Obama mistakes the fins for friends

A myopic foreign-policy dip in 

shark-infested waters

by Ken Allard

National survival is a more evocative term than national security. This being “Shark Week” on the Discovery Channel, America’s current troubles are best illustrated by an appropriate metaphor. In the 2003 film “Open Water,” there is a moment of exquisite terror when a couple of fun-loving scuba tourists realize that their incompetent charter boat captain has left them adrift while menacing fins grow larger, closer and ever more aggressive. In precisely that way, American foreign policy under President Obama’s inept leadership is rapidly collapsing — from eastern Ukraine to northern Iraq.

We already know that Russia’s Vladimir Putin regards the U.S. president as a weak sister, seldom even bothering to disguise his contempt for what used to be called American power. Like those circling sharks, Mr. Putin long ago realized that sanctions are little more than the plaintive cries of a hapless victim just before being eaten. Neither Mr. Obama and Secretary of State John F. Kerry, nor their theories of soft power and 21st-century diplomacy, can likely deter a cunning KGB operative who knows he can invade eastern Ukraine before any countervailing force can stop him. Just for the record: It turns out that Mr. Putin has his own ideas about what a “Russian reset” might be.

So how convincing was Mr. Obama’s “shock and awe” campaign last weekend against those Islamic State marauders rapidly overrunning Iraq?

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