Events do not wait as Obama plays a delay defense

Barack Obama's foreign policy strategy in this election year might be best summed up by William F. Buckley's famous promise: to "stand athwart history, yelling stop." Wherever war rages, crisis looms, or a truculent strongman glowers, the message from the White House has been the same: "Give me space."

jackson Diehl looks at the weakness in Obama's foreign policy strategy: basically a "wait until after the elections." Vacuum's, as Diehl, points out, tend to get quickly filled by others. To wit:

With regards to North Kores, Obama's strategy "hands control over events to the likes of 28-year-old Kim Jong Eun. Sure enough, the reprieve Obama thought he had purchased in north Asia expired after only 16 days, when North Korea announced the long-range rocket launch that took place early Friday."

With regards to Syria, "delay may prove disastrous." In the past six weeks that Obama has been passive, delegating Syria "to the feckless diplomatic hands of former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan," some 1,000 more Syrians have been killed and last week's "cease-fire" is crumbling.

"As for Iran, if Tehran accepts Obama's bargain, the momentum the administration has managed to build up behind sanctions, and the resulting pressure on the Iranian economy, will be broken. If the regime then cheats, or refuses to negotiate a more lasting solution to its pursuit of nuclear technology, Obama will end his term with Iran closer to a an atomic bomb than it was in 2009. And if Iran won't agree, and the talks collapse? Then Obama's effort to stop history until November will once again depend on a man who probably would like to see him lose the election: Netanyahu. That's the problem with asking for "space": It tends to get filled by others."

Related Topics: 2012 US Elections, Iran, Israel, Nuclear weapons, Syria, United Nations, US in the Middle East receive the latest by email: subscribe to the free middle east clarity mailing list