Barack Obama’s "Leading From Behind'Foreign Policy

No wonder the US president looks weak and confused

by Nile Gardiner - April 26th, 2011 - The London Telegraph

“Leading from behind” would normally be a damning charge made against a Commander-in-Chief at a time of war by his political opponents. But within the Obama presidency it is bizarrely worn as a badge of honour, and is the term used to describe the president’s handling of the Libya issue by one of his own advisers (who remains unnamed) in an extraordinary interview with The New Yorker this week.

[Snip]

The Obama White House must be the first US presidency in living memory that actually prides itself on following rather than leading on the world stage. As even Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski noted in the same New Yorker article, President Obama “doesn’t strategize. He sermonizes.” That’s a pretty strong indictment from one of the most influential Democrats in the world of US foreign policy, and himself a former adviser to Obama.

Is it any wonder that the United States, the world’s only superpower, is increasingly viewed as weak and confused?

It is of course exactly what many predicted since before the Magic Marxist Messiah was elected. No one could have believed the delusional grandeur Barack Obama claimed as his mantel. As a man who had always been a 'community organizer', not a leader, the lack of leadership is not something that surprises some of those who opposed him.

It is exactly what anyone who was paying attention should have expected.