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Bilanţ demn de Jimmy Carter

Două articole despre strategia de eşec a geopoliticii administraţiei Obama. În primul, Nile Gardiner de la The Telegraph prezintă clasamentul de sfîrşit de an al celor mai flagrante prostii de politică externă:

This has hardly been a stellar year for the projection of American global power. Weakness, rather than strength, has been the hallmark of US foreign policy under Barack Obama, from the Iranian nuclear crisis to dithering over the war in Afghanistan. Instead of strong American leadership, the White House has all too often offered humiliating apologies for America’s past and embarrassing gaffes.

Barack Obama’s Top Ten Foreign Policy Follies

În al doilea, David P. Goldman analizează pentru Asia Times consecinţele asiatice ale renunţării de către SUA la rolul de putere mondială capabilă să balanseze interesele actorilor regionali prin diplomaţie şi proiecţie de forţă militară. Regiunea cuprinzînd Pakistan, Afganistan şi Iran a devenit centrul de instabilitate global, iar competiţia de interese divergente dintre China, India, Rusia şi Israel, cuplată cu performanţa americană de a-şi antagoniza aliaţii israelieni şi indieni, formează premizele creării unei situaţii în care conflicte de intensitate scăzută au şansa de a erupe într-o confruntare majoră.

Toţi cei care au sperat la sfîrşitul hegemoniei americane îşi vor vedea dorinţa împlinită, dar rezultatul nu va fi pe placul nimănui.

At the close of 2009, Washington still has the capacity to act as a hegemon. The most dangerous undertaking of the Obama administration is not the petty failures of policy, such as the hapless effort to appease the Palestinians over West Bank settlements, or Pakistan over Kashmir. If America’s technological leadership in fighter aircraft, surface-to-air missiles, and related technologies continues to erode, the United States – like Britain in 1914 – no longer will have the power and credibility to enforce an agreement among prospectively hostile players.

America’s self-sabotage in this regard is a unique act of abnegation in the history of world strategy. It lost Vietnam because to win would have required more boots on the ground and more body bags on homebound aircraft. But the problems of South and Central Asia do not require a substantial US troop commitment. On the contrary, the escalation of US force in Afghanistan makes matters worse. India can put sufficient boots on Afghan soil to prevent a Taliban victory. No one else wants or needs US troops. But America’s capacity to sail an aircraft carrier to any coast in the world and be master of the situation is essential.

Life and premature death of Pax Obamicana

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Emil Borcean

Emil Borcean

13 Comments

  1. lektor
    23 December 2009

    dragi contributori,

    va urez un craciun fericit, ziua de nastere a profetului meu favorit:)

    cu reverente alese,

    Lektor Lektorean.

  2. vlad
    23 December 2009

    ce profet sarbatoresti tu de craciun, Lektor?
    esti musulman?

  3. costin
    23 December 2009

    lektor,
    Pretext de Mers la Mall fericit si tie!

  4. Transsylvania Phoenix
    23 December 2009

    @ lektor

    si tie la fel si ai grija sa nu faci indigestie de la prea multa piftie!

  5. lektor
    23 December 2009

    nu sint musulman, nici pe departe.

    si sper ca nu v-am suparat prin interventia mea. uneori par violent si necioplit, dar nu sint chiar intotdeauna asa.

    craciun fericit.

  6. costin
    23 December 2009

    no harm done, lektor

  7. fish
    23 December 2009

    lectoru e cu vinuri rosii si vechi si bune si fripturi- nu fac la tara lui adoptiva piftii, nu-l jigniti gratuit.

    lektore, stai pe aproape si vezi cu sirurile alea de cifre care incep cu 197 ????

    sarbatori fericite

  8. Imperialistu'
    23 December 2009

    Fratilor, voi nu mai stiti de gluma? Tare nepotrivite raspunsuri ati mai avut…

    Craciun fericit si tie, lektor, alaturi de cei dragi! Iarta-i pe colegi, a fost o neintelegere. ????

  9. dr pepper
    23 December 2009

    dupa atatia coboni cred si io ca sufla colegii si’n iaurt :).

  10. vlad
    23 December 2009

    @Lektor,

    eu sunt mai nou in echipa si nu te cunosc, de asta te-am intrebat. a fost o intrebare legitima, zic eu (nu cum spune fish – jignire gratuita):

    va urez un craciun fericit, ziua de nastere a profetului meu favorit

    pomenind de o zi de nastere, te-am exclus din randul celor ce sarbatoresc doar un Craciun de marketing, deci variantele erau:

    1. evreu – nu, pentru ca nu te-ai fi referit la Hristos ca la un profet
    2. crestin – nu, pentru ca, de-asemenea, nu l-ai fi numit profet
    3. musulman – plauzibil, caci doar asa puteai sa-l numesti profet.

    REPET: nu-ti cunosteam stilul sugubat, iar in momentul in care ai asociat „craciun fericit” cu „ziua de nastere”, m-ai confuzat. Chiar daca erai musulman, n-ar fi fost o problema. Devenea totul mult mai interesant pe-aici ????

    sarbatori fericite si tie

    PS: in tot cazul, ma bucur sa aud ca e favoritul tau ????

  11. costin
    23 December 2009

    intradevar, dar despre bilantul lui Obama ce ziceti? ????

    1. Surrendering to Russia over Missile Defence

    The White House’s betrayal of US allies in eastern and central Europe by reneging on the deal to establish Third Site missile defences sent a clear signal that Washington was more concerned about appeasing Moscow than defending its friends. It symbolized all that is wrong with Obama’s foreign policy – including the willingness to curry favour with brutal enemies while giving the boot to some of America’s closest partners.

    2. Appeasing the Mullahs of Iran

    If Barack Obama makes a New Year’s resolution, I hope it will be that he stops appeasing Tehran. The White House’s strategy of engagement with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been nothing short of a spectacular failure. While Obama has been busy emulating the European Union’s dismal Common Foreign and Security Policy and sending polite video messages, the Mullahs and their puppets have been busy advancing their nuclear weapons programme, enriching uranium, supplying arms to the Taliban, capturing British sailors, test-firing long-range missiles, threatening the annihilation of Israel, and killing pro-democracy protestors.

    3. Ending the War on Terror

    Not only did Barack Obama order the closure of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay within hours of becoming president, but he also embarked upon ending the entire War on Terror, which was swiftly renamed an Overseas Contingency Operation. Nearly a year later the threat from al-Qaeda remains just as great, if not greater, but President Obama refuses to describe the battle in terms of a global war, and balks at identifying the enemy – Islamist terrorists. At the same time he has given the enemy a huge propaganda victory by endlessly castigating the Bush administration for supposedly “torturing” terrorist suspects, and apologizing for the counter-terror strategy of the previous US government.

    4. Announcing a Surge while Declaring an Exit

    There can be no doubt that the three months of dithering by President Obama over whether to deploy more forces to Afghanistan was highly damaging to the United States, and sowed considerable uncertainty within the NATO alliance. When Obama finally made an announcement in December to send an additional 30,000 troops to the battlefield, a huge step in the right direction, his decision was immediately undercut by the simultaneous announcement of an exit timetable, starting in 18 months. It is hard to imagine Churchill or Roosevelt declaring in the middle of the Second World War that they would fight the Nazis for another year and a half, and then start withdrawing their forces on the grounds of cost.
    5. Apologising to France for America’s “Arrogance”
    Barack Obama’s Strasbourg speech will go down in history as one of the most embarrassing moments ever for a US president on foreign soil. As I wrote earlier, “The President of the most powerful nation on earth traveled to France to deliver a grovelling, massive mea culpa for US foreign policy, including the War on Terror. Utter humiliation for America on European soil in front of a largely French and German audience who bitterly opposed the liberation of Iraq – not even Jacques Chirac could have dreamt it up.”

    6. Giving DVDs to the British Prime Minister

    I’m no fan of Gordon Brown, but the treatment of the Prime Minister at the hands of the White House on his visit to Washington in March was an appalling humiliation for Great Britain. The PM was received as though he were the leader of a third world banana republic rather than America’s closest ally, denied an official press conference and even a dinner. To add insult to injury, Brown was packed off with 25 discount DVDs ranging from Toy Story to The Wizard of Oz, which couldn’t even be played in Britain.

    7. Siding with Marxists in Honduras

    The Obama administration has certainly been consistent in its strategy of cuddling up to America’s enemies while kicking its friends. True to form the White House and State Department rushed to condemn the constitutional removal of left-wing, America-hating, Hugo-Chavez-backed despot Manuel Zelaya from power in Honduras, and his temporary replacement with pro-American Speaker of the House Robert Micheletti. Whatever happened to the good old days when the United States actually fought against Marxist tyrants in Latin America and backed anti-communists?

    8. Bowing to Emperors and Kings

    The last time I checked, Barack Obama was not a subject of imperial Japan, but his bow before Emperor Akihito was a scene straight out of the 1930s. A simple handshake with the descendent of Emperor Hirohito would have sufficed, but the president opted for a full-blown bow when the two met in Tokyo in November. It is one thing to pay respect to a monarch, but quite another for an American president to prostrate himself and his nation before a foreign leader. Needless to say, eyebrows were raised not only in America but across Asia as well. This was far from an isolated incident. Obama did exactly the same when he met with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at the G-20 in April.

    9. Embracing Genocidal Killers in Sudan

    I’ve included this in the list because it illustrates the extraordinary lengths to which the Obama administration will go to appease the most evil tyrannies on the face of the earth. In October Obama extended the hand of friendship to the brutal regime in Khartoum led by Omar Hassan al-Bashir, responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands in Darfur, offering to lift sanctions if there were “concrete steps in a new direction”. The moral bankruptcy of this approach was summed up by Obama’s hugely controversial special envoy to Sudan, retired Air Force Major General J. Scott Gration:
    “We’ve got to think about giving out cookies. Kids, countries — they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes, agreements, talk, engagement.”

    10. Throwing Churchill out of The White House

    Barack Obama’s decision to throw a bust of Sir Winston Churchill out of the Oval Office within days of taking power set the tone for his foreign policy. It sent a clear signal that the president cared little about the Anglo-American Special Relationship and the transatlantic alliance in general. It spoke volumes about Obama’s disdain for Britain, a nation that he has never mentioned in a major policy speech, as well as his scorn for the kind of powerful, assertive leadership that Churchill embodied.

  12. fish
    23 December 2009

    @vlad – „jignire” era tot in ton glumet ???? „why so serious” ????

    Editare Imperialistu’: vezi ca am bagat un link catre „why so serious?”. The Dark Knight FTW!

  13. vlad
    23 December 2009

    eh, fish, asa sunt eu, tind sa iau in serios afirmatiile nete.
    don’t mind me ????

    Craciun fericit tuturor, incepand cu echipa patruped, trecand prin colaboratori, sustinatori si terminand cu adversarii. Tuturor va doresc zambete largi. Si asa sa incepeti 2010.

    imbratisari

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