The Republican upset victory in the special election for New York’s heavily Jewish 9th Congressional District has set off alarm bells in Democratic political circles. The White House is launching an outreach effort to American Jews to convince them that Mr. Obama is the best friend Israel has ever had in Washington. If that were even remotely true, there would be no desperate need for outreach.

Several recent polls have shown Mr. Obama’s support among the Jewish population is dropping. In general, Jews tend to be more liberal and more affiliated with the Democratic Party than most Americans, but approval for Mr. Obama is waning even faster than among the electorate at large. In response, the White House is touting Mr. Obama’s purported strong support for Israel. This won’t work because the notion that Jews primarily cast their votes based on that issue is wrong. American Jews suffer as much from Mr. Obama’s disastrous economic policies as anyone else, and the faltering recovery is just as damaging in the Jewish community as elsewhere. If anything, it’s a wonder his support from Jews is still above average.

It’s also untrue that Jews are the only group concerned about Israel’s fate. Americans in general recognize that Israel is America’s steadiest and most loyal ally in the Middle East. It’s one of the region’s only democracies and certainly the most durable. For many American conservatives, Christians and Jews alike, the existence of the state ofIsrael is evidence of the unfolding of a divine plan. Like the United States, it is a nation of immigrants, a diverse, tolerant and multicultural society surrounded by countries that are anything but. For example, this week, Maen Areikat, the Palestine Liberation Organization ambassador to the United Nations, said, “it would be in the best interest of the two people*” that the proposed future Palestinian state be free of Jews.

Lately, the relationship between America and Israel has been punctuated by periodic dust-ups between Mr. Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has a stronger will and vastly more diplomatic experience. Many liberal American Jews are not fans of the conservative prime minister, but a July poll by Dick Morris found that 85 percent of Jewish Democrats believe, “Israel is a small country surrounded by countries and peoples that want to destroy it.” There’s no question Mr. Netanyahu agrees with that, but there is some doubt about Mr. Obama.

The major difference between the Obama administration and those before it is the general sense of moral equivalence with which it approaches the peace process. Mr. Obama’s obsessive outreach to Muslim countries has led him to adopt a very even-handed tone when discussing Israel. Surrendering the moral argument for the Jewish state in pursuit of a deal has conveyed American weakness to both sides. It’s no wonder the Palestinian Authority is pushing for United Nations recognition of statehood. With Mr. Obama in office, they think they can get away with it.

The White House is in a bind with Jewish voters. Those who believe Mr. Obama has been bad news for Israel will never be convinced otherwise. Those for whom the economy is the most important issue see the same bad news as everyone else. If this small but influential voting block is starting to turn decisively against Democrats, it could signal a sea change in American politics more important than the transfer of allegiance of black voters away from the GOP in the mid-20th century. It’s about time.

Krauthammer: Obama’s “Working On Language That Will Disguise A Failure” In Libya

Obama may be the first American President who has refused the title, “Leader of the Free World.” He is not interested in being Commander in Chief. These traditional presidential roles are all a distraction for him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUKWQWXaFZU

From NewsMax.com:

While members of Congress ask President Barack Obama to provide a strategic rationale for our military attack on Libya, the president is avoiding the delivery of a speech to the public explaining exactly what we’re up to, Politico reports.

That’s because he doesn’t want to make Libya out to be a real war for the United States like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama hasn’t ruled out a major speech, but he doesn’t want to give one before our military transfers most command and combat duties to allies.

Sherrod Brown Even Democrats criticize the president for his reticence.

“I think he needs to face the nation and tell the nation, and tell Congress, what the end game is and how this is going to play out,” Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Thursday.

Meanwhile, the White House claims it has sought to answer the questions about our Libyan mission raised by House Speaker John Boehner. The speaker wants a clear explanation of our goals.

“We have certainly endeavored to answer those questions already,” White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters Thursday. “I don’t know of a specific response to the letter, and I’m not precluding one.”

As for Democrats and Republicans in Congress who complain that Obama didn’t consult with them before the attacks, their concerns have “by and large been answered,” Carney said.

“The president believes that consultations with Congress are important. He has done that, and he’s instructed senior staff here to do that. And we have,” Carney added.

 

By using the US Military to begin hostilities with a foreign nation without a Congressional declaration of war, Barack Obama has committed a serious violation of the Constitution. While he certainly is not the first to do so in regards to war powers, it’s high time that he becomes the last.

With military action taking place in Libya right now, the essential question must be asked: Is it even Constitutional? For those of you who don’t want to read more than a sentence or two, here’s the short answer. Absolutely not.

DELEGATED POWERS

The ninth and tenth amendments, while they didn’t add anything new, defined the Constitution. In short, they tell us that the federal government is only authorized to exercise those powers delegated to it in the Constitution . . . and nothing more. Everything else is either prohibited or retained by the states or people themselves.
What does this have to do with Libya? Well, whenever the federal government does anything, the first question should always be, “where in the Constitution is the authority to do this?” What follows here is an answer regarding American bombs being dropped on Libya.

WHO DECIDES?

Ever since the Korean War, Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution has been regularly cited as justification for the President to act with a seemingly free reign in the realm of foreign policy – including the initiation of foreign wars. But, it is Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution that lists the power to declare war, and this power is placed solely in the hands of Congress.

Article II, Section 2, on the other hand, refers to the President as the “commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States.” What the founders meant by this clause was that once war was declared, it would then be the responsibility of the President, as the commander-in-chief, to direct the war.

Alexander Hamilton clarified this when he said that the President, while lacking the power to declare war, would have “the direction of war when authorized.”

Thomas Jefferson reaffirmed this quite eloquently when, in 1801, he said that, as President, he was “unauthorized by the Constitution, without the sanction of Congress, to go beyond the line of defense.”
In Federalist #69, Alexander Hamilton explained that the President’s authority:

would be nominally the same with that of the King of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it. It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces, as first general and admiral of the confederacy; while that of the British king extends to the declaring of war, and to the raising and regulating of fleets and armies; all which by the constitution under consideration would appertain to the legislature.

James Madison warned us that the power of declaring war must be kept away from the executive branch when he wrote to Thomas Jefferson:

The constitution supposes, what the history of all governments demonstrates, that the executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the legislature.

WORDS HAVE MEANING

If, like any legal document, the words of the Constitution mean today just what they meant the moment it was signed, we must first look for the 18th Century meaning of the words used. Here’s a few common 18th-century definitions of the important words:

– War: The exercise of violence against withstanders under a foreign command.

– Declare: Expressing something before it is promised, decreed, or acted upon.

– Invade: To attack a country; to make a hostile entrance.

What does this all mean? Unless the country is being invaded, if congress does not declare war against another country, the president is constitutionally barred from waging it, no matter how much he desires to do so. Pre-emptive strikes and undeclared offensive military expeditions are not powers delegated to the federal government in the Constitution, and are, therefore, unlawful.

HOW IT APPLIES TODAY

Here’s the quick overview of how this all plays out:

• In Constitutional terms, the United States is currently at war with Libya.
• Libya is not invading the United States, nor has it threatened to do so.
• Congress has not declared war. Barack Obama did.

Some would claim, and news articles are already reporting on it, that the 1973 war powers resolution authorizes the President to start a war as long as it’s reported to Congress within 48 hours. Then, Congress would have 60 days to authorize the action, or extend it.

The only question you should have to ask for this would be – “where in the Constitution is congress given the authority to change the constitution by resolution?”

It doesn’t. And that resolution, in and of itself, is a Constitutional violation. More on that in a future article, of course.

James Madison had something to say about such a plan when he wrote:

The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war. [emphasis added]

War Powers resolution or no war powers resolution – without a Congressional declaration, the president is not authorized to start an offensive military campaign. Period.

The bottom line? By using the US Military to begin hostilities with a foreign nation without a Congressional declaration of war, Barack Obama has committed a serious violation of the Constitution. While he certainly is not the first to do so in regards to war powers, it’s high time that he becomes the last.

Unfortunately, for The Politico and Obama, the attempt by Josh Gerstein to defend The Reluctant President’s South American trip falls flat, as he spends quite a bit of time at the beginning explaining why he should not go, which is what people will remember

Some 26 months into Barack Obama’s presidency, Latin America’s moment has finally arrived.

Obama is set to depart Friday night on a five-day trip to Brazil, Chile and El Salvador — his first journey in the Americas south of Mexico. But with the crises brewing elsewhere, few outside the region may notice.

Foreign travel has been seen as a political liability for Obama; and with this trip, the pattern is likely to continue.

The worst nuclear catastrophe since Chernobyl is unfolding in Japan, the United States and its allies are crafting urgent plans for a Libya no-fly zone operation that could mean air raids on Tripoli within days, and at home, Republicans and Democrats are in a standoff over a budget for the federal government, which administration officials say is being hobbled by a series of stopgap funding measures.

But in Central and South America, folks have waited patiently for more than two years for a prestigious and high-profile visit of the American president, and Obama seems determined not to disappoint them — whatever the other distractions.

I’m thinking that, if Gerstein is attempting to defend Obama, calling all those domestic and world happenings “distractions” might not be the best way to accomplish that. People will wonder if that’s the way Obama feels, and, based on his actions the last two years, and more specifically, the past few weeks, those things might be considered distractions to Obama. Furthermore

Some presidents, such as Richard Nixon, were famous for cramming in all the foreign trips they could when things were not going well at home. Obama seems to make his domestic political situation worse with his trips — not because of the trips themselves but because of their timing.

Nixon comparisons are probably not the greatest, either, even though people know that Nixon accomplished things while on many of those trips. On Obama trips, we get: an iPod to the Queen with Obama’s greatest hits, losing the Olympics for Chicago, and blowing off the King of Norway during his Nobel trip. Then there is….well, has he actually accomplished anything on the world stage, other than pandering to the Muslim world?

Of course, it is important that US Presidents show the flag around the world, make no mistake about that, even as things happen here at home and in other parts of the world. Presidents certainly work just as well from Air Force 1 as at the White House. The difference with Obama is that he rarely seems to be engaged in what is going on in the first place. There’s always some other distraction, party, sporting event, or policy care that makes him appear, and rightly so, divorced from happenings. Then we get

As with other foreign trips Obama has taken recently, the White House is planning to hammer away at the message that his Latin American journey is a kind of trade-mission-on-steroids aimed almost entirely at creating jobs in the U.S. This theme is intended to guard against criticism that Obama is sightseeing overseas or being toasted at state dinners while unemployment at home remains high and many Americans are struggling economically.

Pushing the jobs meme will only play well with his liberal base, many of whom have never worked a day in their lives. He’s basically beat that meme to death, and few will buy it.

Can’t wait for all the pictures of Obama having fun and attending parties to be released.

“This will not stand!” declared George H.W. Bush. He was speaking of Saddam Hussein’s invasion, occupation and annexation of the emirate of Kuwait as his “19th province.”

Seven months later, the Iraqi army was fleeing up the “Highway of Death” back into a country devastated by five weeks of U.S. bombing.

When Bush spoke, the world sat up and listened. Consider the change.

“It’s time for Gadhafi to go,” said President Barack Obama two weeks ago. “So, let me just be very unambiguous about this. Col. Gadhafi needs to step down from power and leave.”

And did he go? Receiving Obama’s ultimatum, Gadhafi rallied his troops and took the offensive. His army is now 100 miles from Benghazi.

Obama urged the king of Bahrain not to crush the peaceful protest in Pearl Square and to accommodate the legitimate demands of its Shiite majority.

The Saudis, seeing a threat to their oil-rich and Shiite-populated eastern province should the Bahraini monarchy fall, sent 2,000 troops across the King Fahd Causeway. Bahrain then brutally swept the “outlaws” from the streets of its capital, Manama.

Among the few things that may be said with certainty about the Arab revolution of 2011 is that it has revealed the rising irrelevance of President Obama in that part of the world.

With impunity, Benjamin Netanyahu defied his demand that Israel cease to build on the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority, despite Obama’s pleas, then went ahead with a U.N. resolution condemning Israel.

Caught flat-footed by the uprising in Tunisia, the White House could only offer belated congratulations to the demonstrators who had deposed and driven out our longtime ally, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

After Tunisia, Vice President Joe Biden insisted the embattled Hosni Mubarak was not a dictator in Egypt. Obama sided with Mubarak and then said he ought to go. Then, when the Saudis and Israelis protested that we were abandoning a friend of 30 years, Obama concluded Mubarak should stay.

When the army suddenly sent Mubarak packing, the White House hailed the revolution as the harbinger of an Arab spring.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton burbled that her 15-minute stroll through Tahrir Square was “a great reminder of the power of the human spirit and universal desire for freedom and human rights and democracy.”

Some of the young demonstrators, recalling America’s 30-year friendship with Mubarak and ambivalence over his ouster, refused to talk with her.

In denouncing Syria and Iran for crushing peaceful protests, the Obamaites acted consistent with the democratic values they preach. In their muffled response to the brutal treatment of demonstrators in Bahrain and Yemen, they put national interests above national ideals.

Indeed, it is this clash between our professed ideals and our perceived interests that has produced the reigning confusion in Washington and the near paralysis of American policy in the Middle East.

“Nations have no permanent friends or allies; they only have permanent interests,” said Lord Palmerston.  America lacks that kind of certitude. She is conflicted. She cannot make up her mind. Do our interests come first or our ideals? How can they be in conflict?

From World War I to the Carter era, U.S. national interests drove U.S. foreign policy. In Wilson’s war “to make the world safe for democracy,” we partnered with five empires. In World War II, we allied with Stalin. In the Cold War, we accepted the friendship of autocrats and dictators and caudillos and generalissimos who shared our fear and loathing of communism.

When John Foster Dulles was the face of U.S. foreign policy in the 1950s, the neutralism of nations such as Nehru’s India and Sukarno’s Indonesia was seen as immoral.

But with the end of the Cold War, moral clarity vanished. We are now divided over whether kings, dictators and autocrats who share our interests but regard democracy as lunacy or a luxury they cannot afford can be America’s allies and friends.

There is a second cause of conflict roiling the American mind.

Even as Moscow was abandoning communist ideology and China was giving up her dream of world revolution, the United States was converting to an ideology of global democracy. At some point in the past 20 years, it became the historic mission of America to make the whole world democratic.

And should we fail in this mission, George W. Bush reminded us, the end of American freedom would be ensured.

So, having defeated — or rather outlasted — our enemies with a pragmatic policy of accepting the friendship of any and all who would stand with us in that great Cold War struggle, we set out to remake the world in our own image, even as Moscow and Beijing had sought to do.

As they failed, so will we.

As for Obama, with our foremost Asian ally going through the agony of its worst natural disaster and with revolution raging through the Arab world, he has given us his picks for the Final Four in the “March Madness” of college basketball — and set off with Michelle to party in Rio.

How relevant is he? And how relevant are we?

Neither the ongoing nuclear emergency in Japan nor the conflict in Libya and looming outside military intervention there will prevent President Obama from embarking on a five-day trip to Latin America on Friday.

The three-country visit includes meetings with the leaders of Brazil, Chile and El Salvador, attendance at a business summit in Brasilia, and speeches in Rio de Janeiro and Santiago. Obama will also visit the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio and Mayan ruins in El Salvador.

In contrast to the president’s unchanged schedule, British Prime Minister David Cameron has scratched his diary for Friday and plans a cabinet meeting and statement to the House of Commons. The move follows Thursday’s passage of a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing measures in response to the Libyan crisis including the enforcement of a “no-fly” zone.

A headline in London’s Daily Mail commented on Obama’s decision to go ahead with the trip: “Nuclear crisis in Japan, a civil war in Libya and where is the President? Heading for Rio de Janeiro.”

White House press secretary Jay Carney for several days has fielded reporters’ questions about whether the trip may be called off, given developments in Japan and Libya. He stressed it would go ahead.

“We are leaving on schedule on Friday,” he told a briefing Wednesday.

“It bears repeating that this is a crisis – there is no question about it. And it is a crisis in Japan. It is not a crisis in the United States,” Carney said.

“We are very concerned about our allies and friends, the Japanese.  We are doing everything we can to help and assist them.  We are very concerned about the safety and security of American citizens in Japan, and we are doing everything we can to ensure their safety.  But it is – we have no plans to change the trip.”

A day earlier, Carney said Obama could deal with the crises while traveling.

“He’s the president of the United States,” Carney said. “And there are major issues all the time that a president has to contend with, which is one of the reasons why he has such a substantial support framework around him when he travels.”

Citing pressing developments Obama has called off foreign trips before, but they related to issues at home. He twice canceled scheduled visits to Indonesia and Australia in 2010 – first to make a final push to get the health care reform bill through Congress one year ago, then again three months later, when the White House said he was staying home “to deal with important issues, one of which is the oil spill” in the Gulf of Mexico. (He eventually traveled to Indonesia in November, but has yet to visit Australia.)

Still waiting on the free trade deals

This is Obama’s first trip to Latin America since becoming president, although he did take part in a Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago in April 2009.

Deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes said Wednesday that Obama was “hugely popular” in the region.

Rhodes, Carney and other administration officials have stressed the importance of the trip for the U.S. economy and American jobs.

“The president is taking this trip because he is committed to growing the economy,” Carney said Tuesday.

“This trip fundamentally is about the U.S. recovery, U.S. exports, and the critical relationship that Latin America plays in our economic future and jobs here in the United States,” Mike Froman, deputy national security advisor for international economic affairs, told a separate White House briefing on the same day.

Obama himself emphasized the importance of job creation in a USA Todayop-ed about his trip. He noted that a free-trade agreement (FTA) with Chile had seen a 300 percent growth in exports of U.S. goods to that country since 2004, supporting an estimated 70,000 U.S. jobs.

Still, the president is conspicuously not visiting Colombia and Panama, countries with which the U.S. has negotiated FTAs that have yet to be completed.

Proponents like the National Association of Manufacturers say the delay in the U.S.-Colombia FTA – which labor unions oppose – is costing American exports and jobs, pointing to U.S. International Trade Commission estimates that the agreement would result in $1.1 billion in new U.S. exports each year.

Obama in his State of the Union addresses in 2010 and 2011 referred to the importance of the Colombia and Panama agreements for job creation, but Republican lawmakers say the administration has not clearly identified outstanding issues and put forward reasonable ways to resolve them. They are urging movement on the stalled FTAs by July 1.

“With 14 million Americans out of work, passing these trade agreements and having the president sign them is one of the easiest ways to help American-based businesses create good paying, private-sector jobs,” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell argued in a Miami Heraldcolumn Thursday.

The U.S. House Ways and Means subcommittee on trade held a hearing Thursday on the U.S.-Colombia FTA, and plans more soon on the Panama agreement and a third pending one, with South Korea.

“Colombia is a key strategic market with exceptional growth potential right in our own hemisphere,” U.S. Grains Council president and CEO Thomas Dorr, told the hearing.

“The United States is already losing hundreds of millions of dollars in annual exports and this is compounded by the loss or non-creation of thousands of U.S. jobs,” he said. “Without removal of these trade constraints, the U.S. coarse grains producer will lose this market.”

During a White House briefing on Obama’s trip on Wednesday Dan Restrepo, senior director for the Western Hemisphere at the National Security Council, said Obama had made clear the importance of the Colombia and Panama FTAs.

“We are committed to working on outstanding issues with the governments of Panama and Colombia, and hope to do so in a successful fashion that stays true to our interests and values,” he said.

In the earlier briefing, Froman said Obama has directed U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and his team to “enhance their engagement with Colombia and Panama to resolve the outstanding issues as quickly as possible this year and to submit it to Congress immediately thereafter, that is showing leadership.”

Yesterday the United Nations Security Council voted 10–0, with five abstentions, to authorize military action in Libya. Specifically, the resolution “authorizes member states … to take all necessary measures … to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack.” Celebrations erupted across Benghazi after news of the vote reached rebels. A 17-year-old rebel told The Wall Street Journal: “I give Qadhafi a maximum of two days.” If only.

In reality the U.N. resolution is nothing more than a “feel-good” palliative measure that is not likely to decisively affect the fighting on the ground in Libya. As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates testified last week: “Let’s just call a spade a spade. A no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya to destroy the air defenses. That’s the way you do a no-fly zone. And then you can fly planes around the country and not worry about our guys being shot down. But that’s the way it starts.” But is that what the Obama Administration is planning? Even if the Administration has a plan on Libya, it certainly has not communicated it to the American people. Here are just some of the fundamental questions the Administration has failed to answer as our military stands on the brink of a new and costly commitment:

• So far, the only firm commitments are a naval blockade, AWACS for air traffic control, and signal-jamming aircraft. U.S. officials said that it would probably take several days for a full operation to be undertaken and that President Obama had not yet approved the use of U.S. military assets. Will he? Will the U.S. be using military force against Libya?
• If establishing a no-fly zone in Libya is so vital to U.S. national security, why did the Administration waste a week getting approval from the U.N.?
• Imposing a no-fly zone entails substantial costs for U.S. armed forces and risks diverting scarce U.S. military and intelligence assets. Will the vital missions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and the Horn of Africa suffer?
• Are the rebels free of terrorist elements, and what precautions will we require them to take to ensure that weapons we supply are not sold or diverted to other groups?
• Will we rule out supplying arms (“Stinger” anti-aircraft missiles, for example) that could pose a potent threat to U.S. forces if they end up in the hands of terrorists?

Until these questions are answered, it is impossible to endorse proposals for the use of force based solely on a U.N. resolution. Circumstances could change. The use of military force in Libya could be justified. But what is of great concern here is the fog of confusion the Obama Administration is emitting on Libya. After the U.N. resolution passed, France said that military strikes could come “within hours.” They haven’t. What did come was the heavy bombardment of the rebel held town of Mistrata by loyalist forces. President Obama should be working hard to identify a legitimate opposition to Qaddafi that is not Islamist and can be given U.S. and European support with conditions that protect against the transfer of weapons to terrorists.

Quick Hits:

• The Food and Drug Administration warned Thursday that people in the U.S. shouldn’t be taking “anti-radiation” potassium iodide pills flooding the Internet because no radiation from Japan has been detected in the U.S.
• Michigan Governor Rick Snyder (R) signed into law a measure giving a state-appointed manager the power to set aside government union contracts.
• The House approved legislation yesterday that would block federal funding from reaching NPR.
• According to Gallup, union workers are less happy at work than their non-union counterparts and are also more likely to consider their supervisors to be bosses rather than partners and less likely to say that their supervisors create a trusting and open work environment.
• Senator Rand Paul (R–KY) introduced legislation yesterday that would balance the budget in five years and eliminate the Departments of Education, Energy, Commerce, and Housing and Urban Development.

 

President Barack Obama invited ESPN into the White House yesterday so that The Worldwide Leader In Sports could tape his picks for the 2011 NCAA basketball tournament. The President picked all frontrunners. Good for him. Meanwhile, 5,000 miles away, a Libyan rebel defending the town of Ajdabiya from Muammar Qadhafi loyalists told The Washington Post: “These politicians are liars. They just talk and talk, but they do nothing.” One hundred miles north, in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, rebel spokeswoman Iman Bugaighis told The New York Times that Western nations had “lost any credibility.”

President Obama cannot be blamed for the failure of the rebels to hold off advances by Qadhafi’s army. But he can be blamed for raising expectations for U.S. military action beyond what he was prepared to commit. On March 3, President Obama said: “With respect to our willingness to engage militarily, … I’ve instructed the Department of Defense … to examine a full range of options. I don’t want us hamstrung. … Going forward, we will continue to send a clear message: The violence must stop. Muammar Gaddafi has lost legitimacy to lead, and he must leave.” Heritage Vice President for Foreign and Defense Policy Studies Kim Holmes writes: “This is the worst of all worlds. People in the Middle East (not to mention Americans) are rightly confused by the mismatch between the Administration’s rhetoric and actions.”

The tragedy unfolding in Libya is just another example of why the Obama Doctrine was destined to fail. The Obama Doctrine is ill-suited to dealing with the world as it is. It assumes that big problems can be solved with big words while the messy details take care of themselves. It places far too much confidence in international entities, disregards for the importance of American independence, and fails to emphasize American exceptionalism.

Diplomacy is fundamental to the conduct of American foreign policy. That is why the Founders removed the conduct of diplomacy from the states of the Union and placed its practice under the President of the United States. But the Obama Doctrine misunderstands how diplomacy ought to be practiced. Heritage Senior Research Fellow Ted Bromund explains:

The purpose of American diplomacy never changes: It is to secure the national interests of the United States. … Irresponsible diplomacy comes in many forms. Diplomacy without strength does not even merit the name of diplomacy. Treaties that fail to respect President Ronald Reagan’s dictum of ‘trust, but verify’ are reckless. Treaties that are negotiated merely to encourage foreigners to think better of the United States are unwise.

Far too often, President Obama has hoped that fancy words, grand apologies, and supplicant treaties would strengthen our security by making the world think better of us. They do not. This does not mean that the Obama Administration should do something rash, like implement a no-fly zone in Libya, just so it looks like it is doing something. It does mean that to save his presidency and protect the interests of the nation, business as usual in the White House has got to stop.

To receive the Morning Bell daily, click here.

Quick Hits:

• A deeply divided House of Representatives agreed Tuesday to provide enough money to keep the government open for three more weeks.
• Illinois still can’t figure out how to make its 45 percent underfunded pension plan solvent.
• According to Gallup, Americans, by a 50–41 percent margin, say the nation should prioritize the development of energy supplies over protecting the environment.
• The TARP Congressional Oversight Panel concluded today that the program virtually guarantees future taxpayer-funded bailouts.
• Is America ready for an earthquake-tsunami disaster? Review Heritage’s Disaster Preparedness researchhere.

 

The conviction and sentencing of American contractor Alan Gross surely leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of the Obama Administration days before it embarks on a Latin American trip. Opting to “play it careful and safe” and “hope the Cuban dictatorship does the right thing” did not spare the Maryland man from receiving a 15-year prison sentence.

Gross, 61, was detained by Cuban officials in December 2009 for delivering communications equipment to a small Cuban Jewish community. He was part of a USAID fund to expand communication access on the island. Former State Department spokesperson P. J. Crowley defended the program and Gross, saying he is a “dedicated international development worker” who visited Cuba to donate satellite equipment to “help the Cuban people connect with the rest of the world.”

The Castro regime points to the incident as evidence of a U.S. conspiracy to undermine the regime. Last week, a Cuban TV special aired a report on what it calls cyber war launched by USAID and other U.S. agencies. Events in the Middle East and the current economic crisis have exacerbated Cuban officials’ paranoia.

While enemies of Cuban democracy promotion want to blame the Bush Administration for Gross’s arrest and conviction (just as the Kennedy Administration blamed the Bay of Pigs fiasco on President Eisenhower), the detention of Gross occurred after the Obama Administration had been in office more than 10 months.

“With Mr. Gross’ sentencing, the Castro regime has effectively demonstrated the hopeless and dangerous naïveté of this Administration’s policy toward the regime,” commented Senator Marco Rubio (R–FL).

Representative David Rivera (R–FL) complained to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday that there was no planned U.S. response to the conviction of Gross. The Obama Administration has embarked on a policy of enhanced engagement with the Cuban people, loosening restrictions on travel and the flow of remittances to the island. This attempt to improve the U.S.–Cuban bilateral relationship have done little, if anything, to persuade the Castro regime to loosen its chokehold on the freedoms of the Cuban people.

“We must increase pressure on the regime until the basic rights, freedoms, and dignities of the Cuban people are respected,” urges Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R–FL), chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

It is widely predicted that Raul Castro will release Gross by executive order on humanitarian grounds. Many liberals on the Hill are hoping that will be the case so as not to endanger closer ties.

Failure by President Obama to raise the case of Cuba and its fundamental repression of individual liberty while in Latin America will only demonstrate a lack of resolve when it comes to the future of democracy so near to home.

 

The Wall Street Journal wrote Saturday:

Whatever else one might say about President Obama’s Libya policy, it has succeeded brilliantly in achieving its oft-stated goal of not leading the world. No one can any longer doubt the U.S. determination not to act before the Italians do, or until the Saudis approve, or without a U.N. resolution. This White House is forthright for followership.

That message also couldn’t be clearer to Moammar Gadhafi and his sons, who are busy bombing and killing their way to victory against the Libyan opposition. As the U.S. defers to the world, the world can’t decide what to do, and the vacuum is filled by a dictator and his hard men who have concluded that no one will stop them.

The op-ed is titled The Obama Doctrine, which is also the title of a Backgrounder Heritage Analysts Kim Holmes and James Carafano published last year:

Ineffective presidential doctrines also have characteristics in common. The most common elements are an overconfidence in international entities, a disregard for the importance of American independence, and far less emphasis on American exceptionalism as it was traditionally understood.

Consider the policies of Woodrow Wilson. At the outset of his presidency, Wilson described his intention to follow a less aggressive, more “ethical” foreign policy than his predecessors had followed. He talked about moral diplomacy and remaining neutral in foreign affairs, relying on economic relations to create a “concert of nations” to keep the peace. His approach to engagement, however, failed to stem the tide of World War I or prevent America from having to intervene in Europe.
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President Obama believes that his outward orientation will improve America’s standing in the world and thus its security, but America’s policies and interests can never mirror those of other countries. No other country has the caliber of military and economic resources to compare to ours, and no other country accepts the kind of responsibility we have for assuring the security of free people around the world. Our interests will always be at odds with those of other nations, no matter how much we try to conform to them.

The tenets of the Obama Doctrine described in this paper do not suit either this geopolitical reality or someone who believes in America’s obligation and ability to lead. Rather, they suit someone who believes he is managing America’s decline in a “post-American” world. They do not reflect history or the threats we face. They will serve to undermine America’s strengths and make it more difficult for friends and allies to figure out where we stand or how we might act in critical times. Ultimately, the Obama Doctrine will force friendly nations to look elsewhere, not to Washington, for arrangements that bring them greater security.

And that will make this a far more dangerous world indeed.