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More Bumps Ahead For the Administration Jalopy?

by PRESIDENTIAL POLICY: DOES IT MAKE THE GRADE?, JAMES JAY CARAFANO, PHD August 4, 2010

The President hit a bump in the road in pushing for ratification of New START, an arms control agreement that offers the Russians every advantage while hamstringing the ability of the US to built the global comprehensive anti-ballistic missile shield first envisioned by Ronald Reagan. Proponents of missile defense see the treaty as a big step backwards.  The administration had hoped to rush the treaty through, the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee slated treaty ratification for a vote this week, but it looks like that is not going to happen.  That could well mean that consideration of the treaty won’t happen until after the November elections at the earliest.
 
Meanwhile the administration looks like it dodged-a-bullet in the Gulf, with the well capped, the Coast Guard slowly getting recovery operations organized; and much of the oil in the Gulf having decomposed. There is still a lot of work to be done, but the administration is not likely to get much more heat for the shortfalls in how it handled the disaster response. That said it makes no sense that the administration has kept the moratorium on off-shore drilling place, the economic hit from suspending drilling is proving more destructive than the damage from the spill
 
Immigration was also in the news, not just because of the ruling of a federal judge on Arizona’s enforcement law, but also because of a memo from the Obama Department of Homeland Security proposing to implement a de facto amnesty by ignoring, circumventing, or manipulating existing federal statutes. The real tragedy is that as long as Obama continues his Lemming-like pursuit of amnesty our broken borders and flawed immigration system will never get fixed. The even greater tragedy is that there is a real, practical, compassionate, fair, and achievable way to fix what is broken. While there is no “easy button” for immigration, there is an honest plan that will solve the problem in a way that keeps the nation safe, free, and prosperous.
 
Finally, it was a tough week for Afghanistan policy, the end of the worst month of causalities for the US since the war started and the massive release of classified documents through Wikileaks. Unfortunately, the administration has done far too little to make the case to the American people that winning the war is vital to US interests. Heritage regional expert Lisa Curtis pointed out “It would be a mistake to give up on the war effort now, just as thousands of additional forces and civilian resources are pouring into the country and before the talented General Petraeus—who is largely responsible for turning the Iraq war around three years ago—is given a chance to succeed. Rather than taking the anti-war bait, Americans should support our dedicated troops in the field, focus on protecting vital U.S. national security interests, and avoid getting caught up in the current ‘Wikisteria.”
 
The ups and downs of the administration last week don’t tell us much other than it seems to be a White House running out of steam on issues that impact on foreign policy and national security. Increasingly many of its lofty goals for resetting with Russia; cooperating with China; negotiating Middle East Peace; dealing with Iran and North Korea; pushing through amnesty; and putting homeland security and disaster response issues on the backburner have little to show for them. Nor does the administration seem to have a “plan B” for regaining the initiative on these thorny issues. So this week the administration just gets another grade of “B” for being there.
 
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor James Jay Carafano, Ph.D., is a leading expert in defense affaires, intelligence, military operations and strategy, and homeland security at the Heritage Foundation.
 

James Carafano is a leading expert in defense affairs, intelligence, military operations and strategy, and homeland security at The Heritage Foundation. He was an Assistant Professor at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., and fleet professor at the U.S. Naval War College. Carafano is the author of several military history books and studies. Carafano also is the coauthor of Winning the Long War: Lessons from the Cold War for Defeating Terrorism and Preserving Freedom; coauthor of the text book, Homeland Security published by McGraw-Hill; and the principal author of Emergency Responders: Drastically Underfunded, Dangerously Unprepared. He has testified before the U.S. Congress and has provided commentary for ABC, BBC, CBS, CNBC, CNN, C-SPAN, Fox News, MSNBC, NBC, SkyNews, PBS, National Public Radio, the History Channel, Voice of America, Al Jazeera, Telemundo, Al Arabiya and Australian, Austrian, Canadian, French, Greek, Hong Kong, Irish, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish television. His editorials have appeared in newspapers nationwide including The Baltimore Sun, The Boston Globe, The New York Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, USA Today and The Washington Times. Carafano is a member of the National Academy's Board on Army Science and Technology, the Department of the Army Historical Advisory Committee, and is a Senior Fellow at the George Washington University's Homeland Security Policy Institute.

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