What Obama Gets Wrong

Bret Stephens - What Obama 
Gets Wrong (Foreign Affairs)

Nevertheless, every president should be judged on a few fundamentals—his ability to deliver what he promised, weaken the country’s foes and strengthen its friends, elaborate a concept of the American interest that is persuasive and true, and pass on a world heading in the right direction. Obama rates well on none of these.

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Now, however, the consequences of that foreign policy are becoming more obvious. The rebalance from the periphery to the core that Rose celebrates as an act of prudence has created power vacuums that have been filled by the likes of the self-declared Islamic State, or ISIS. The sense that Obama’s redlines are all negotiable, that his talk of all options being on the table is pure bluster, has led the country’s foes to believe that they can do as they please. And his faithlessness toward traditional friends has raised unsettling questions about the value of being a U.S. ally (just ask former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak) and caused some to wonder whether they shouldn’t seek other patrons and otherwise do what they must to protect their interests, regardless of Washington’s wishes.