WASHINGTON - President Obama on Wednesday offered a fierce defense of his foreign policy and said critics who contend America is no longer a global leader are wrong.
Speaking to the graduating class at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on a foggy morning, the president — under growing pressure to address substandard health care for veterans across the country — also explained his recent decisions to keep a residual force of 9,800 troops in Afghanistan past the end of the year and to offer new assistance to rebels battling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government.
Despite the Syrian conflict, the continuing threat of terrorism and Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, Mr. Obama said there’s little in the way of a “direct threat” against the U.S.
“By most measures, America has rarely been stronger relative to the rest of the world. Those who argue otherwise — who suggest that America is in decline, or has seen its global leadership slip away — are either misreading history or engaged in partisan politics,” Mr. Obama said, according to prepared remarks released by the White House. “Think about it. Our military has no peer. The odds of a direct threat against us by any nation are low, and do not come close to the dangers we faced during the Cold War.”
The president also declared that “America must always lead on the world stage,” and detailed how his foreign policy over the past three years will accomplish that goal.
But Republicans hit back at the president and his foreign policy, alleging Mr. Obama’s supposed “enlightened” national security policies don’t truly address growing threats around the world.
“The president appears to believe that we, the American people, don’t understand how deft his policies of hitting singles and doubles is,” Rep. Mac Thornberry, Texas Republican and vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said Wednesday in a speech at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
“His speech at West Point today is another stop in his campaign to educate us about how enlightened his national security policies truly are, to give us a greater appreciation of his more sophisticated maneuvering on our behalf,” Mr. Thornberry said.
The White House rejects those accusations, and the president sought to dispel accusations of a weak foreign policy by laying out specific steps the administration will take in the comings months and years.
First, Mr. Obama called on Congress to support a new $5 billion “Counter-Terrorism Partnerships Fund” to train security forces in countries such as Yemen, to build security forces and border patrols in Libya and to tackle problems in other hot spots around the world.
He also defended the decision to intervene more directly in the ongoing Syrian civil war. The U.S., Mr. Obama said, must work closely with moderate Syrian rebels in their effort to topple the the Assad regime.
The administration reportedly will train Syrian rebels, though the president did not explicitly say that in his speech Wednesday. Despite new American actions, Mr. Obama stuck by his decision not to deploy U.S. troops on the ground in Syria.
“I made a decision that we should not put American troops into the middle of this increasingly sectarian civil war, and I believe that is the right decision. But that does not mean we shouldn’t help the Syrian people stand up against a dictator who bombs and starves his people,” the president said. “I will work with Congress to ramp up support for those in the Syrian opposition who offer the best alternative to terrorists and a brutal dictator. And we will continue to coordinate with our friends and allies in Europe and the Arab World — to push for a political resolution of this crisis, and make sure that those countries, and not just the United States, are contributing their fair share of support to the Syrian people.”
Mr. Obama also again called on Russia to withdraw from the Ukrainian border and stop meddling in its neighbor’s political affairs, while also touting his administration’s agreement to slow Iran’s nuclear program. (Monitoring Desk)