Quote (bogie160 @ Aug 13 2020 12:28pm)
Clinton's tenure can be difficult to analyze, as he presided over a relatively peaceful era in foreign relations. There was the Rwandan genocide, which was mishandled, and the disaster in Somalia, but the United States provided leadership during the Serbian crisis that the Europeans were evidently unable to resolve themselves. The Taiwan strait crisis was handled well. No progress was made in the Middle East, but it's probably not fair to blame Bill for that.
It's one thing to say that Obama's foreign policy is "pragmatic, cautious... [which] strengthened our alliances" and another to substantiate that with evidence. The administration's foreign policy was neither pragmatic nor successful. It led to the deterioration of American interests in Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. It did not strengthen American alliances in any meaningful sense. Take the Iran deal, which placated Western European nations bent on trade at the expense of American allies and interests in the region. Does that constitute multilateral, cooperative decision making? Of course. It was also a failure, one that led to a resurgent Iran that spent hundreds of billions in fresh funding on proxy-wars in the Middle East. Even were one to discount that, it miscalculated domestic support for the deal, which resulted in the deal itself unraveling within the span of a few short years.
Again, this comes down to a fundamental miscalculation in the way that the Obama administration approached foreign policy. International affairs is best understood in scientific, dispassionate terms. Nations are independent actors who seek individual advantage and security. Giving assurances in "good faith" does not necessarily lead to reciprocity, as we saw play out in the case of Iran. China has been provided enormous credit over the past few decades on trade and intellectual property. They've leveraged that into a much more dominant position on the international stage. It's not helpful to try and say whether China is "good" or "bad", they're simply doing what they've been allowed to do, in the manner that they see as in the long-term interests of the Communist Party, the ruling elite, and the national interests of the Chinese people. By contrast, the Obama administration framed the world in Marxian terms. The United States as an oppressor, other nations as the oppressed. The problem, then, was to unravel American "oppression" and give back to the other nations the security / wealth / power that was seen as their due. It's fundamentally a rejection of political realism, and we can judge the results for ourselves.
honestly at the end of the day the only thing i blame obama for is Iran, and i understand the desire to solve the crisis with cash rather than risking another way. it didnt work, theyre still radicals, probably still developing nukes, etc. but when we look at the boatload of cash he gave them it equals out to like what? 3 days of war?
the choice to pull out of occupation in afghanistan was wildly popular in the US, and he came in way late with that compared to the timetable he laid out in the debates.
redline in syria was dumb, but better to draw and then ignore a redline than to draw and enforce it imo. how many dead bodies and burned cash can we expend just to look like we are tough?
2nd to his iran outcome would be the relentless droning campaigns, cementing a generational enemy in the region moving forward and setting up future presidents with a dangerous tool to use in its precedent.