The year that’s now ending was, beyond any question, the worst for American foreign policy since 1979. All of our significant adversaries, from Red China through Venezuela, grew bolder. Iran continued on course to build atomic bombs, delayed but hardly thwarted by (probably Israeli) sabotage, and plans to install missiles in Venezuela, within range of U.S. cities. North Korea engaged in acts of war without incurring more than symbolic retaliation. (North Korea killed 50 soldiers, sailors and civilians; South Korea fired artillery shells into the ocean, which was too strong a response for the U.S..) Tsar Vladimir expanded Russia’s hegemony in the “near abroad” and internally emulated his predecessor Nicholas I. (The great difference is that Tsar Nicholas didn’t staff his regime with thieves.) The dim prospects for Middle Eastern peace grew dimmer, largely because of the Obama Administration’s enthusiastic affirmation of the position that any future Palestinian state must be judenrein. Turkey moved further into the Islamic supremacist camp. Our closest Latin American ally, Colombia, began hedging its bets by initiating detente with the Chavez dictatorship. (It may also be disgruntled by the Democratic Congress’ continued refusal to ratify a long-stalled free trade agreement.)
The best that can be said for the year is that conditions are not deteriorating in the two countries where President Obama has adopted, and in one case expanded, his predecessor’s policies. Those are, of course, Iraq and Afghanistan.
When a football team goes 2 and 14, it fires its coach. That’s triply true if it is, on paper, overwhelmingly stronger than the rest of the league. (On paper, we are the New England Patriots to Russia’s Division A college program and Iran’s female touch football club.) Our coach serves a fixed term and can’t be fired (at least not for mere incompetence), but the subordinate most directly responsible for foreign affairs can be, and it’s past time for Hillary Clinton to go. Arguably, this disastrous losing season isn’t entirely, or even primarily, her fault, but she has been a key member of a feeble staff that urgently needs shaking up.
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