Where to Attack Obama

Ok, for the record I am neither a card-carrying Neo-con loving Republican, nor am I a whining, government needs to be your nanny liberal Democrat.  However, as an academic who studies, teaches, and publishes about national security and international relations I do pay attention to presidential elections from the point of view of achievement of foreign policy.  Now, of course, assessing achievements of foreign policy can entail some bias (for instance if one feels that we are best served by less focus on ameliorating relations with Muslims around the world in hopes of achieving better economic deals in growing economies dominated by Muslim populations, that person would find fault with generating better relations with leaders in Malaysia and Indonesia), but I try to take achievements as achievements for their own value.

So, what has Obama achieved.  Well, he did preside in the oval office when bin Ladin was executed.  Obama was in the white house when NATO (an organization in which we are a member) helped bring down Qaddafi in Libya.  Obama did end the military phase of our operations in Iraq (a campaign promise) and has set an end date for military operations in Afghanistan.  Great, Obama gets credit for these achievements, why because he was in the oval office--same as if any president was in the oval office, regardless of their actual preferences and actions we credit the current office holder for what has occurred.

So, where do you attack Obama?  Ok, I'll give you three things to attack Obama on related to national security and international relations.  One, he did order the murder of a U.S. citizen in the name of national security utlilizing a program of armed drone attacks on the soil of sovereign states (wrote about it here).  Two, he has accomplished little with regard to his promise to deal with closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay.  Three, he has failed in attaining access to energy resources that are vital to U.S. national interests, first in denying the Keystone XL pipeline permits and also in failing to attain access to Brazilian oil reserves.  In the last case both the Canadian tar sands oil and the Brazilian oil will be going to China.