Forging FORWARD: “Flexible” Foreign Policy

 By Debra Rae   ~  November 26, 2011

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Globalism

Trials and Triumphs

It’s often said, “There’s no crystal ball to predict the future.” Filing documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission, even the Psychic Friends Network admitted:

“Undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements because PFN can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct.”[1

While doubts attend the PFN, America’s foreign policy speaks for itself. With the election now behind him, President Obama can move forward with “more flexibility.”[2] The world stage is set. Compliments of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, we have reengaged multilateral development institutions and rebuilt the United States Agency for International Development.

 

To affect fundamental transformation, Obama (in his words) is “changing the way we do business.” That said, after years of primary focus on the Middle East, President Obama took his lead, second-term international trip even further East to Asia for the East Asia Summit. Regional leaders gathered to establish the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) that, if successful, promises to create a trading bloc that covers almost one-third of the global economy.[3]

 

Israel Passé

It’s accepted that the leader of the Free World will engage the world community but, in doing so, America’s sovereign interests must remain foremost. Arguably, America’s destiny is tied into that of Israel; therefore, Israel’s well being mustn’t be overlooked. Biblically, standing with Israel invites God’s blessing; but too often US foreign policy in Obama’s administration looks past Israel.

 

Coupled with a shared destiny “to be blessed,” our nation’s biblical roots were affirmed in 1892 by the US Supreme Court:

“Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon the teachings of the Redeemer of Mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent, our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian.”[4]

A self-proclaimed "Christian", Obama begs to differ. In 2006, he rightly noted “increasing diversity of America's population.” He explained further, “Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.”[5] If every American has the right to exercise his religion freely, why in Obama’s America is it fine for the White House to host Iftar dinners in honor of Ramadan—but “offensive” to host events associated with the National Day of Prayer?[6]

 

The Global Blueprint: Soft Law

While addressing dignitaries at the United Nations Headquarters in New York (September of 2010), Obama explicitly endorsed the UN Charter and Millennium Development Goals.[7] Unfortunately, the UN’s global blueprint effectively supplants the supreme law of our land (the US Constitution) with “soft law.” At the global level, “soft law” represents unenforceable agreements between nations. By appearing to represent global consensus, these have a way of evolving slowly into enforceable international law in the form of agreements, conventions, declarations, executive orders, pacts, summits, and treaties.

 

Time Line and Strategy

For example, established after the United Nations Millennium Summit (2000), eight official Millennium Development Goals united member states (along with international organizations) to forge global partnerships for development and, by the year 2015, to achieve goals relating to poverty, women, children, health, and environmental sustainability.

 

Seemingly, theirs were noble goals; however, the United Nations Charter for Global Democracy decimates individual freedoms, private property rights, and sovereignty of nation-states. Its Criminal Court offers no guarantees of trial by a jury of one’s peers, right to face one’s accusers, or right even to know the charges being leveled.

 

“With 10 years down,” Obama noted, “just five years” remain “before our development targets come due.” In the name of “a just and sustainable international order,” the US Global Development Policy (the first of its kind by an American administration) places said development at the center of national security. Additionally, it’s a core pillar of American power to be established by regional partnerships that “leverage the expertise and resources of others.”[8] 

 

Multi-Faceted Goal

At the Y2K Summit, the President admonished his audience to “move beyond the old, narrow debate over how much money we’re spending, and instead … focus on results.” The work,” he added,  “cannot be accomplished by any one government.” (Global government is required. And what’s a billion dollars, or two, anyway?) Mutually accountable governments, multilaterals, and nongovernmental organization (NGOs, or civil society) must all work together with a keen “sense of common purpose.” Remembering lessons learned from the so-called Green Revolution,[9] President Obama further committed to collaborative implementation of clean energy technologies. This, even though Germany and Great Britain have found alternative energy subsidies to be “money down a rat hole,” and for every single green job created in Spain and Italy, huge numbers of jobs were lost.[10]

 

Religious Tolerance

The President’s six-hour stop in Myanmar (Burma) was the centerpiece of his recent trip that began in Bangkok and ended in Cambodia.[11] While in Bangkok, Thailand, President Obama stood on “sacred grounds” in awe of the reclining Buddha. Curiously, when Obama spoke at Georgetown University (April 2009), he ordered a cover for a monogram symbolizing Jesus’ Name.[12]  Buddha he tolerates; Jesus, not so much.

 

Recall that in September 2012, the White House refused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's request, when visiting the US, to meet with Obama. “The president's schedule,” he was told, “will not permit that."[13]

 

Nevertheless, President Obama found ample time in Cambodia to visit Hun Sen, one-time communist “strongman” tainted by a sketchy human rights record. In fact, Obama was the first US president to set foot in Cambodia, once known for its Khmer Rouge "killing fields." Cambodia’s 60-year-old Prime Minister perceived that “first” as a feather in his cap. Whether or not Netanyahu was offended by the President’s seeming snub isn’t the point. It’s this: In light of Hun Sen’s search for global respectability, Obama’s visit mattered a great deal.

 

Conclusion

This November, America made her choice, and now Obama can move forward with greater flexibility in realizing millennium goals and strategies. Accordingly, America’s interests, more likely than not, will take back seat to “the common good”; and international soft law will increasingly trump the US Constitution.

 

Notes:

1. Dispatches: Quick Takes. “Psychic Doubts.” World (Ashville, NC: World, November 17, 2012): 20.

2. While President Obama was taking part in a global nuclear security summit in South Korea, he was caught on tape asking for Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for "space," assuring the departing Russian President he will have the "flexibility" required to deal with missile defense issues after the 2012 presidential election.

4. Genesis 26:3-4.

6. Stephen McDowell. “Obama, Romney, Other.” Providential Perspective: The Teaching Journal of The Providence Foundation, Vol. 26, No.2 (Charlottesville, VA: The Providential Perspective, September 2012): 2-3.

10.  Michael Coffman, Ph.D. Plundered: How Progressive Ideology Is Destroying America (Bangor, Maine: Environmental Perspectives, Inc., 2012): 110.

12. Stephen McDowell. “Obama, Romney, Other.” Providential Perspective: The Teaching Journal of The Providence Foundation, Vol. 26, No.2 (Charlottesville, VA: The Providential Perspective, September 2012): 2-3

13.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/11/obama-avoids-israeli-prim_n_1874814.html, Retrieved 19 November 2012.

Debra Rae is the Co-Host of WOMAN-Talk Radio: www.womantalk.us; www.changingworldviews.com

and Host of TRUTH-Talk Radio: www.blogtalkradio.com/sharonhughes

Previous articles by Debra Rae: Recipe for Revolution: Part 1

Recipe for Revolution: Part 2