Obama's failed foreign policy

by Gil Troy

McGill history professor Gil Troy, author of "Why I Am A Zionist" and most recently published "The Age of Clinton: America in the 1990s," looks at the American presidency, American history, Zionism, Judaism and Israel today. He is a visiting professor at IDC Herzliya and at Haifa University’s Ruderman Program for American Jewish Studies and the State of Israel.

Last week we discovered that Barack Obama violated his constitutional duty to “preserve, protect, and defend” the United States by doing nothing as Russian hacking targeted American democracy.

As Putin launched an ideological 9/11 attacking the integrity of American elections, Obama cowered. Facing this cyber-Pearl Harbor, Obama, fearing fear itself, dithered, worrying about inciting further hacking.

He admitted: “What I was concerned about in particular was making sure that that wasn’t compounded by potential hacking that could hamper vote counting.”Shockingly, the week ended with silence from most Obamians and the American Jewish left about this unprecedented betrayal of a president’s basic mission.

Instead, they denounced… David Friedman, Donald Trump’s pick to be America’s ambassador to Israel. Somehow, an American patriot’s support for Israeli settlements more upset these shortsighted ideologues than the Russians’ contempt for American democracy – or the president’s impotence.

Whatever you think of Israel’s settlements, this misplaced fury epitomizes Obama’s failed foreign policy. The outgoing US president has spawned a callow, cowardly series of leadership miscarriages that bullied friends and empowered enemies. He feared Putin’s Russia, wooed Ahmadinejad’s Iran and boosted Castro’s Cuba.

Obama’s ideologically-driven misreading of America and the world enabled the Syrian mass slaughter while reserving special anger for Jews building houses in their ancient homeland. ...

Read entire article at The Jerusalem Post