Time for a Foreign Policy Based on Character, Not Contention

Time for a Foreign Policy Based on Character, Not Contention

Mar 24, 2014 03:00 am | James Jay Carafano

James Jay Carafano

Bold prediction: By 2015, everyone running for president will be running against President Obama’s foreign policy.
But the current crop of likely conservative candidates has, collectively, done little to lay claim to the right’s traditional mantle of national-security leadership. And squabbling amongst themselves is certainly no way to win it back.
Even MSNBC gets it. The other day, the cable channel’s Senior Political Analyst Mark Halperin quoted Democratic strategist David Axelrod as saying, “Whenever the president is in the news talking about foreign policy, it’s bad for his poll numbers….” That is not just because Americans are more focused on domestic issues. It’s because Obama’s foreign policy has suffered one stunning humiliation after another.
On the home front, the news is not good. The White House squirms uncomfortably on top-tier issues from Obamacare to job creation. But, the domestic front is a happy place for the Oval Office compared to its string of serious setbacks overseas.
The collapse of US-Russian relations over the Crimea crisis is intensely damaging, since “resetting” relations with Moscow had been the centerpiece of the president’s “fresh” approach to foreign affairs.
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