To get a sense of how much of a failure this administration has been over the past six years, just enter the phrase, “obama administration failure” in the search box above. You will then see a series of past posts where we document the dozens of failures.
Just last month we did a series of failure posts and in one of them we focused on foreign affairs failures. That post can be accessed at:
It was not a pretty post relative to the numerous times this administration has failed to develop and implement a coherent, integrated foreign affairs strategy. Unfortunately, just a few short weeks after that post went live, today we have to update it with another five foreign affairs disasters, from the dangerous to the mundane but embarrassing, that have happened since the post referenced above. That is how inept this administration and Washington in general has become.
1) The United States used to be the most powerful and respected nation in the world. Although you can make the case that it is still the most powerful along several dimensions, it is doubtful it is still the most respected. This reality was recently driven home when four Persian Gulf state nations, supposed allies of the U.S., decided not to send their most powerful leader to an upcoming summit of Persian states, hosted by the Obama administration.
According to Fox News: “The White House was scrambling Monday to put a positive face on an upcoming summit of Persian Gulf states after learning leaders from four of the six invited nations are expected to skip. While those nations are still sending representatives to the summit being hosted by President Obama later this week at Camp David, the absence of crucial heads of state — notably, Saudi Arabia’s new king — could present an awkward situation for the administration.”
It is a summit for Persian Gulf states but two thirds of them decided it was not worth sending their top leader and office holder to the summit. Not sure this would have happened when the U.S. was respected around the world but it sure is happening now. Obviously, these leaders either thought they had better things to do than to listen to the President or they were sending a not so subtle message that Obama was getting much too cozy with their Gulf enemy, Iran, especially relative to the nuclear weapons that country is trying to develop.
In either case, this is a huge diplomatic snub to the this administration no matter how vigorously the administration’s spokespeople try to spin it.
2) And the President did not help matters much at all with the Saudis when he made two huge mistakes recently at a White House meeting with two powerful Saudi crown princes. Now, keep in mind that this administration has been in place for over six years. The following diplomatic failure cannot be attributed to just getting into power and learning on the job. The job learning should have been learned years ago from a diplomatic perspective.
So what happened at the White House meeting? Unbelievably, Obama screwed the deputy crown prince's name and also the name of the king who helped build America's relationship with Saudi Arabia, King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud. Specifically:
- Mistake #1: The deputy crown prince's name is actually Mohammed bin Salman (bin means son of in Arabic); his father's name is Salman.
- Mistake #2: The King whom President Obama called King Faisal is actually King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, who met with Roosevelt. That king's son was named Faisal.
This administration cannot even get basic names right and somehow we expect our allies in the Middle East to trust this Presidential administration on such topics as nuclear weapon development in Iran. According to Elliott Abrams of the Council on Foreign Relations: Getting the names wrong "will deepen the sense in the Gulf and the wider Middle East that the president of the United States does not know what is doing in their region."
Certainly cannot disagree with Mr. Abrams.
3) Let’s stay with the Saudis and the Obama administration's total diplomatic failure with this country. One theory is that if Obama signs off on a nuclear arms deal with Iran that paves the way, either in perception terms or in reality, to get nuclear weapons, then other Gulf nations, especially Saudi Arabia, will follow suit and develop their own nuclear weapons programs to protect themselves and their interests.
But that might be a faulty logic flow but for reasons that were not obvious up until now. According to some credible news reports, rather than set up research programs to develop nuclear weapons in response to an Obama/Iran deal, the Saudis have decided that they do not need to develop their own nuclear weapons capability. They simply have already gone out and bought nuclear weapons from Pakistan.
According to the BBC and the Times of Israel: “Saudi Arabia may be prepared to field nuclear bombs it has purchased from Pakistan in response to Iran’s alleged military nuclear program, and may already have deployed missile systems capable of delivering the bombs, the BBC reported on Wednesday. According to Mark Urban, diplomatic and defense editor for the BBC’s Newsnight, there are suggestions that the Saudis have paid for a number of nuclear weapons that are ready and waiting in Pakistan. If the reports are accurate, the kingdom could have atomic weapons on its missiles even before Iran has that capability. Urban said it was an assessment shared by the former head of the IDF’s head of intelligence, Amos Yadlin, and cited comments Yadlin made to that effect at a conference in Sweden last month. “The Saudis will not wait one month,” Yadlin reportedly said. “They already paid for the bomb, they will go to Pakistan and bring what they need to bring.”
Great, Obama sets out to prevent Iran from going nuclear and possibly ends up forcing the Saudis to buy their way into the nuclear weapons club while he paves the way for the Iranians to develop their way into the nuclear weapons club. No way anyone in this administration can spin this evolving development into anything but incompetence.
4) Let’s move away from the Middle East because recent foreign affairs failures of this administration are not confined to that geographic area. It appears that two long time members of the nuclear weapons club, Russia and China, are now getting friendly with each other, a development that cannot be good for U.S. interests, militarily, economically, or strategically.
Specifically, China and Russia for possibly the first time ever,have decided to hold joint naval military drills. And they will conduct these drills in the Mediterranean Sea, right on the doorstep of NATO nations, not in some far away Far East location. The Chinese are sending two warships to participate in the drills and will dock them at the Russian port of Novorossiysk, the first time ever that Chinese war ships have entered a Russian military base.
Thus, after decades of cold and distant relationship between Russia and China, the failed foreign affairs strategy abilities of the Obama administration has been able to drive together two nations that usually had nothing to do with each other. Amazing ineptness.
5) One last foreign affairs fail. According to recent Wall Street Journal reporting, Chinese nuclear weapons experts told the U.S. earlier this year that North Korea’s nuclear arsenal is larger than previously believed. The experts estimate that North Korea has already made 20 nuclear warheads and has enough weapons grade uranium available to double the number of warheads by 2016. The Chinese estimates were presented to U.S. nuclear specialists at a closed-door meeting at the China Institute of International Studies in Beijing this past February.
The Obama administration has not had high level diplomatic talks on nuclear weapons since 2012, according to the Journal, after the North held a banned nuclear missile test. In the interim, they obviously have been busy building up a sizable nuclear weapons capability.
So let’s review:
- In the past month the administration has been snubbed by the King of Saudi Arabia and three other Gulf nation leaders who are not coming to Obama's Gulf nation summit.
- The President insulted two Saudi princes by screwing up Saudi family names.
- The Saudis may have already cut a deal with Pakistan to buy nuclear weapons to counter the emerging deal the U.S. is putting together with Iran that most in the Gulf region are opposed to.
- China and Russia are taking the first steps of getting real friendly with each other on the military front.
- And while Obama has been busy dealing with Iran, besides golfing and attending political fund raising events, the North Koreans have been busy building nuclear bombs at a rate that was not believed happening until earlier this year.
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