Reply #6: Consistency in Foreign Policy

[SoDesuKa]

I'll admit being puzzled by Obama's foreign policy. He's keeping Guantanamo open despite campaign pledges to close it, and he also increased America's commitment in Afghanistan. My guess is that he thinks it's a good idea not to shift foreign policy abruptly every time the presidency changes. I don't see how keeping either of these policies is consistent with the positions taken by Obama the candidate.

Taking Osama bin Laden alive would have guaranteed a foreign policy nightmare because he'd almost certainly deny being the boogie man that Bush represented him to be. In a head-to-head truthfulness showdown with the mendacious Condoleezza Rice, for example, bin Laden might actually have won.

I don't know Obama's motivations for many of his foreign policies. He seems to let spinning things continue to spin until they stop. Killing Osama might have been the wrong thing from a number of perspectives, but it did drive his poll numbers up.