Jen, I disagree slightly with your take on Hillary’s Russian train wreck. I suspect that the Obama administration wants the leverage of tougher sanctions with Iran. The problem is that they now have no leverage with Russia.

All the diplomatic pillow talk about “cooperation” and “encouragement” is cover for Obama’s Russia gambit’s having gone down in flames. Smiling through failure is becoming the default occupation of the Obama State Department, and no one seems more enthused to be at the center of the wreckage than Hillary Clinton. She is pure spin, no success.

There are two looming questions: Will the day come when the Obama administration accepts that doormat power has failed? And if so, how does the U.S. go from being a doormat back to being a global player? As to the first question, reality must intervene at some point, if for no other reason than optics: Obama is keenly aware that he’s starting to look soft even to ardent supporters.

The second question is trickier. Every failed attempt to curry favor through self-debasement puts us further behind the eight ball. We are not merely failing to get the world to act in accordance with our wishes; we are enabling enemies who work against us and forcing former allies to defy us. By the time Obama and Hillary are forced to admit failure, America will have emptied its toolbox, antagonists will be enjoying a golden age of cooperation, and allies will have cynically adjusted to American indifference.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at 10:52 AM and is filed under Contentions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.