Obama Wrap-up Part V: Foreign Policy and diplomacy

Razor blade handshakes: 

How our president spent eight years squandering overwhelming credibility by pushing ideas that no one is interested in.

This photo of Vladimir Putin passive aggressively throwing 

shade on Barack Obama epitomizes their 8 years of back 

and forth (ABC News).

It's not easy to assess the record of Barack Obama over eight years in foreign policy and find an area where American relations with other countries have gotten better. It's a result that was counter-intuitive; as Senator Obama he traveled the Middle East visiting Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, and Israel. He also visited South Africa, Djibouti, his father's native Kenya, Ethiopia, and Chad in 2006. Yet despite his ambitious travel schedule, part of his effort to build up his image as a person that has foreign policy vision, already was angering people when he glibly criticized corruption in Kenya.

Did Obama's past record having lived in Indonesia for part of his childhood, or his travels to Europe, India, Pakistan, and Kenya in his college years prepare him for the rigors of managing a national foreign policy? Well realistically we never expect that from other presidents. So how do we evaluate his foreign policy record? There's a couple of different categories where we can evaluate it in brief.

"Friendlies"

Egyptian Pres. Abdel Fattah al-Sissi

is one of the pro-US world leaders that

has never warmed to Barack Obama.

Here are the most important issues that were handled in Obama's years in office pertaining to US relations with countries traditionally considered allies:

• Obama trashed the British and French governments for not "having any skin in the game" during the allied intervention in Libya. In April 2016 Obama visited the UK and spoke against the Brexit, including in his statement a declaration that Britain may be relegated to the "back of the queue". This was credited by some as jarring the British public to actually favour leaving the EU.
• The National Security Agency was exposed by WikiLeaks in 2015 for spying on the German government at the highest levels.
• Egypt: Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton bungled their response to the Arab Spring by at first supporting the regime of Egyptian Pres. Hosni Mubarak only to support the protesters after the tide had turned against the Mubarak regime. They then watched as the Muslim Brotherhood seized control of the country in its first democratic election only to be deposed a year later by a resurgent military under Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. In 2015 it was alleged that Obama deliberately avoided a private meeting with al-Sisi when he was in the USA to speak at the US General Assembly.
• Americas: One underrated accomplishment was the 2016 Colombian peace treaty between Pres. Juan Manuel Santos and the FARC guerrilla group, a process in which Obama's administration did have a helping hand, and better relations with Argentina.
• Israel: Perhaps the most well-known US diplomatic relationship rupture has been between Obama and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu (Bibi). The back and forth between the two has included allegations that Obama and John Kerry's State Dept. funded Bibi's opponents and forced him to come in through a side entrance at the White House. Till the end in 2017 Obama and Kerry were at odds with Netanyahu, in particular due to his policy on building settlements. Accordingly, the USA is alleged to have orchestrated UNSCR 2334 which condemned Israel and called for imposing a solution by the international community on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
• Philippines: The election of maverick (madman?) Davao City mayor Rodrigo Duterte as Filipino president in 2016 led to an acrimonious relationship between Obama and the hardline anti-drug leader over the issue of whether he can wage his violent war against traffickers. On September 5 at the ASEAN Conference Duterte was pulling no punches and called Obama the "son of a whore".Then in October he visited Beijing and declared in response to Obama that the Philippines had realigned with one of its strategic opponents China which had been encroaching on its maritime zone in the South China Sea.

Other instances of Obama's issues with US allies are included in BOLD wrap-up Part IV.

"Hostiles"

This awkward "handshake" between Pres. Obama and Cuban

counterpart Raúl Castro Ruz epitomized the feelings of many

Americans towards the new thaw in US-Cuba relations. (Political

Insider)

Obama's foreign policy was largely guided by a desire to bring closure to many of his country's open wounds with long-term adversaries. Here is a rundown of some of the integral cases in point during his 8 years in power:

• In 2009 immediately on coming into office Obama was confronted by the Green Revolution calling for democracy in Iran. Despite numerous statements in support of respecting the election that year, the USA failed to step in and do anything to help deal with the overwhelming oppression by the government of the Ayatollahs. As this happened at the outset of his administration, it has largely been forgotten.
• Throughout his administration the US had an acrimonious relationship with the autocratic rulers of Venezuela Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro. This included a strange statement that the country was a "threat to national security" on Nov. 14, 2016.
• Russia: Needless to say the presenting of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with a "reset" button in 2009 by Hillary Clinton has not held over time. In 2014 Russia invaded the Crimean Peninsula  and two provinces of eastern Ukraine. 
• China: There have been numerous instances of alleged hacking of US digital databases by the communist Chinese government under Pres. Obama. In Jan. 2017 ABC News' Jonathan Karl questioned Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Intelligence over the Obama Admin's lack of reaction to numerous actions on the part of the Chinese government that affected US cyber-security. Moreover China's currency manipulation, patent fraud, and other activities became the topic of Donald Trump's trade policy during the 2016 presidential election and a major embarrassment both for Obama and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
• North Korea: It has been confirmed in Sept. 2016 that this recluse state now possesses nuclear weapons after years of negotiations by several administrations to prevent just such a thing occurring.
• Cuba: In what has been perceived as an appeasement of dictatorship not only did Obama end a decades long trade embargo with Cuba in March 2016, one of his last acts was to end the "Wet feet-Dry feet" policy that allowed numerous Cuban refugees to escape the dictatorship of the Castro Bros.

Admin.

Yes it really says something when both of your secretaries of 

state are failed presidential candidates. (Politico).

Without delving into it too much, both of Obama's choices for secretary of state became major embarrassments to his administration.

• Hillary Clinton's roles in the failed Russian Reset as well as the Benghazi incident and the cover-up of her emails and the murky connections with the Clinton Foundation and Huma Abedin have been well documented.
•  John Kerry, a former senator and presidential nominee himself, was selected in lieu of former US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice who was instead named National Security Adviser. Kerry's incompetence and his mere presence on visits became the stuff of jokes among such world leaders as Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kerry is also suspected of having used his position to further a non-profit organization fronted by his daughter Vanessa Kerry through the Department's Peace Corps.

Grade: F. Not only here but almost anywhere the Obama foreign policy is considered one of the worst and most visible failures of his time in office.