From Michael Gerson, Seattle Times: "Kicking the Can Down the Road." If Gerson is right, the US faces some serious problems in the future. Postponing dealing with problems may result in more serious problems in the future.
Obama has not only continued George W. Bush's global war on terror -- whatever it is currently called -- but has expanded its scope and lethality. The legal and physical infrastructure of the conflict -- from the Patriot Act to Guant?namo Bay -- remains in place. The mommy party, in this instance, has become daddy with a drone and a hit list.
In many parts of the world, the Obama doctrine has become an exercise in kicking the can down the road -- avoiding or downplaying problems that will only grow more complex and dangerous with time. There have been some admirable exceptions -- Libya is certainly one -- but Fouad Ajami describes the sum as a "foreign policy of strategic abdication."
Ideology is partly responsible. Mann's book describes an Obama foreign-policy team that holds a "distinctly more modest and downbeat outlook on America's role in the world." Its members seem deeply impressed by America's limitations -- its fiscal constraints and challenged primacy. These beliefs tend to be self-fulfilling. They make a virtue of ceded leadership.
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