Obama's Foreign Policy: Plain Stupid Or Darkly Sinister?
December 8, 2010 by John Myers
Forget Obamacare. With the way the world is spiraling out of control, we could be staring at deathcare. That’s my concern after seeing the latest WikiLeaks document releases which reveal a reckless President in Barack Obama.
The irony in Obama’s actions could almost be comical if they were not so damned scary. After all, the man once hailed as the Peace President — they even gave him “The Prize” — is making foreign policy decisions the way President Lyndon Johnson might have if he had been smoking crystal meth.
Last week we learned not only of the failure of Obama’s foreign policy, but also that his administration has been deliberately deceiving the American public regarding affairs with Muslim governments.
Iran: The Unspoken Crisis
Last week WikiLeaks released more than 250,000 documents. The information is as surprising as it is immense (216 million words in all). It includes the truth about Obama; that he has been talking closely about eliminating Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Those talks have been ongoing not with Israel, but with perhaps an even more important Obama ally: Saudi Arabia. To top it off, the new WikiLeaks provide confirmation that Saudi Arabia is still funding Islamic terrorism. It sounds like a Tom Clancy novel.
Unlike the George W. Bush administration — which constantly warned of the threat that Saddam Hussein posed with weapons of mass destruction — the Obama administration has said nary a word to the American people about Iran, which after all is a much larger and more credible threat than Iraq ever was.
According to Sever Plocker, a columnist for the Tel Aviv newspaper Yediot Ahronot, WikiLeaks strongly suggests the world is in peril. According to Plocker, "The massive leak of American diplomatic telegrams indicates a single picture, sharp and clear… (That) the entire world, not just Israel, is panicked over the Iranian nuclear program.”
Last week The Christian Science Monitor wrote: “Beyond the momentary public relations dividend, one Israeli veteran of diplomacy said the widespread fear of Iran among America’s Arab allies does not bode well for the Obama administration’s foreign policy — particularly its efforts to engage Iran diplomatically.”
America’s foreign policy is a disaster, contends Shlomo Avineri, a political science professor at Hebrew University and a former director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
"When Obama decided on negotiating with Iran, he was doing exactly the opposite of what the American allies are thinking,” said Avineri, adding, "Obama has made all of his friends nervous, and the Iranians are spitting in his face."
It is not just the Jews that are upset about Obama’s recklessness. According to Sir Simon Jenkins in the U.K. newspaper, The Guardian, “It is looking to many in the world that the world’s superpower is roaming helpless in a world in which nobody behaves as bidden."
The German newspaper Der Spiegel described the latest WikiLeaks as indicative of "a political meltdown for American foreign policy. Leaving the trust by America’s partners… badly shaken."
Most troubling is that under Obama’s leadership the United States enlisted some very unsavory partners.
Pakistan On The Brink
The latest evidence also shows that the Obama administration is determined to send billions of dollars in aid to Pakistan and enlist it in fighting the Afghan war, even though Washington believes that Pakistan cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons.
Included in the latest batch of WikiLeaks releases is a cable that describes a "dangerous standoff" with Pakistan over nuclear fuel. Last year the U.S. Ambassador to Islamabad, Anne Patterson, reported that Pakistan was refusing to schedule a visit by American technical experts because, as a Pakistani official said, "If the local media got word of the fuel removal, they certainly would portray it as the United States taking Pakistan’s nuclear weapons."
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry even refused to allow U.S. officials to visit a nuclear reactor that the United States helped build in the 1960s. "We said no, because it’s now our property, and we will not return it," said a Pakistani official.
According to Abdul Basit, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, "This only shows that Pakistan is very sensitive about its nuclear program… (That) no one can touch Pakistan’s nuclear facilities and assets."
We learn that Israel is very nervous about world events, and with good reason. WikiLeaks reports a conversation between Mossad chief Meir Dagan and U.S. counterterrorism Chief Frances Townsend to discuss their concerns about Pakistan falling into the hands of Islamic radicals.
Dagan characterizes a Pakistan ruled by radical Islamists with a nuclear arsenal at their disposal as the world’s biggest nightmare; that Al-Qaeda or another "Global Jihad" might be quick to pull the trigger on Pakistan’s nuclear gun.
And we learn that Pakistan is Israel’s President Ehud Barak’s "private nightmare." According to WikiLeaks, Obama is deeply concerned that the world will wake up one day and find "everything changed" in the wake of an Islamic extremist takeover in Pakistan.
WikiLeaks makes it apparent that the Obama administration is treating Pakistan with kid gloves. For example, Washington is even worried how Islamabad might respond if the U.S. were to use force to destroy Iran’s nuclear program. However, revelations about the Obama administration’s mismanagement regarding Pakistan are not new.
In his recent blockbuster, Obama’s Wars, Bob Woodward pointed out just how fragile the leadership in Islamabad has grown with Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari, who is convinced that the Obama administration is plotting to overthrow and even occupy Pakistan.
Woodward writes:
One evening during the trilateral summit, Zardari had dinner with Zalmay Khalilzad, the 58-year-old former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and the U.N. during the Bush presidency.
Zardari dropped his diplomatic guard. He suggested that one of two countries was arranging the attacks by the Pakistani Taliban inside his country: India or the U.S. Zardari didn’t think India could be that clever, but the U.S. was behind the attacks, confirming the claims made by the Pakistani ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence).
“Mr. President,” Khalilzad said, “what would we gain from doing this? You explain the logic to me.”
This was a plot to destabilize Pakistan, Zardari hypothesized, so that the U.S. could invade and seize its nuclear weapons.
There you have it; the leader of America’s most important ally on the War on Terror believes that WE are the terrorists. Wikileaks also revealed that Saudi King Abdullah has spoken contemptuously of Zardari. Abdullah has called Zardari the greatest obstacle to peace in the region, and was quoted as saying: "When the head is rotten, it affects the whole body."
I haven’t even touched on Afghanistan and the ongoing war over there, which is looking to be unwinnable. Last week the publication Foreign Policy warned: “Obama’s goal in reaching out to the Muslim world has always had both short-term and long-term dimensions.”
One can choose to believe that Obama is more hapless than Jimmy Carter on his worst day. Either that, or entertain the notion that something more sinister is at work. I myself can’t say it is the latter, although one thing is certain: Obama is creating…
A Perfect Storm For Gold
Obama promised to restore world confidence in the United States. But two years after taking office, he has done the opposite. On the domestic front, he has mounted inflationary strategies, while U.S. foreign policy has been a series of missteps that are breaking the confidence of traditional allies. The Obama administration has in fact spied on Western diplomats while secretly working deals with Arab leaders; some of whom have malevolent intentions towards the United States.
All of this is undermining the U.S. dollar and putting a springboard beneath the price of gold. Is the world on the brink of war? I don’t know. The better part of me says not. But world tensions are building, and there has been a complete lack of leadership by the Obama administration. Of that I am convinced. I fear that Obama may be like the great German strategist Otto von Bismarck. More than a century ago, Bismarck’s power-politics and the resulting entanglements led to the First World War. We can only hope that America’s President doesn’t push us towards a Third World War.
Action To Take
We may see some further correction in the price of gold from its November high of $1,421 per ounce on the London Fix. We may even see the price breakdown below $1,300 per ounce, but there is support between $1,123 and $1,187 per ounce London prices. Given the macroeconomic fundamentals (the Federal Reserve purchases of U.S. Treasuries) and growing instability around the world — in large part because of the Obama administration — I expect to see bullion at $1,800 to $2,200 per ounce before the end of 2011. Therefore I urge you to hang on to gold and, if possible, even add to your position.
Yours for future wealth and happiness,
John Myers
Myers Energy And Gold Report
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