100 Days of Good, Bad and Ugly
Rory Cooper /
FOREIGN POLICY AND NATIONAL SECURITY
The Good
- Iraq and Afghanistan: In his first 100 days, President Obama has largely continued to implement the strategic course laid out by the Bush Administration in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, which makes sense. U.S. vital interests do not change because of partisan shifts in power, and neither do the facts on the ground, the resources available to the nation, or the enemy’s objectives.
The Bad
- Dumbing Down Missile Defense: In his first 100 days, the President approved a roughly 20% cut for missile defense and abandoned deploying defenses to Western Europe.
- Appeasing North Korea and Iran: The White House downplayed the U.S. response to North Korea and Iran’s provocative missile launches and failed to obtain a serious U.N. Security Council response to either incident. Despite the advances made in these two countries, the President wants focus on “regional missile threats.”
- Change on Cuba: In his first 100 days, the President ended 50 years of U.S. policy on Cuba, claiming it had not worked. If a similar strategy were followed with the Soviet Union, the U.S. would have abandoned containment long before the Cold War ended. This new policy may leave other dictators questioning the seriousness of U.S. opposition to oppression and systemic violations of human and civil rights. (more…)