Obama's Foreign Policy: End of the Honeymoon

I have an op-ed this week in the papers of the GPD (in Dutch, Nederlands Dagblad today) about how Obama's ideas about America's relationship with the outside world ("engagement" and such) are running into the realities of that world. Iran is the best example, but we'll also have to see whether the president will be able to move Israel's government in the direction it wants it to go. In Iraq (withdrawal from towns and cities) the administration is sticking with the agreed-upon game plan, but even though that whole thing was someone else's idea and Obama was opposed to it from the start, if things go wrong it will still be his responsibility (nicely ambiguous term, allowing for the author to mean: his fault, his problem, or both--not advisable for use by students). Not that Obama's new foreign policy emphasis is a failure already. It's more that the rubber (vision) was going to hit the road (real world) at some point, and now things are the way they always are: difficult but not hopeless. Another reason why things aren't hopeless (the word really is inappropriate) is that the goodwill Obama has been able to create around the world through his speeches (Prague, Cairo), his ban on torture, and his planned closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention center is real and is likely to help his diplomacy down the line. Read all about it!