U.S. President Barack Obama talks with Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communication Rhodes and Senior Advisor Axelrod in the Oval Office (July 6, 2010).
Obama Administration Faces Defiance Abroad, As Foreign Policy Criticism Mounts At Home -- FOX News
America's effort to mediate conflict and effect change in some of the world's most troubled regions has been met lately with a startling response, in country after country -- defiance.
Iran stepped out of the latest round of talks on its nuclear program rejecting a key demand of negotiators and pledging to build two new power plants.
In Pakistan, the country just jailed -- potentially for the rest of his life -- the doctor who helped the CIA track Usama bin Laden. To boot, Pakistan also wants $5,000 for every truck that crosses a still-closed supply route into Afghanistan.
And in Syria, the establishment of a peace plan has been followed by weeks of bloodshed, with a massacre of at least 32 children being the latest tragic example.
The turmoil and the defiance are now fueling foreign policy criticism from President Obama's political adversaries.
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My Comment: It's easy to blame President Obama for this decline in foreign influence .... but while he has accelerated America's decline he is not the sole reason for it .... this took years (since the end of the Cold war) to develop and come about. For as long as I can remember the world was always ruled and influenced by two great super powers. Today .... one of these super powers are gone (Soviet Union) .... and the other (the U.S.) is mired in a financial/debt crisis that continues to get worse. Is there a vacuum on the world stage .... the answer is yes .... and most countries are now starting to realize that .... hence their independent and "I don't care what you think" altitude. When our own allies start to realize that that the "emperor has no clothes" .... this decline will then truly accelerate.