Saturday, June 13, 2009

Foreign Policy Incompetence

I recently posted about the Obama administration's deal with Palau in which the island state agreed to take 17 Uighurs, formerly held at Guantanamo bay. By this action the U.S. threw away a chance to improve anti-terrorism cooperation with China, and instead angered the Chinese government -- all for no good reason. But the Obama administration wasn't content with that blunder. Instead of just annoying the Chinese, why not also attempt to damage relations with one of our closest allies?
A diplomatic row blew up over Bermuda's decision to accept the four Chinese Muslim Uighurs on a US request. 

Bermuda is a British overseas territory but the US official said Washington had acted secretly to ensure success.

Rather than worrying about U.S. interests, the Obama administration is so concerned with the Uighurs that it is willing to damage relations with the UK by going behind its back and negotiating a secret deal with an overseas territory of Britain. 

So let's recap. Instead of simply returning the Uighurs to China and improving U.S.-Chinese relations, the Obama administration has instead managed to anger China and Britain for nothing. Wouldn't it be nice if we had an administration that could competently execute foreign policy in the service of U.S. interests?

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