Thank God for Presidential Term Limits

Via the London Times, of all places, columnist Gerard Baker executes the most devastating takedown of the President's feckless foreign policy I have seen to date. By that I do NOT mean he is a wild-eyed socialist with hatred oozing from every pore at all things Republican and spittle flying out with every enraged word. Even today I agree with the President's stated goals in the War on Terrorism, in the Middle East, etc., and no one wants it to succeed more than me. There's just one teeny problem...the execution of that plan has been terrible at times, and the backbone to implement said plan and see it through to victory been sorely lacking (the bravery of our ridiculously overworked and undersupported soldiers notwithstanding).

From Iraq to the Lebanon/Israeli conflict to Afghanistan to Iran, I have to admit that, while it isn't all the President's fault (Ehud Olmert, France, the U.N., Iran and Syria, Hezbollah, etc), some of it is his fault and it looks bad. The only reason N. Korea isn't on the list is because the backward, communist hellhole is entirely too corrupt and incompetent to produce functioning conventional missiles, much less nuclear weapons, but it isn't for lack of trying. Read it all, and if you are interested in a less kind and gentle critique of Condi Rice's fumbling in the Middle East, there's links at the end for that too, courtesy of the Emperor Misha (language alert in effect here and here).

"But the US could take the risk of alienating the world and discarding international law only if its leadership was going to be effective. Instead its leadership has been desultory and uncertain and tragically ineffective.

It tried unilateral pre-emption in Iraq, but never really had the will to see it through. So with Iran, it went all mushy and multilateralist. In Lebanon, it thought it would cover all the bases start by aggressively supporting Israel, then go all peacenik, holding hands with the UN in a touching chorus of Kumbaya.

Now we have the worst of all worlds. Not only is the US despised around the globe, it cant even make its supposed hegemony work. Its one thing to be seen as the bully in the schoolyard; its quite another when people realise the bully is actually incapable of getting anybody else to do what he wants. Its unpleasant when people stop respecting you, but its positively terrifying when they stop fearing you. What we have now is a situation in which the worlds only superpower, with the largest economic and military advantage any country has ever enjoyed on Earth, is pinned down like Gulliver, tormented by an army of fundamentalist Lilliputians. ...

But I dont truly see how the failings in the Middle East could have been avoided by Washingtons being nicer to foreigners. Whats been missing is resolute leadership. It is hard for me to recall a time when the world was such a scary place. No one should rejoice at Americas weakness. The world is scarier still because of it."