Obama Has Earned World’s Contempt Print
By Quin Hillyer
Thursday, September 13 2012
Obama may have, quite bizarrely, already won the Nobel Peace Prize – but the truth is that American nobility now lies in pieces on the ground.

Nobody should even for a moment entertain the suggestion that the attacks on American outposts in Libya and Egypt are the fault of Barack Obama – but nobody should avoid saying that this week’s tragedies are symptomatic of the abject failure of Obama’s foreign policies not just in northern Africa but around the globe.

Under Obama’s reign of error, the United States’ most important and traditional alliances are frayed, our iffy relationships have not improved and our adversaries are no less adversarial. Worse, all three groups seem to respect us less, and those evil regimes that once feared us now seem to hold us nearly in contempt.

Never in my lifetime have relations with Israel been worse – perhaps not surprising, as it seems to reflect a deeply anti-Israeli worldview from Obama himself, who hails from the milieu of Rashid Khalidi and Khalid Al Masour. But in the midst of a gathering crisis in Iran, this arrogant man in the Oval Office refuses to meet with an Israeli Prime Minister while still making time for frivolous appearances like one with David Letterman. This is the height (or, rather, depth) of asininity, especially for the only president in memory to fail to visit Israel for an entire term.

Never in my lifetime has the United States been less associated in foreign minds with human rights – not after Obama watched impassively as Iran murdered its citizens in the streets, as Syria does the same and as Moammar Ghadafi did for weeks in Libya itself until Obama finally decided whose side he was on.

Obama also repeatedly has failed to stand up for religious liberty around the world, especially for Christian Copts. (The one exception is that Obama always goes out of his way to kowtow to Islam, even going so far as to make Islamic suck-up a prime mission for NASA. Not that it has done him or us any good, as this week’s events demonstrate.)

Traditionally, of course, liberal human rights advocates posit an opposition between human rights and American military strength (although Ronald Reagan merged the two very well, thank you very much), but Obama has pulled off the neat feat of downgrading human rights and American might at the same time. Our military is being gutted. Our mission in Afghanistan is ill-defined and increasingly confused. We left Iraq ignominiously before reaching agreement with the Iraqi government on policing issues – and now Iraq is hurdling towards either civil unrest or horrid repression.

Russia and China repeatedly snub their noses at us, as if our objections to their behavior are utterly inconsequential. Latin American radicals like Ecuador’s Correa and Venezuela’s Chavez still spew anti-American hate, despite all of Obama’s hapless “outreach” to the supposedly dispossessed of the world. And, of course, the “Arab Spring” sure as heck isn’t flowing the way the Muslim-friendly Obama wanted, as is evident in the embassy attacks this week. Even as he bows and kisses their rings, they still show contempt for everything American.

Meanwhile, our allies are left bereft. Obama has treated Poland incredibly shabbily; he effectively insulted Great Britain by returning Churchill’s bust and insulted the queen by “gifting” her with a mere iPod of his own (!!!) speeches. Eastern Europe as a whole begs for our friendship, but gets the back of Obama’s hand. Even Mexico feels slighted, as indicated by a scathing statement from the Mexican ambassador with regard to the Obama-Holder Fast and Furious gun-running scandal.

All of which begs the question: Where, pray tell, are American interests better off than they were four years ago?

It would be a huge challenge for any serious observer to name a single significant country or area of the globe where the United States is now stronger than before Obama began Occupying the Oval Office. Yet, as detailed above, many places exist where American interests are now much weaker.

Obama may have, quite bizarrely, already won the Nobel Peace Prize – but the truth is that American nobility now lies in pieces on the ground. His self-referential monuments of words lie in decrepitude; he has become Obamandias, his sneer of cold command looking over ruins.

In sum, Obama’s apology tour has achieved nothing for the United States but disdain. Next stop: Jimmy Carterville.