I was reading an article on Obama backing down on his protectionist promises (about which I will write later), when I noticed that the comments were even more interesting than the article. I will write later about the resurgence of protectionism on the left and right, and may also write about the fact that anti-Obama comments have started appearing on the Times website as well, but for now, let me deal with a single, very interesting comment found near the bottom of the list:

Obama will quickly back down to any threat. He really is only worried about being liked by everybody. As a result, he is respected by no one.

This is interesting, as it is a possibility I never considered, that Obama is weaker than I suspected, intested only in being everyone's favorite, not in making a stand on his principles.

His history makes this a questionable assertion. Yes, the comments I saw form Harvard classmates all emphasized how he was everybody's chum, and that does support a person unable to upset others, but then again he also stabbed his Chicago mentor in the back to drive her from the primaries. However, not being privy to the conversations they had, he could have blamed his handlers, or even accused her of betrayal for reentering the race, to insulate himself from criticism. So it is possible Obama is simply an individual unwilling to be disliked, who needs to be loved by all. (Though his BAIPA stand and subsequent criticism from right and left makes me think this the least likely possibility.)

Then again, there is a second possibility. Perhaps his supporters on the left, being his only consistent cheering section outside of the media, has let him know in no uncertain terms his many pseudo-centrist gestures have offended them and he better hold to their views in the future. And as one of the far left's primary doctrines is the superiority of Europe, Obama certainly can't do anything to upset European opinion.

However, I have a third possibility, and one which seems most likely. That is that Obama is very similar to pre-impeachment Clinton. Recall the early Clinton days, the "It's the Economy, Stupid" days? Clinton, filled with messianic dreams of reshaping the economy, and with little or no interest in foreign policies, did pretty much anything he could to avoid having to become involved in foreign policy. Rather than take a stand, he would bow to whatever nation was bringing pressure at the moment to avoid having to deal with foreign policy pressures. That is how we needed up treating terrorism as a police matter. That is how we ended up pretty much ignoring our traditional allies. Except for a few early "peace keeping missions" where troops were sent to places sure to cause no long term problems, Clinton simply paid as little attention as possible to foreign policy.

And I think that may be Obama's position as well. For all his European campaigning, all his talk of being raised in Indonesia and thus "knowing" other nations, the Windy City Messiah really has almost no foreign policy experience, and likely feels at a bit of a disadvantage. As he is using all his political capital to try to force through his many plans to restructure the economy, from the bailout to CEO salary caps to whatever else he has planned, I doubt he wants to spend time or political capital on issues outside the borders of the US.

On the positive side, this means that Israel may be able to defend herself, free of pressures from a pro-Arab state department and pro-Arab Democrats. If the president is ignoring overseas matters, perhaps Israel can finally stage a repeat of their successful near destruction of the PLO, but this time without the resurrection Clinton staged to create a legacy for himself (well other than a stained blue dress). On the negative side it means Iran's new found ICBM building capability will be ignored and Iran will join the nuclear powers unless another nation intervenes. Likewise Russia will have carte blanche in the former Soviet republics and eastern Europe and China in Taiwan and southeast Asia. All of which makes this tendency something of a mixed bag, though mostly bad. Yes, Israel will do better, and will provide us a valuable ally in the middle east, but with a nuclear Iran, that is of questionable benefit. And the expansionist Russian and Chinese governments will definitely be a problem for our next president.

On the other hand, it is only four year. A lot of harm can be done in that time, we lost Iran to radical Moslems and the Panama Canal to Panama in the four years of Carter, not to mention giving Islamic terrorists and OPEC the impression that the US was a paper tiger, an impression which still causes problems today. (And the loss of Iran managed to send the added message that allied regimes could not count on anything more than asylum from the US in the event of revolution.) But it is only four years.

Unless we are stupid enough to give him another four.

POSTSCRIPT

Another reason Obama may be ignoring foreign policy, or one which reinforces the reason I give above, is that any foreign policy question will involve Hillary Clinton. And as I have suggested before, she may be quite willing to use "leaks" and maybe intentional "mistakes" in order to discredit Obama to set herself up for a 2016 run. He is not a stupid man, even if wrong on policy, so he must realize what a threat Clinton can be. Which makes his tendency to compromise and ignoring foreign policy even more easily explained.