WELL SAID - AT 9:15 A.M. ET:  Excellent comment on American foreign policy in today's New York Post editorial:

But all indications are that foreign policy is being made directly -- and solely -- in the White House. And this president's foreign policy increasingly seems predicated on America's turning its back on its most reliable traditional allies.

Like Britain and Israel -- both of which have long been viewed as having a "special relationship" with Washington.

It's all well and good that Obama wants to cultivate the Third World and improve America's relations with countries in Asia, Latin America and the Muslim world.

But that can't be accomplished at the cost of turning Israel and the nations of Western Europe each into merely one among equals with the rest of the world.

During his campaign, Obama spoke of the need for increased diplomacy and of enlisting world public opinion behind US policies.

But when it comes to, say, confronting the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea, he'll need more than Cuba, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia at his side.

COMMENT:  And the president hasn't even begun to deal with countries like India, the world's largest democracy, which has moved closer to the U.S. in recent years.

There is a theory in politics that Americans don't care about foreign policy.  I've always rejected that.  I think enough people are interested to swing any election, if the argument is well made.  It's up to the Republicans to start making it.  The foreign policy of this administration is shallow, adolescent, and based on theories and wishes, rather than clear observation of real conditions.  It is dangerous, and thus far has not produced a single advance, except a broad smile from Hugo Chavez.

June 14, 2009