Where Are America's Allies?

U.S. President Barack Obama delivers a statement in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, April 23, 2015.

Thomas Donnelly, Weekly Standard: America's Collapsing Alliances

It was a long time ago and a galaxy far, far away: In July 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama made big, bold news by travelling to Berlin to – as The New York Times triumphantly recorded – “restore the world’s faith in strong American leadership and idealism.” With 200,000 Berliners waving campaign-provided American flags, Obama called for renewing America’s alliances and undoing the cowboy unilateralism of George W. Bush and Obama’s 2008 opponent Sen. John McCain.

The events of recent months are an indication of how spectacularly Obama has failed to fulfill his 2008 promise. This week comes the news that Saudi Arabia’s newly installed King Salman and three of the other six Gulf monarchs are boycotting Obama’s Camp David summit – a meeting called by Obama to reassure the Arab states that the forthcoming nuclear deal with Iran was not a betrayal of their longstanding security relationship with the United States.

Update: At Camp David, the unraveling of Obama's foreign policy -- The Hill

WNU Editor: In the past two years I have repeatedly mentioned that on the foreign policy scene, President Obama's legacy will be one of dismantling the Post-Cold War era of alliances and its unwritten (but understood) diplomatic understandings with its allies AND adversaries. What is worrisome is that our allies are now understanding that there is a shift .... and are now accommodating their foreign policies with an absent (or nominal) U.S. presence. And our adversaries .... they are (naturally) taking advantage of this.