And now for something completely different...

Moving away from our friendly, open-minded discussion about the merits and failings of past US Presidents, I wanted to touch on this topic:

Obama's foreign policy program and the means by which it is being used.

Obama promised to bring American foreign policy back to a level of involvement that it had lost sometime in the Bush Administration years. Presumably, this means that America would be seen as a partner in formative and developmental policy with nations looking to both strengthen ties with the US and build new ones with US allies and trade partners.

Further more, he promised to "re-build" ties that had been broken between nations that had fundamental differences with US actions and policies of the past. There needs to be no presumption here... he was specifically speaking of US relations with Iran, and he was referencing how his administration was going to rebuild those failed and broken relations with frank, open discussions and clear foreign policy goals that benefit both nations.

I am amazed at the lack of attention that this particular "broken promise" has gotten from the conservative members of government and the public.

Let's look at each half of this diplomatic promise and how it is failing utterly to "fix" what Obama perceived to be broken.

The House has just passed a resolution to condemn the killing of as many as 1.5 million ethnic Armenians by the Ottoman Turks as an act of calculated "genocide" early in the last century. This resolution is a pet-project of our Speaker of the House, Pelosi... she seems to feel that her time as Speaker depends on the outcome of this non-binding resolution focusing on crimes committed more than 100 years ago in a region 5,500 miles from our shores by a government that hasn't existed for more than 90 years.

The last time I checked, the US House of Representatives was NOT the branch of government responsible for planning and executing American foreign relations... that office is in the State Department Building, which is under the authority of the Executive Branch. As the Chief Executive of this nation, Obama has gone on record as saying he doesn't support the resolution... but has done nothing to stop Pelosi's campaign to pass it.

Two years ago, the Turkish government in Ankhara established, for the first time, diplomatic ties with the Republic of Armenia. Those ties, worked and nurtured carefully over the intervening 24 months, are literally inches from a formal peace accord and a lucrative trade agreement between the two historical rivals. With the final passage of the House bill out of the House and on to the Senate floor, Ankhara is furious and has voiced threats of "irreparable harm" to US/Turkish relations should the resolution proceed any further.

My point? How are we supposed to trust Obama/Clinton to build and develop meaningful relations with other nations when they can't even get the US House of Representatives to stop meddling in foreign affairs?

The next part of the promise was about renewed focus on rebuilding and strengthening ties with Iran. Both Clinton and Obama harped on Bush's policies towards Iran during the campaign, and since both are now working out of the Executive Branch, and both are ultimately responsible for US foreign relations until 2013, the intervening months bewteen now and Jan '09 should be rather telling in how that work has progressed.

No discernable change has been made concerning US influence on the development of a nuclear weapons program in Iran. No substantial sanctions against Iran for non-compliance with past UN resolutions have been implemented, despite repeated calls for such by the Clinton State Dept and the White House. No non-UN agreements have been reached between the US and other regional powers concerning Iran, either... despite long and expensive trips to Russia, France, Germany, the EU headquarters, India (a perpetual anti-Iran state, if ever there was one) or China.

In point of fact, the Obama policy towards Iran has become more and more like the Bush policies before him, with mild, very soft hints at "consequences" that could include military intervention should the need arise... and that only 18 months into the term. What can we expect after 2 years? Or four years?