Barack Obama: A Foreign Policy That Fails by Trying to Do Too Much --- President Barack Obama enjoyed one of the prerogatives of his office when he spoke at West Point in May. There may be no better setting for a speech on foreign policy. But it wasn't easy for him to defend the incoherent mess representing his administration's dealings with the world. His policy looks even worse in the aftermath of Iraq's implosion. -- The problem is not that the president had no successes to defend -- he has resisted persistent neoconservative demands for multiple new wars and interventions. But President Obama almost always rushed to the inconsistent middle ground, entangling the U.S. unnecessarily without committing enough to achieve even his limited ends. Experience demonstrates that Uncle Sam rarely succeeds at being a little bit pregnant. When it comes to military action, chastity more often is the best strategy. -- Despite sharp criticism of his speech on the right, Barak Obama got a lot right. For instance, the constant complaint by uber-hawks that the world is dangerous misses the fact that the world is not that dangerous for the U.S. During the Cold War American school children were trained to get under their desks in response to a Soviet missile launch. Military strategists debated how to stop Soviet armored divisions from pouring through Germany's Fulda Gap. The two superpowers tested and prodded one another in bloody proxy wars in Afghanistan, Angola, Korea, Nicaragua, Vietnam, and elsewhere. Washington and Moscow risked nuclear war over Cuba. -- That world is gone. The U.S. dominates the globe. Noted the president: - More, Doug Bandow, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/doug-bandow/barack-obama-a-foreign-po_b_5550694.html?utm_hp_ref=afghanistan