Monday, September 28, 2009

The Nightmare Presidency: India’s newspaper, The Pioneer, skewers Obama.

India’s newspaper The Pioneer offers a blistering critique of Obama’s foreign policy chops. While America’s newspapers seem to bend over backwards to make Obama look competent, the foreign press is under no such obligation. The critiques are blistering because they see Obama as the empty suit he actually is.

Read the article below [emphasis added], but I warn you now do not drink anything while you read it! When you are finished go and read some of the comments they are priceless.

Nightmare presidency

The Pioneer Edit Desk

Obama is ruining India’s security climate

He may not relish the comparison but it is now becoming increasingly obvious that Mr Barack Obama is the most hostile American President for India since Richard Nixon. In the eight months he has been in office, Mr Obama has snubbed India more than once. He has sent repeated signals that New Delhi is not integral to his Asian security architecture. Partly as a result of his country’s economic crisis, he has bent over backwards to accommodate China. His open advocacy of protectionism has been most visibly targeted at outsourcing of technology jobs to India. He headlined anti-trade legislation by saying it would punish those who created jobs in Bangalore rather than Buffalo, a special mention that was extraordinarily impolitic and did not go unnoticed in India. In contrast, the tariff war against Chinese tyres has not been posited in such stark bilateral terms. This past week, the Obama team reversed a decade of American nuclear pragmatism and went back to an outdated non-proliferation agenda that should have died, really, in the 1990s. Once more, India has been asked to give up its nuclear weapons and sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a second-tier power. Most alarmingly, Mr Obama has swung wildly on Afghanistan-Pakistan (AfPak). At various points his diplomats and Generals have said different things. Yet, in all this the overarching political message has been missing.

There has been a remarkable absence of clarity on Mr Obama’s strategic goals. In the early months, it was easy to pretend he was making up his mind. Now, it would seem he has no mind. His confusion on AfPak and constant shifting of tactical milestones would suggest he has little understanding of the nature of the challenge there and, behind those engaging phrases, is thoroughly confused. If the Obama Administration’s most recent thoughts on AfPak are taken as final, the American President is looking to cut and run. He would want to begin bringing troops home by early 2012, in time for his re-election. This would mean delegating Afghanistan to the Pakistani Army, and asking it to control the Taliban. It would also activate a lethal Saudi-Pakistani-Taliban alliance. This formidable combination of wealth, geography, religious appeal, unending foot-soldiers and nuclear weapons would create a monster power straddling south and west Asia. To some degree, it could be offset by a strong India and a stable Iran, which would flank AfPak. However, Mr Obama is determined that Teheran must not pursue its Bomb and India should be pressured to sign the NPT. Strangely, he has not considered asking Pakistan to give up its nukes in return for billions of dollars of “sustained and expanded commitment”.

Given the intensely and admirably egalitarian nature of the United States presidential election process, it has always been a theoretical possibility that the country will send to the White House a person inexperienced in global affairs and unequal to the international situation before him. Often this has not been the case, and incumbents have risen to the job. Sixty years ago, Harry S Truman had limited first-hand knowledge of great power bargaining but turned out to be farsighted enough to anticipate the Cold War. Mr Obama is the antithesis of this phenomenon. He is completely out of his depth and will probably leave behind a dangerous and unsure legacy. India could have done without this neophyte.

Via: Lucianne.com

Via: The Pioneer

8 comments:

namaste said...

this is such a catch 22 for us Americans. it did not give me a good feeling to read those comments. i know the people that voted for obama made a terrible mistake that we all must live with. i can't stand obama, but it really troubles me to know how little respect other countries have for him.

a very provoking post! whew!

Clifton B said...

Namaste:

The world wanted Obama for President. I am beginning to think they only wanted him because they knew he would be a push over.

Stogie said...

This Indian editorial is a stunning indictment of Obama. He "has no mind," "he's confused" on strategic issues, etc.

This was a great find and another excellent post, Clifton.

I agree with Namaste - Obama was a mistake we must live with for now. Let's hope the Congressional elections of 2010 will bring us more conservatives to defeat his policies.

Anonymous said...

It's a sad testimonial that Americans have to seek the news from foreign newspaper to get an accurate protrayal of this pathetic excuse of a President. What's worse is that it's the only way to learn why the world wanted the man in the first place: to rape American interests all the while screwing her allies and gaining strength for her enemies. Well, to those that wanted change. You got it. Now they wished they were more careful for what they wished for while the free world is weeping in anguish.

The Conservative Lady said...

Great post Clifton.
The scum bags at the U.N. love Obama (Chavez & Qadhafi to name a few). That should tell us somthing. Obama is weak and they all know it. We're better off reading the foreign news...at least we get honest reporting.

Clifton B said...

Stogie:

Yeah I found this piece last night on Lucianne just before going to bed. I would have posted then but the Sandman beat me to the punch.

Yeah we are stuck with Zero, for another three years. The best we can do is try to minimize the damage until then. Lord help us!

Clifton B said...

madmath1:

The foreign press is becoming more and more valuable everyday. With so many American newspapers shill for Obama, it is like not having any newspapers at all.

Clifton B said...

TCL:

Now we know why so many people in the world wanted Americans to elect Obama, they knew he was weak, weak, weak.

We just have to say a prayer we can avoid any major trouble between now and 2012.

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