George W. Obama

Syria, drones, Guantanamo, the National Security Agency (NSA) and now even a new ice age with Russia: The U.S. president pursues his predecessor’s foreign policies in an alarmingly consequential way.

Since the beginning of his second term in January, Obama has not succeeded at all in foreign affairs. This world’s most powerful statesman’s impact on current events in this world faded at an impressive pace. This is not a positive development. It makes this world an even more dangerous place than it was before.

The civil war in Syria continues with undiminished vigor. The U.S. government’s reaction toward the revolution in Egypt seemed unprepared and unsystematic. There is little progress in Afghanistan, and the dispute between Obama and President Karzai is becoming increasingly intense. Iran has not desisted from its nuclear ambitions. Neither has North Korea. In fact, Obama’s efforts to promote nuclear disarmament decreased to a small paragraph within his speeches — as recently presented in Berlin.

Obama Failed

To be fair, Obama had some foreign policy achievements. He ended the U.S. war in Iraq and sent the troops home. However, the killing in Iraq continues. Obama promised to end the combat in Afghanistan by the end of next year, but it is doubtful that this will result in any type of safety for the Afghans. In the Middle East, negotiations between Israel and Palestinian seem feasible again — however, similar to the previous decades, the outcome is as unpredictable as ever. Nothing actually happened. Obama, who took office with the goal of getting rid of his predecessor’s legacy, failed. More than 100 prisoners are on hunger strike and have lost any hope of ever being released.

It was more than four and a half years ago when the constitutional scholar Obama took office in the White House and promised to handle things differently than his war-loving predecessor, George W. Bush. He kept his promise. He did everything in a different, but not necessarily better, way.

Obama pursues Bush’s war in a different way — in a dirty, hidden and secret way. He sends unmanned air vehicles after terrorist suspects and accepts the death of innocent people. Only a couple of days ago drones were used again in Yemen.

Absurd Cancellation

The NSA’s Internet surveillance takes place on a previously unimaginable scale. The digital search is limitless and global. The world’s population now only consists of suspects. One fact became obvious since Edward Snowden published the NSA’s activities: Paranoia has become the general guideline for American foreign and security policies — even under Obama and with his explicit endorsement. Snowden proved those who talk maliciously about the second term of George W. Obama right.

Obama’s failure has become even more evident since Vladimir Putin — gifted provocateur, but less talented democrat — decided to grant Snowden asylum in Russia. Instead of reacting in a poised way to the whistle-blower’s escape to Moscow, especially as it is now impossible to squash the reports about the NSA’s activities, Washington decided to be defiant. The president ostentatiously canceled a planned meeting with Putin in Moscow. Something like that hasn’t happened since the Soviet Union collapsed more than 20 years ago, and even during the Cold War refusing to meet was a rarely chosen form of behavior by either of the superpowers.

Back to Sulking in a Corner

By now the mood between the United States and Russia has become rather chilly, which could turn into a threat not only for both of them, but also for the rest of the world. The silent treatment has never been a way to solve problems. Obama knows this very well, which makes the meeting cancellation even harder to understand.

He who believes that Putin will be affected by this behavior will soon be disappointed. The Russian president sees in Snowden a means to badger the U.S., and he will probably continue to do so with pleasure. So what is supposed to happen after this cancellation? Another one? And then another one?

The White House’s official explanation of the cancellation allows only one assessment: Obama has lost the tools of diplomacy. Talking. Determined negotiations. Whoever seriously states that parties shouldn’t talk to each other because there aren’t enough concurrent topics to be discussed only reveals that he is miffed.

Sulking is something a lot of people can get away with, but not the president of the Unites States of America. Based on this reasoning, any meeting with the Iranians during the last 10 years could have been canceled, as one thing was evident from the beginning: Talking won’t turn into results very quickly, but it will help prevent dangerous escalations.