Obama Gets No Credit for Protecting Nation

"Domestic policy can only defeat us," John F. Kennedy used to say. "Foreign policy can kill us."

Times change. Barack Obama is having a lot more success at foreign policy than domestic policy, but few seem willing to give him credit for this.

Obama just won a war. Whether by leading from behind, in front or sideways, the victory by the Libyan rebels in toppling Moammar Gadhafi would have been impossible without U.S. money, more than 5,000 U.S. missions flown, 1,200 airstrikes, 100 Predator strikes and even B-2 Stealth bomber attacks launched from Missouri.

We also had CIA agents on the ground, but we'll probably never know what they did. America did not act alone — we acted with NATO — but a win is a win, and Obama's victory did not cost this country a single U.S. life.

This has created a political problem for the Republican candidates swarming to run against Obama. As TalkingPointsMemo put it: "Top Republicans are starting to weigh in on Moammar Gadhafi's death, and one consistent theme is quickly emerging: Barack who?"

Then there is the matter of Obama's fulfilling his campaign promise to pull out of Iraq, ending U.S. involvement in a war launched by a George W. Bush fantasy — that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction — which cost us about $1 trillion (the figure is in dispute), more than 36,000 U.S. troops killed or wounded and more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians killed.

The cost of the Iraq War will continue to grow in terms of health care costs for returning vets, and — bizarrely — for maintaining the largest and most expensive U.S. embassy in the world in Baghdad.

According to Fox News: "The 104-acre compound, bigger than the Vatican and about the size of 80 football fields, boasts 21 buildings, a commissary, cinema, retail and shopping areas, restaurants, schools, a fire station, power and water-treatment plants, as well as telecommunications and wastewater treatment facilities. The compound is six times larger than the United Nations compound in New York and two-thirds the size of the National Mall in Washington."

The $700 million building was dedicated on Jan. 5, 2009 — 15 days before Obama took office, so you can't blame him — and is the perfect symbol of the political party of the administration that built it: a gigantic white elephant.

While some U.S. troops will be required to defend the gargantuan embassy, President Obama will no longer be stuffing them willy-nilly into the meat grinder of a war that served mainly to remove troops from Afghanistan, where we were trying to destroy al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden.

Oh, yeah. Almost forgot that one. Obama launched a daring raid into Pakistan to kill bin Laden in May. And let's not forget the killing of master terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki in September in Yemen with a drone-launched Hellfire missile, or the rescue of an American sea captain from Somali pirates by Navy SEALS in April 2009.

Obama has projected an image of strength to the world and has sent a message to terrorists who threaten the United States that they cannot seek safe haven anywhere.

The media assessment of this has been a nearly universal, "Who cares?"

Here are just a few headlines:

Christian Science Monitor: "Obama's National Security Record Not Much Political Help for Him."

PBS NewsHour: "Why the End of Gadhafi May Not Help Obama."

New York Times: "Successes Overseas Are Unlikely to Help Obama at Home."

A few paragraphs from The New York Times story pretty much sums up all the stories:

"Still, there is little doubt the election will be dominated by the economy and the weak job market, where the president is dealing with a steady drip of bad news and scant hope of improvement before Election Day.

"'Foreign affairs is important, but when placed against the scale of the problem with jobs and the economy, it's dwarfed,' said David Winston, a Republican strategist. 'It's the equivalent of a house on fire: He's fixing the window while the rest of the house is burning down.'"

That latter quote conveys pretty much the opposite of what John Kennedy said. To Kennedy, it was foreign crises that could burn our houses down, literally, through nuclear attack.

It is curious, today, however, that after having two giant towers burned down in Manhattan, the Pentagon smashed into and an airliner downed all in one day just 10 years ago, that safeguarding America is reduced to the equivalent of "fixing the window."

The articles make the same point: Obama's poll numbers remain low and the economy remains bad, and that's all that will count come November 2012.

That may be correct. Domestic policy may defeat Obama. And he knows it.

I am guessing Barack Obama would rather create jobs than kill terrorists right now. But sometimes the world doesn't let you have your first choice.

To find out more about Roger Simon, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

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