A crumbling power: The US under Obama

After being the most ineffective and weakest US President since William Henry Harrison and Millard Fillmore, Obama has turned to global warming as a new cause celebre to get back some of that love that continues to elude him and which so overflowed from both within and outside the US when he first got elected.

You only need to look at his choice for foreign secretary, John 'snooze and lose' Kerry, to know what Obama thinks about foreign policy. Bush may have been a monumental asshole, but you knew where you stood with him and he did project US power effectively if clumsily. Obama's trampled red lines and his dithering and indecision with regards to Syria is pathetic and only encourages countries like Russia and Iran to ignore the US completely. He will likely be the President to preside over America's demotion from its long held position of dominant global power and if you ask me it's about time too!

It’s quite obvious that global power brokers China and Russia have very little respect for US power. The Snowden affair, China's de facto complicity in spiriting the whistle blower away to Moscow and Putin's rebuff of an American request to extradite Snowden back to the US, is proof enough of America's new role as second rate power. The country's orator-president may have the gift of gab, but he certainly lacks the diplomatic prowess that previous administrations had in spades and he has proved either unable or unwilling to back up threats with decisive actions.

He is no Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher, he isn't even up to par with Bill Clinton. It would seem this great office he holds has proven to be too stressful and taxing for him, so much so that without knowing it he has abdicated America's position in the world. Or maybe I am being too harsh, may be circumstances are different now, maybe America has fewer options than in the past, maybe the French with their advanced aircraft carriers and Rafale fighter jets should take over policing our troublesome corner of the world, supported with a line of unlimited credit from both Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

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