Foreign Policy Preview?

From Powerline:

And he isn't even elected yet! Barack Obama says that he wants to "improve America's standing abroad," by which he means suck up to the Europeans. But in every tangible way, the policies he advocates will damage relations with allies and lead to diminished American influence. Nowhere is this more evident than with respect to trade.

Obama's perverse opposition to expanding export opportunities to Colombia is well documented. His pledge to tear up NAFTA, too, is already having unintended consequences, as the Wall Street Journal reports:

Barack Obama's promise to unilaterally rewrite the North American Free Trade Agreement if Canada and Mexico won't go along with his ideas on labor and the environment has not gone unnoticed in Ottawa. If Canadians are going to have a tougher time selling their goods and services south of the border, who can blame them for looking east -- across the Atlantic to Europe.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France signed an agreement Friday to begin negotiations for a free trade pact between Canada and the European Union. A Canada-EU study released last week outlines the joint economic benefits of such a partnership, with two-way trade estimated to increase 22.9% by 2014.

The proposed partnership goes a lot further than Nafta. In addition to allowing free trade in goods and services, it would harmonize regulations, open up the air-travel market, and boost opportunities in government-procurement. Most important, it would free the labor market so that skilled workers could move easily back and forth across the Atlantic. ...

At a news conference on Friday, Mr. Harper said, "We must stand against protectionism and work to lower and eliminate barriers."

Under an Obama administration, the United States will be more protectionist than Europe. That's a recipe for economic decline. As with so many of Obama's policies, however, the full extent of the damage will not be evident until long after he leaves office.

Not only is Obama already aggravating our allies (and, don't forget, he's also pledged to attack another nuclear-armed ally, Pakistan), but his VP Joe Biden has essentially promised trouble soon after the election. From Little Green Footballs:

What an interesting admission from Joe Biden, who states pretty clearly that Barack Obama’s youth and lack of experience will lead to “an international crisis.”

“Mark my words,” the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. “It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”

“I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate,” Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. “And he’s gonna need help. And the kind of help he’s gonna need is, he’s gonna need you - not financially to help him - we’re gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right.”

Wow, this is an amazing statement, even for Joe 'Gaffe Machine' Biden. He's saying that Obama's lack of experience and ability will invite attacks, and that we're all just supposed to have faith in the Obamessiah to protect us by his sheer willpower, even though no one else thinks he has a clue what he's doing. That's pretty inspiring, don't you think?

Here's another interesting bit of information that seems to tie in. Gateway Pundit has this:

Obama advisor Michael Schiffer told reporters that Obama's first step after the election will be to pull troops from Iraq. Schiffer then went on to misrepresent the conditions on the ground in Iraq. Iraqi News Aswat Al-Iraq reported:

Micheal Schiffer, adviser to U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, said that the first step to be taken in case Obama wins elections is to withdraw troops from Iraq.

In an article published in The Des Moines Register newspaper, Schiffer said “that war has become an indefinite occupation with no clear strategy for success. Worse, the diversion of resources and strategic focus to Iraq has meant lost ground in Afghanistan.

“As president, Obama will lead the United States and its allies to victory against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan - the real central front in the war on terrorism. He will start by directing the Joint Chiefs to plan for and execute a responsible redeployment of American combat forces from Iraq,” he said.

“For six years, our troops in Iraq have done everything we’ve asked. They’ve succeeded against terrible odds to reduce violence in Iraq, in particular by deploying new counterinsurgency methods and by brokering partnerships with local leaders,” he noted.

“That success demonstrates, however, that military force alone cannot produce the political settlements needed to end their civil war. The Iraqis must act to create their own peace,” he also said.

It is so sad that because of the corrupt state of the media today that most Americans still do not understand that we are winning in Iraq and that there have been significant improvements in all areas of Iraqi society since the 2007 Bush surge.

In other news from the former quagmire-- A recent survey conducted showed that Iraqi voters currently prefer secular parties rather than religious parties.

I guess this tells us what form that initial test is going to be: Obama will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in Iraq, which will leave the fledgling Iraqi government powerless to resist Iranian and other radical Islamic influences without U.S. military power, thus plunging the Middle East into another regional crisis.

So, if we elect Obama, his people are promising us that he'll alienate our allies, invite attacks from our enemies because of his lack of qualifications to lead us, and he'll ruin the current victory-in-progress. And this is the change we're supposed to be hoping for?!

Can it get any better than this vision of an Obama presidency? What more reason could we ever hope for to vote in his favor...?

There's my two cents.