Projecting global weakness has not worked for US

Washington Times Editorial:

At the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Reno, Nev., on Monday, President Obama heaped praise on his foreign policy record. “Because we’re leading around the world, people have a new attitude toward America,” he said. “There’s more confidence in our leadership. We see it everywhere we go.” This raises the question: Where exactly has he been going?

Since Mr. Obama took office, the opinion of the United States generally has declined in every country surveyed by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, according to a report released in June. Despite the vauntedWhite House effort to reach out to Muslim-majority countries, U.S. favorability ratings in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Pakistan are below where they were in 2008, when George W. Bush was at the helm. The study notes that “opinion is generally against Obama in most of the predominantly Muslim countries surveyed, with about half or more inEgypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Pakistan saying Obama should not be elected again.”

That’s not to say nothing positive has happened on Mr. Obama’s watch. He presided over the takedown of Osama bin Laden, and he has excelled at killing terrorists by remote control. On the other hand, the START 2 nuclear arms agreement with Russia has proved a debacle for American nuclear strategy, and Russian President Vladimir Putinregards Mr. Obama with open contempt. All of the administration’s diplomatic frameworks, whether in North Korea, South Asia, Iran, Israelor the Middle East generally, have failed. Mr. Obama has shown no leadership regarding the continuing chaos in the Arab world, unless it has been leading from behind. The U.S. relationship with Israel has frayed significantly since 2009. Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East Colin Kahl said this week that with respect toIsrael, Mr. Obama has “backed up his words with feats,” but that is an odd choice of words. One usually thinks of feats of strength, not feats of weakness.

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Where has he been?  Mostly to Democrat fund raisers, where you can only get in if you are willing to write a check larger than most people make in a month or you win one of his hokey lotteries.  In the real world he is not doing so well.  Leading from behind tends to obstruct your vision.  When dogs are pulling a snow sled only the lead dog sees something different.