• His foreign policy rivals Jimmy Carter’s as a historic disaster. His precipitous, political and irrational pullout from Iraq created the space for Islamic State to flourish. His “red line” comment about chemical weapons in Syria, which was unwise in the first place, emboldened the dictator Bashar Assad when Mr. Obama did not back up his words. Attempting to “reset” relations with Russia has produced almost nothing of value: Vladimir Putin acts as if there are no repercussions for his aggressive and destabilizing actions, first in Crimea, then in Syria, and likely next in the NATO’s Baltic states. North Korea has a larger nuclear arsenal today than ever before. The Iran deal has been a laughable failure, as the regime has openly violated the agreement. And finally, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government considers the Obama administration as the most anti-Israel administration in U.S. history — and for good reason.
• Mr. Obama’s anti-terror policies have also failed, focused heavily on drones instead of intelligence collecting. For ideological reasons, he has consistently failed to recognize the threat of radical Islamic terrorism for what it plainly is. Intelligence officials regularly state the U.S. faces a greater threat from terrorism today than in the days before 9/11.
And this is a partial list. Despite winning a second term, his political legacy must be viewed harshly.
His left-wing policies and total failure to achieve bipartisan legislative outcomes forced down-ballot Democrats to bear all of the political risk.
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