DB's Pixnet

20120301 TIME

TIME January 30, 2012
Page 18
The Strategist
The question isn't whether Barack Obama has been a good foreign policy President. It's whether he can be a great one.
By Fareed Zakaria

...In the cases of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, the Administration concluded that the democracy protests had become unstoppable and the regimes were doomed. It took Ronald Reagan two years from the beginning of the democracy protests in the Philippines to break with Ferdinand Marcos. In 1997 when protests began in Indonesia, it took Bill Clinton a year to urge President Suharto to resign. In 2011 it took Obama two weeks to urge Hosni Mubarak to leave office. By placing the U.S. on the right side of a historical wave, Obama took it out of the Egyptian political debate. Egyptians know they will succeed or fail at their democratic experiment because of themselves and not Washington. In a Middle East that believes that America conspires and controls all, that's a step forward.

There have been misses. Whatever your view of the Israeli-Palestinian problem, it is difficult to see Obama's approach as a success...It would have been better to have continued with what appeared to be Obama's initial strategy: appoint a special envoy so the world knows that Washington wants a deal--but commit no presidential capital in a situation that seemed destined for stagnation.

One could add others. Relations with Iran...

David CK Chang, SSN057-86-4042,
March 1, 2012,
New Taipei City Library,
Panchiao, New Taipei City