The Nagging Realities of the U.S. Foreign Policy Debate

U.S. foreign policy needs a complete rethink to move past the post-9/11 model.

By Richard Phillips, May 22, 2014 | http://www.theglobalist.com/the-nagging-realities-of-the-u-s-foreign-policy-debate/

Takeaways

• US foreign policy in the 21st century needs a complete rethink.
• US politicians try to impose Cold War solutions onto a significantly more complex world.
• The US must confront the emergence of both China and the European Union as global economic powers.
  
• US foreign policy started struggling well before Obama, but the new president has done little to restore it.
• The Iraq war, the use of torture and the financial collapse led to the lion's share of decline in American power.
  
• A complex world calls for complex discussions. The US cannot let partisan bickering dictate foreign policy.

The world’s a mess and Republicans in the United States know exactly whom to blame for it. It’s all Barack Obama’s fault, of course. According to the GOP, President Obama is hapless, feckless and downright incompetent. He’s botched every foreign policy crisis he’s had to face and he’s tarnished America’s reputation abroad, they say. He’s forfeited American leadership, they assert.
Not only are these partisan attacks off-base, but they also distort history and obscure the reality of modern geopolitics. Given the central role the United States continues to play in world affairs, they have serious implications for America’s friends and allies everywhere.
America’s reputation has indeed been tarnished, but the degradation of the American brand derived from three major events that pre-date the Obama Presidency.
First, the Bush Administration’s embrace of rendition, torture and unlawful imprisonment sacrificed any moral authority America may have held at the outset of the 21st century.
Second, the invasion of Iraq undermined confidence in American competence in making sound foreign policy choices.
Third, the American-led collapse of the world financial system left America’s economic leadership in tatters.
These three events shook global confidence in America, especially among allies in Europe and the Middle East, to such an extent that the incoming Obama Administration faced an uphill battle in trying to restore American prestige.