What have been President Obama's biggest foreign policy mistakes?
I think Obamas’s biggest foreign policy mistake was the failure to intervene in Syria in 2011, by supporting the rebels when the uprising first began against dictator Bashar Assad.In the first year, the Syrian rebels were overwhelmingly moderates, inspired by the “Arab Spring” and driven by secular motives. A run of the mill popular uprising against a brutal dictator, along the same lines as what was seen in Tunisia, Tahrir Square in Cairo, or the Maidan in Kiev.And they were looking to the US and the West for support.The military was deserting Bashar Assad in droves and joining the rebels, and the dictator’s regime was in disarray and on the ropes. That was the window when US support for the rebels could have most readily tipped the balance, toppled Assad, and probably installed a democratically elected government in his place.However, the Obama administration dithered and did next to nothing. Within a year, the Assad regime had regained its footing, military aid from Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah came pouring in, and the situation was stabilized. Then the Syrian regime counterattacked. Brutally, with indiscriminate firepower, even poison gas.And the rebels, who had started off as moderates and secularists, calling for democracy and hoping for and expecting aid from the democratic US and the West, were left to hang.Thing is, people in a desperate fight for their lives will accept help from whoever offers it, and the vacuum left by US failure to aid the Syrian rebels was inevitably going to get filled by somebody.The US and the West didn’t help in the fight against Assad, but folk like these didAt the start of the Syrian uprising there was next to no radical Islamic presence within the anti Syrian regime rebel ranks. Today, radical Islamists are the largest grouping within the rebel ranks.The ISIS mess we’re faced with in Syria and Iraq today wouldn’t have happened, and could have been avoided if the Obama administration had acted early on. America’s failure to support the moderates and secularists in 2011 left a vacuum that was, predictably, filled by the worst possible actors. And so today America is faced with a far bigger mess and problem than would have been the case had we supported the Syrian rebels in 2011.
Which U. S. President had the worst foreign policy?
Dwight D. Eisenhower.Not because he didn’t know what he was doing or because he wasn’t a good leader (he had the highest U.S. military rank in WW2). It’s because he was debilitatingly short-sighted and overly pragmatic.1.) Guatemala: The U.S. sponsored a coup against democratically-elected president Arbenz. He was not a communist like Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers said. His only crime was that he seized Guatemalan land from the United Fruit Company that they weren’t even using. This did disadvantage the U.S. economically, and Eisenhower saw it as something to deal with militarily (surprise, surprise) rather than something they could’ve dealt with diplomatically.The 20th century was marked by violence for Guatemala after the existing government was overthrown, and today, almost 60% of the population falls below the poverty line.2.) Congo: Eisenhower directly ordered the murder of Patrice Lumumba, the democratically-elected leader of the Democratic Republic of Congo. His plan didn’t come to fruition, but Lumumba was murdered. CIA-supported Mobutu Sese Seko came into power later (not in Eisenhower’s administration, though he absolutely set the stage).I highly recommend Barbara Kingsolver’s novel The Poisonwood Bible. It deals with a missionary family growing up in the Congo during this time, and Kingsolver tells the story quite well.3.) Iran: The United States is, in my opinion, mostly to blame for all that has gone wrong in Iran since the 1950s. Eisenhower and other western leaders didn’t take kindly to Mossadegh’s nationalization of the oil industry in response to corporate abuse of Iranian workers. The CIA sponsored another coup. What followed was an oppressive pro-western regime which was overthrown by an oppresive anti-western regime.Throughout all of this, John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles, the Secretary of State and Director of the CIA respectively, had considerable influence. I firmly believe they were among the most evil men to ever enter American politics.I also firmly believe that if you take foreign policy out of the equation, Eisenhower was one of the best presidents we had. Sadly, we can’t.EDIT: I changed the language of the first sentence in my third point to be less absolute.
Why is JFK so great if he screwed up Bay of Pigs?
The Bay of Pigs was a monumental failure, but his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 was an even more monumental success. I'm not attacking you, because you just haven't studied enough to know, but make sure you do all the research on a topic, not just the ones the conservatives tell you to. You'd be surprised how many great things liberals have actually done. @Rich, I think you are probably American, and probably tell people you are American. How can you be a true American when you make comments that condone the assassination of a U.S. President, arguably one of the best we've ever had, no less?
Is Hillary Clinton America's worst ever Secretary of State?
Trump's criticism of Hillary Clinton gets things backwards. The Secretary of State has no independent power; as a presidential appointee he or she is a functionary. The Secretary's ability to influence policy depends, therefore, on his relationship with the President. Presidents in the modern era have generally preferred to run foreign policy out of the White House. So unless the Secretary has a close relationship with the President his influence will be minimal. When Henry Kissinger was Richard Nixon's National Security Advisor, he and the President effectively sidelined William Rogers, the Secretary of State. Only when Kissinger himself became Secretary of State did the office acquire real power, which continued into the Ford Administration. This was due to the personal relationship between Kissinger and Nixon, who shared common views on foreign policy and respected one another intellectually. Hillary Clinton had no such influence with President Obama. Very obviously, he appointed her as a way of placating the Clintons after the bruising 2008 primary fight and also to prevent Clintonesque sniping from the sidelines. But she was no policymaker in the Kissinger mode. The Obama Administration effectively sidelined her, running foreign policy out of the White House. So the Pants-Suited One wasn't the worst Secretary of State ever but one of those—the majority—who for the most part had no real power or control over foreign policy. Interestingly, it appears that the current Secretary of State, John Kerry, has real influence over foreign policy. But of course, he and Barack Obama are ideological soul mates.