What Could Have Been in Libya

US Leadership Melts Away Into Sands of Libya Over Obama’s Foolish Humanitarian Foray, Yorkshire Post, June 24, 2011. "It didn’t have to be this way. Across the Middle East, the perception is growing that the U.S., in its haste to find the exit, has forgotten the ironclad rule of the region: reward your friends and punish your enemies. Instead, the U.S. is trying to pacify quarrels by slapping its allies down and allowing the worst of the dictators to slide by. From Obama’s perpetual jabs at Israel to his reluctance to speak out against the Assad regime in Syria, he is feeding the belief that the U.S. wants to bug out. A decisive NATO intervention against the Gaddafi regime would have demonstrated that West is not quitting, that it retains the will and the ability to act."

Obama and Commentators Speak. Please, Make It Stop

Nothing but Nonsense and Headaches, Contentions, May 26, 2011. "President Obama’s address to Parliament in Westminster Hall yesterday was of a piece with all his other major public statements. In fact, it was all of his other major public statements. Except for the boilerplate on Britain, it was the same speech he has been giving since his inauguration: unobjectionable generalities coupled with sketchy history, a rejection of false choices, and an assertion that everything he wants to achieve is modest, reasonable, and entirely in tune with the generalities, and thus barely counts as a choice at all. Will he ever get bored with false reasonableness?"

On Failing to Rise to the Occasion

Obama’s UK Speech: Rhetoric Cannot Substitute for Achievement, Heritage Foundation Foundry, May 25, 2011. "President Obama’s address to Britain’s Parliament in historic Westminster Hall was of a piece with many of his speeches: a mixture of soaring generalities and devils in the details, with some dubious history thrown in."

Question Time for Obama

What We’d Gain If Obama Had to Perform During Question Time in the House of Commons?, Fox News, May 25, 2011. "President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron spent part of yesterday playing ping pong, a sport that was invented in Britain. Cameron would have done better to introduce Obama to another of Britain’s distinctive institutions: question time in the House of Commons."

Less Special, More Relations, Please

U.S. Relations Must be Rooted in Reality Rather Than Rhetoric, Yorkshire Post, May 23, 2011. "It is not particularly depressing that there is little personal sympathy evident between Prime Minister Cameron and President Obama. Undoubtedly, the pomp and circumstance for which official Britain is famous will be deployed to effect, but the very fact that Obama is making a state visit testifies to the fact that, for Cameron, its significance rests mostly in its visible symbolism."

Will Ireland Go Bankrupt?

President Obama Visits the Irish Financial Crisis, with J.D. Foster, Heritage Foundation WebMemo #3266, May 20, 2011. "When President Obama visits Ireland on May 23–24, he is expected to visit Moneygall, in County Offaly, the ancestral home of his mother’s family. While finding Irish ancestors is a favorite electoral sport of American leaders, the President would be better advised to spend his time studying the Irish financial crisis, which has important lessons for America. If this crisis continues to deepen, the U.S. may be compelled to consider the implications of an Irish default. If default becomes inevitable, then the U.S. should not simply take the side of European institutions if doing so would uselessly prolong the crisis."

Britain's Defense and Obama's State Visit

What President Obama Should Tell Prime Minister Cameron About Britain’s Defense Cuts, Heritage Foundation WebMemo #3265, May 20, 2011. "During his state visit to the United Kingdom on May 24–26, President Barack Obama should speak clearly to Prime Minister David Cameron about the serious damage that the latest round of British defense cuts is doing to Britain’s armed forces. The Special Relationship between the U.S. and Great Britain rests in part on the desire of each nation to play a leading role in the world. Without capable armed forces, Britain cannot play this role. Thus, Britain’s defense cuts are bad not only for its forces but for the Anglo–American alliance."

Action Items for Obama's State Visit to Britain

What President Obama and Prime Minister Cameron Should Do to Preserve the Anglo-American Special Relationship, Heritage Foundation WebMemo #3264, May 20, 2011. "During his state visit to the United Kingdom on May 24–26, President Barack Obama should reaffirm the vital importance of the Special Relationship. This affirmation should go beyond words and address the tensions in the Anglo–American alliance that have built up during the President’s first two years in office."

Again with the Marshall Plan Analogy

Back to the Future, Again: A Mini-Marshall Plan for Egypt?, Heritage Foundation Foundry, May 19, 2011. "Absolutely none of the conditions that conduced to the success of the Marshall Plan are present in Egypt, which is a poorly-governed, corrupt, ill-educated country with a backwards economy and a political system that is trending strongly towards an alliance of military authoritarians and radical Salafis. The Marshall Plan does indeed show that, given good domestic governance, certain kinds of U.S. assistance can work. But the Marshall Plan was not a hand-out: it was conditioned in many ways, it was predicated on a shared acceptance of democracy and economic freedom, and it rested on the competent administration of Europeans."

The Special Relationship: What Must Be Done

Preserving the Special Relationship: A Conservative Agenda for President Obama’s State Visit to Great Britain, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #2258, May 19, 2011. "The summit meeting in May between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron comes at an important moment in the Special Relationship between the United States and Great Britain. The two powers lead NATO, which has again proved that it is the only European and Atlantic institution capable of creating consensus and responding in a crisis. However, the political tensions and military failings exposed by the Libyan intervention reflect broader weaknesses in the Anglo–American alliance and in NATO as a whole. The President and the Prime Minister need to address these weaknesses forthrightly and not allow rhetoric about the Special Relationship to substitute for serious action to preserve it now and strengthen it for the future."

Lessons from a Forgotten Churchill Speech

Why Churchill’s Lessons on War and Peace Still Ring True Today, Fox News, May 13, 2011. "One of Churchill’s greatest speeches during this struggle came in 1934. His subject was simple: “The Causes of War.” In this broadcast, he dismissed the idea that the way to prevent war was to focus on teaching Britons to hate violence, for the threat to peace did not stem from Britain. It stemmed from “a nation which with all its strength and virtues is in the grip of a group of ruthless men preaching a gospel of intolerance and racial pride, unrestrained by law.” It stemmed from the nature of the Nazi regime. Americans would do well to remember, when we wonder at the actions of foreign regimes, that they behave as they do not because of our failures, but because of their own."

After Bin Laden, Now What?

Obama Has Shown His Leadership, But Now We Must See His Common Sense, Yorkshire Post, May 12, 2011. "After his election in 2008, President Barack Obama was occasionally lauded as the Reagan of the left, an orator of genius who would reshape the landscape of American politics for a generation. Two years later, the landscape was indeed reshaped – by the conservative landslide of 2010. The very scale of that loss evoked enough pity to give Obama a brief post-election bounce. The wonderful success of the strike against Osama Bin Laden has given him another one. But will it endure?"

Results of the AV Referendum

British Vote May Doom the Liberal Democrats, Contentions, May 9, 2011. "The irony of the AV referendum is that the Lib Dems thought it would make them into Britain’s third party. Instead, it may end up destroying them, and in the process return Britain to a two-party system, which is ideally suited to the first past the post system for which the British people have shown such enthusiastic support."

Looking Ahead to the AV Referendum

Britain Votes on the Vote, Contentions, May 3, 2011. "In a party political sense, AV runs the risk of making the Liberal Democrats the permanent king-makers in British politics. More importantly, though, it risks cementing the dominance of establishment convictions: it is not so much a particular party that will benefit as a particular approach to politics."

The Voting System's Not the Problem

Are We Voting for a Better Democracy or Simply Ignoring the Real Problems?, Yorkshire Post, May 29, 2011. "The fault in Britain lies not in the system. It lies in the people who vote in it. The majority of the British people want more benefits than they are willing to pay for, so the state has run out of money. No one wants to be blown up by terrorists, but, for too many of the elite, Islamism is a natural response to the supposed prejudices of British society. Everyone pretends to want the virtues that stable family life brings, but the elite’s left-wing condemns anyone who defends family values as an intolerant bigot."

The Convention on Cluster Munitions

The United States Should Not Join the Convention on Cluster Munitions, with Steve Groves, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #2550, April 28, 2011. "The Convention on Cluster Munitions is a misbegotten treaty that neither advances the laws of war nor enhances security. It is an unverifiable, unenforceable, all-or-nothing exercise in moral suasion, not a serious diplomatic instrument. It creates perverse incentives for insurgents to use civilian populations as human shields, undermines effective arms control efforts, inhibits nation-states’ ability to defend themselves, and denigrates the sovereignty of the United States and other democratic states. The U.S. should emphatically reject both the convention and the undemocratic Oslo Process that produced it and should instead continue to negotiate a realistic and enforceable protocol on cluster munitions that balances U.S. military requirements with the humanitarian concerns posed by unexploded ordnance."

So, About Those Harriers

You Don’t Know What You’ve Got Till It’s Gone, Contentions, April 15, 2011. "William Hague, Britain’s Foreign Secretary, now says that “It would be useful to have a larger number of aircraft capable of striking ground targets.” Mr. Hague is right. What Britain needs now is an aircraft capable of taking off from an aircraft carrier conveniently parked off the coast of Libya, able to land on rough or improved airstrips, and able to engage both air and ground targets. Such an aircraft would allow Britain to respond more quickly to targets as they are identified, maintain a continual presence in the air and thus keep the heads of Gaddafi’s thugs down, and spend less time and aviation fuel flying its small force of Tornado GR4s back and forth across the Mediterranean. . . . But of course, Britain grounded its Harrier force as a result of its last defense review, conducted by Mr. Hague’s government."

Kosovo Redux

It's Beginning to Feel A Lot Like Kosovo, Contentions, April 15, 2011. "Does the Libyan affair remind anyone of Kosovo? It’s taking place on Europe’s borders, yet—as always when Europe’s hour strikes—no one from the EU is home. NATO has taken over, but most of its members are unenthusiastic. British leadership is a constant, while France has replaced Germany—even more riven by pacifism today than it was in the 1990s—as Britain’s comrade in arms. The U.S., militarily essential as always, gives the appearance of indecision when compared to Britain, although the sentiments of the British people are less clear."

The Case of the Missing Harriers

Libya Mission Demonstrates That British Defense Cuts Must Be Reversed, with Nile Gardiner, Heritage Foundation WebMemo #3231, April 19, 2011. "The prime minister cannot effectively wage a major military campaign in Libya without reversing the crippling defense cuts his Coalition government has introduced, as well as significantly increasing defense spending. The government should reconsider the review and reject its flawed foundations. The British armed forces should be funded at a level sufficient to allow them to successfully accomplish the missions given to them by the country’s political leaders."

The Long-Term Defense Problem

Britain’s Decline: Entitlements and the Armed Forces, BigPeace, April 13, 2011. "Byron York has a fine piece in the Examiner pointing out that, while Britain has taken a leading role in the Libyan intervention, there is almost nothing left militarily behind the curtain. The entire British stockpile of cruise missiles amounted to 64 when the war began, and Britain was careless enough to fire off 12 of them at the start of the conflict. That’s 20 percent of Britain’s entire arsenal, shot off in a single volley."

I Am Rubber, You Are Glue

What Bounces Off Me Sticks To You, Contentions, April 13, 2011. "To date, the Obama Administration’s strategy on internet freedom has been to talk a lot, but do absolutely nothing that would alienate China. Thanks to Senator Lugar, who led the charge on this issue, the Administration has been forced to step away just slightly from their strategy. The Chinese have told us very clearly what they are afraid of, and where they think they are vulnerable. We would be foolish not to take advantage of this."

Barack O'Cameron

Meet Barack O'Cameron, Contentions, April 11, 2011. "David Cameron has taken a leaf from the Book of Obama and launched a worldwide apology tour. On his recent visit to Pakistan, he rightly declined to get involved in Kashmir but for the wrong reasons. He said he does not 'want to try to insert Britain in some leading role where, as with so many of the world’s problems, we are responsible for the issue in the first place.' Figuring out where Cameron stands on international affairs is a full-time job."

Defending the U.S.-U.K. Extradition Treaty

Tensions Ahead Over U.S.-U.K. Extradition Treaty, Heritage Foundation Foundry, April 11, 2011. "It’s a common-sense idea that criminals should not be able to escape justice in one country simply by fleeing to another. In this Internet age, it’s also common sense that citizens of one country should not be able commit crimes electronically in another without fear of punishment. This is the problem that extradition is intended to solve."

Obama's Doctrine

Last In, First Out, Contentions, March 30, 2011. "Commentators here and elsewhere have dissected the belated strengths and considerable weaknesses of the president’s speech on Libya. But no one has noted that the speech is yet another piece of evidence that this administration regards foreign policy as a problem to be overcome as rapidly as possible, not as an enduring challenge with serious consequences. Barack Obama remains eager to get to the serious business of domestic policy."

NGOs and Neutralism

Why There Is No Neutral, Contentions, March 28, 2011. "Nadia Schadlow has a fine essay at Foreign Policy which points out that many of the NGOs on which the U.S. and its allies are relying to contribute to the “Build” phase of the counterinsurgency strategy proclaim that they refuse to take sides in the conflict. It’s not just the Red Cross that believes it is “essential to provide neutral and impartial assistance to all populations.” Most of the others follow suit. Many NGOs go beyond simply providing aid to all civilians, and – in the words of the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office – argue that NGOs have “nothing to gain and much to lose” by interacting with ISAF, which in their view only wants to “[leverage] advantage from [NGO] activities.” This is not the neutralism of helping the poor, no matter who they be: it is political neutrality."