George Bush was accused of arrogance when it came to his foreign policy, but it was at least at times effective. Barack Obama, on the other hand, is showing a different kind of arrogance in his own foreign policy, but unlike Bush, his policies have been so far completely ineffective. Consider:
One of the few campaign promises Obama has delivered on is his desire to engage in dialog with Iran. So far, this policy has resulted in no change in Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, and we saw over the summer a rigged election there with brutal repression of the resulting protests and no reaction from Washington. Over the weekend, a Sunni resistance group in Iran pulled off a suicide bombing which killed five Revolutionary Guards commanders and 37 others. What does Obama get for his trouble? The blame for the bombing.
Speaking of Iran, Obama wanted Russia's help pressuring Iran to give up their nuclear program. As a carrot for Russia, Obama abandoned plans to place a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. The outcome of that so far? Two pissed-off eastern European allies and a big FU from Russia on Iran sanctions.
A pet cause of the Left has always been the Free Tibet movement. In fact, that's also been the position of the Right, they just don't have the bumper stickers to prove it. Previous US Presidents have met with Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, during his travels to the US, but on the occasion of his first visit after Obama's election, Obama snubbed him in a craven effort to curry favor with China. One of the few to criticize him for this was - surprise! - former Czech President Vaclav Havel.
The latest victim of President Obama's "smart power" is Darfur. Another favorite cause of the Left (and the Right, who don't wear t-shirts saying so), the cause was dealt a blow with Obama's decision to "engage" with the genocidal government of Sudan. Groups associated with the Darfur cause are "wary" of Obama's new policy. If this had been a Bush policy, there'd be a million moonbat march on Washington over it, but with Obama's policy of "engaging" with genocidal war criminals, they're merely "wary".
Bush's foreign policy was called arrogant because it was seen to impose those archaic American values of freedom and democracy on other nations. But Obama's foreign policy truly is arrogant in that Obama seems to believe the pure awesomeness of his personality and oratory skills will solve everything.
It seems the best thing a country can be right now is an enemy of the United States.
Update: Oh, yeah...don't even get me started on Afghanistan.
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