failures of the Obama Administration. Talking with my friends who work on Capitol Hill in Washington, they all used the same words: “convoluted,” “crazy,” “incompetent,” “delusional,” “feckless” were among a few of the words I can share. Before jumping too quickly to the wrong conclusion, please understand that all these people with whom I spoke are not registered Republicans. The general thinking among many on Capitol Hill is that “confused” is the best word to use when talking about the foreign policy being demonstrated to this point from the Obama Administration. As I sat in my hotel room watching the President’s speech last Tuesday night, “confused” is the word that came to my mind. There seemed to be a moment in the speech when the President wanted the world to know he had determined he was going to make the decision to release the military for an attack on Syria because of his moral concerns in the use of nerve gas on the innocent children of Syria. Almost in the same breath, however, he seemed to back off the idea that dropping bombs on Syria would be the moral response to what he saw as an immoral decision. I admit to being more confused than ever after listening to the speech. The events continuing to unfold since last Tuesday night’s speech have further muddied the issue. One of my friends had opined earlier on Tuesday afternoon that if Russia and her leaders could embarrass the US they would and if they could develop concepts that would make them look like winners and the US losers they would come forward with something that would confuse the issue even more. The prediction came to light quickly when the New York Times ran the Op-ed column written by Russian leader, Putin. In the New York Times column, Putin lectured our country and called out our President for his lack of leadership and confusion in his foreign policy. Putin, by offering the idea of working out a solution that would force the Syrian government to turn over the nerve gas to the international community with oversight by the United Nations was immediately seen as a winning solution to the issue. There has been much written in the various media sources since Putin’s letter appeared in the New York Times. Some have suggested that by offering the solution that will be agreed to by all governments in the region, including the US, that Putin has further established his regime as the power player on these international issues. Time will tell if that conclusion is true. Historians always track the events of a second term in office for a President of the United States as the time to set the legacy of the administration in power. That being true, we are seeing developed before our eyes the legacy of the Obama administration to be one of failure in foreign and international policy. This failed legacy did not just suddenly appear. It began in the first moments of the first term President Obama was in office. Quickly after taking office in the first term, President Obama took off on a world tour to apologize to all the other countries of the world for the success we have in our nation. That tour set the tone for and set in motion the failed policies of this administration regarding how other nations view us and how we no longer have a position of power in the world. We must come to understand that the conflict in the Middle East goes back for centuries. Finding a lasting solution to those deep seated issues has proven to be almost impossible. There are many who believe only the end of time will signal an end to those lasting conflicts. We must also understand that there are nations that will never like America. We can apologize for former leaders and decisions that have been made, but doing so will not make those who hate us like us. Instead of changing their minds to move them to like us (in those nations that hate us) they only see us as weak and unable to deal with the issues when we always go around saying we are “sorry.” The way this issue in Syria is being dealt with supports the idea that our leadership is weak. Ray Newman This column first published in The Barrow County News, Winder, GA.