Obama’s Pursuit of a Foreign Policy Legacy

President Obama is traveling in Asia this week. He has agreed to allow Vietnam to have American arms and he’s planning to stop in Hiroshima. What does all of this mean?

Frank Gaffney took up the topic on Secure Freedom Radio with Cliff May, a columnist for the Washington Times who is also the President of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Gaffney asked May for his views on Obama’s recent travels. May began his response by recalling a recent claim by Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett that Obama had ended two wars.  May suggested that’s incorrect by pointing out that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are still going on despite Obama’s decision to prematurely remove troops from Iraq in 2011.  He then addressed Obama’s Asia trip:

“Now, in terms of the visit to Asia, we haven’t seen a lot come of it although the most important thing recently is the lifting of the arms embargo on Vietnam. That’s controversial for a number of reasons and should be but I certainly understand it although I don’t think President Obama has explained it with any candor. I think the reason is that Vietnam is trying to stand up to China, which has very clear hegemonic ambitions for that area of the world and perhaps beyond over time and we want them to be able to stand up to China because the alternative is for them to kowtow to China and let China become what it wants to be, the colossus of Asia.”

Gaffney brought up Obama’s habit of rewarding America’s foes better than America’s friends, as he did with the “Russian reset” and the Iran Deal. He suggested that this can have the effect of shrinking the number of America’s friends. May concurred:

“I think that’s a fair analysis. I think President Obama came into office with an idea that’s been proven wrong but not proven wrong to his satisfaction and that is that most of the conflicts and disputes in the world were due to either misunderstandings or could be resolved if the United States would simply recognize the legitimacy of various grievances and take steps to address those grievances in the spirit of compromise and sympathy.”

May went on to suggest that Obama has a bit of Mister Rogers in him for thinking Iran and Saudi Arabia should be able to just share the neighborhood.

This led naturally to discussion of the Iran Deal and the false idea that there was a moderate faction in the regime to be embraced. Gaffney asked May for his thoughts specifically on Ben Rhodes and the idea that the media got played by him in the process. May offered his thoughts:

“He was able to play that community. He’s not the first to attempt to try to play that community and from the White House, it’s not hard to do it successfully, people will do a lot to maintain their access. What struck me as particularly strange is his title, which reflects his role. He was Deputy Adviser on National Security for Strategic Mutations and in the past there has always been an appropriate separation between those who make policy and those who market policy… You never had somebody in the role of a sort of Henry Kissinger who was mainly a PR guy and a fiction writer.”

May is certainly correct in suggesting that American journalists don’t want to lose their access to the White House. Many of them are Obama’s biggest fans.