The defining moment when many Americans decided that President Obama couldn’t be trusted to protect our national security came last August.  Obama had just announced on television the beheading of American journalist James Foley, a former writer for Stars and Stripes.  The president immediately climbed into a golf cart, where he was photographed – for all the world to gaze upon – with a simpering grin on his face. 

The electoral rout of the Democrats was not singularly based on foreign policy, although polls by the Obama-worshiping New York Times reveal that a substantial majority of Americans see the president’s foreign policy as incompetent.  Obama said that his policies were on the ballot, but he did not repeat that after the ballots were counted.

The president’s disdain for the feelings of Americans who had just witnessed on television the brutal murder of a fellow citizen was no isolated gaffe.  Obama had sent Eric Holder – the most dishonest attorney general since John Mitchell – to Ferguson, Missouri to help Al Sharpton, the administration’s favored pastor, gin up election-eve racial discord.  The White House sent no representative to the memorial service for Foley in Washington, D.C.

 A Worldview Based on Ideology and Ignorance

Obama’s worldview is based on leftist ideology exacerbated by ignorance of how the world works.  From day one, Obama has careened from one foreign policy disaster to another.  The main event is Obama’s complete mishandling of the overriding threat: Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weaponry.  Obama “negotiated” with Iran through two spectacular incompetents: (1) Under-Secretary Wendy Sherman, who gave North Korea everything it wanted and then seemed stupefied to be double-crossed, and (2) EU politician Catherine Ashton, whose political career was based on the wacko notion that only the Soviets, but not Western democracies, should have nukes. 

The Iran “negotiations” are supposed to conclude by November 24, but there is reason to believe that the “deadline” will be punted downfield.  Iran knows that Obama will not apply pressure during “negotiations.”  Tehran has used this insight shrewdly for interminable delay while it works on developing nukes.  Obama has brazenly lied about dealing with Iran while reducing sanctions without concessions from Tehran.  The IAEA says Iran continues to stonewall inspections.  The president initially vowed that “all options are on the table” to compel Iran to dismantle its pursuit of nukes.  This vow evaporated into a proposed deal granting Tehran thousands of centrifuges with breakout capacity to rapidly produce nukes.  We don’t even know if the mullahs will accept this pitiful crumbling of Obama’s vow.  Further, Obama has helped give away the store by acting like a lovelorn teenager in pursuing serial unrequited overtures to Iran’s supreme leader (none of which have even been answered by the haughty ayatollah, who contemptuously ridicules American weakness and begging).  As Iran scholar Michael Rubin recently wrote, desperation is not a good negotiating position.

Secret Diplomacy Leaving Our Allies in the Dark

Last week, it was revealed that Obama sent Khamenei a “secret” letter begging for help against Islamic State (IS) terrorists in tandem with a nuke deal.  The White House – trashing its promises to be “the most transparent Administration in history” – claims that this is a “private letter” whose contents are confidential.  No wonder!  Our regional allies – principally Israel (whom Iran repeatedly threatens to annihilate) and Saudi Arabia – have reason for outrage that Obama is seeking deals with their arch-enemy behind their backs.  This is compounded by the reality that the White House disparages Israel, the only regional democracy, with execrable language not directed at any other country.  Obama is trying to make an end run around Congress in his Iran dealings, but Senators Menendez (D-N.J.) and Kirk (R-IL) will try to enforce the constitutional mandate that treaties be subject to Senate approval. 

Obama might not be playing catch-up by secretly courting Iran had he not blundered by (1) precipitously withdrawing all U.S. forces from Iraq against the advice of his own secretaries of  defense, Republican Gates  and  Democrat Panetta, and (2) scandalously misunderstanding IS as “the Jayvees” as they gobbled up large swaths of Syria and Iraq.

These blunders are related to another Obama disaster – i.e., his refusal to act against Syria after it violated his own “red lines” by using chemical weapons against its own citizens.  That blunder convinced most of the world that American promises mean nothing and that Obama lacks integrity.  Recognizing the complexity of multi-factional Syria, it remains possible that decisive early American action could have removed the brutal Assad kleptocracy, with the access to the Mediterranean it grants Iran and Russia.  Obama’s tardiness in comprehending this led to his hasty post-election doubling of U.S. “advisers” in Iraq, who are seriously jeopardized by failure to seal a Status of Forces agreement 

Should the President Apologize to Us? 

Obama has blundered elsewhere – e.g., in (1) trying to keep the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood in power in Egypt and (2) double-crossing democratic allies Poland and the Czech Republic on missile defense in return for a fraudulent “reset” with Russia.  Didn’t that reset inhibit Putin from aggression against Ukraine?  Obama’s maneuvering to remove Egyptian President Mubarak showed Mideast leaders that the U.S. has no loyalty to allies who keep the peace.  Equally appalling were his failed efforts to reinstate the pro-terrorist Muslim Brotherhood after the Egyptian people ejected them from power.  The U.S. has no respect at the U.N., where thuggish anti-American Venezuela was just elected to the Security Council and rogue nations like Cuba   and Venezuela make a mockery of the Human Rights Council (toward which the U.S. should resume the G.W. Bush boycott).  Obama has bragged that his closest friend in the Mideast is Turkish President ErdoДџan, a Hamas-supporting Islamist who is destroying Turkish democracy while subverting support for Kurds battling IS.  Obama’s efforts to shrink our military encourage our enemies.  As for Obama’s hyped “pivot” to Asia, an official Beijing newspaper greeted his current journey to China by saying he is doing an “insipid job.”

Obama commenced his presidency by journeying to Cairo to apologize to the Muslim world on behalf of the United States.  The response has been a spate of terrorist attacks and beheadings, some on American soil.  The American people understand that Obama’s foreign policy is a mass disaster which endangers our security.  Perhaps he should stand up and apologize to us.