Harvard history professor Niall Ferguson was on Morning Joe yesterday morning to talk about the cover story he wrote for the latest edition of Newsweek on President Obama’s foreign policy failure in Egypt. During his appearance, Ferguson made it clear that he felt the President had mishandled the crisis in Egypt—a perspective that clearly shocked the show’s hosts. Disabusing them of their optimism, Ferguson noted that parliament had been dissolved, the Egyptian constitution had been suspended and that the country was under control of the military—hardly the expected signs of a budding democracy.
Ferguson also noted that the President’s lack of a coherent foreign policy was a major hurdle throughout the crisis. Each day, the official opinion of the Administration seemed to change depending on who was being interviewed and the President’s addresses to foreign audiences in recent years has been, as Ferguson put it, “I’m not George W. Bush, love me.”
The President’s policy in Egypt has been completely consistent with The Obama Doctrine as identified by Heritage analysts Kim Holmes and James Carafano. Unfortunately, the world needs far better leadership than that.
