President Obama's foreign policy

I am not certain how the success with Health Care reform will impact the foreign policy of the United States. President Obama may want to shift his attention to overseas affairs but I do not think that this will be the case. I believe that President Obama wants to have the United States out of both Iraq and Afghanistan well before the presidential election cycle begins near the end of 2011. So he does not seem to need to spend much attention on this simply because the wars will just wind down until they go away. After all, it was because we ‘occupied’ land that was not ours that has triggered so many to become ‘new terrorists’. What he fails to realize is that this is the calm before the storm.

The war is much, much too large to just go away. Far to many people and their ways of life are invested in the issues that are the basic cause of the war. A few years may go by at least in part because our enemy got a real black eye in Iraq. However, they will be back.

It is generally best to be on the offensive during wartime. If you lack the capability then assumption of the offensive will just burn out your resources. The U.S. does not lack resources. We have more than enough resources today if they are used properly. The problem is that President Obama believes that the strategic defensive is the best course. He will watch as the war winds down and does not even have to pay all that much direct attention to it. This will leave him (And our country) open to surprise attack. This may take a few years, but in any case, President Obama will not react well if and when the war explodes again.