Barack Obama has been a good leader on foreign policy.

Foreign Policy Team This argument only matters if he proves that his team actually have good policies. Otherwise its like the Carter Administration. America’s Image First, prefer non-biased sources or agencies which have agendas of their own. Using the State Department as a source for foreign policy favorability is like using the White House’s poll numbers on the elections – it must be met with skepticism because there is an agenda at play. But to the substance. Second, the countries he lists have little to no impact on the United States in a strategic sense. If you reference the source I provided and look to the section dealing with Obama and international politics every country polled (over the past 3 years) have declined drastically in favorability. Third, in areas of strategic importance, which my opponent concedes in the last round there has been little net positive gain and lots of net negative losses in favorability. It doesn’t matter if Poland has a more favorable opinion because Poland doesn’t produce terrorists that target the West. What is important is countries which have animosity towards the U.S., like Pakistan, and countries which produce threats to the U.S. In this realm, Obama has done pretty much nothing. But, when evaluating this argument note that my opponent provides no impact or reason why the voters should care about America’s image abroad. War on Terror First, death by a thousand cuts strategy. My opponent’s first response is that there hasn’t been a terrorist attack on U.S. soil… 1) The Fort Hood shooter [linked Alwaki and AQAP] 2) The Time Square bomber 3) The Underwear Bomber 4) The ink cartridge plot 5) The Golden Gate Bridge plot And these are only a few and the famous ones I could name off the top of my head. Even still, there have been various other plots attempted but foiled on U.S. soil. Remember, the “death by a thousand cuts” strategy does not have to actually be successful to be successful. As indicated by the Ross evidence, failed terror plots still compel the system to react economically and strategically. For example, as indicated by the evidence the ink cartridge plot cost Al Qaeda around a few thousand dollars whereas the response to it cost in the millions and with a whole new set of regulations and administrative costs. His second response is that the U.S. can take the economic hit. This is true and false. With the debt skyrocketing to 14T and people looking to slash the government budget at some point defense will be put on the table in some regards, even supported among the libertarian wing of the Republican Party. The populist support for the War on Terror in Afghanistan and elsewhere has sharply declined which means Al Qaeda just has to wait and bleed us out till we give up and get tired. His only response to my capture not kill argument is that dead terrorists are dead. Besides being circular, that misses all the substance of my argument. As per my above explanation, killing is only a part of the equation in fighting the war on terror. Since cells operate clandestinely and with a formidable structure, information is vital. Simply killing a terrorist doesn’t fix the problem since recruitment exists (as I mentioned before) Obama has really done nothing except prolong the issues of terrorism. Capture strategy is preferable because methods can be used to extract information about the workings of Al Qaeda and other related organizations. My opponent argues against my sanctuary argument that it is a result of the War in Afghanistan which forced these groups to seek sanctuary elsewhere. This is true, but my argument is that Obama has done nothing to substantially rectify the issue. A possible solution would be to engage other nations at risk, such as Mali and the states surrounding Somalia, to engage in their own counter-terror operations. However this we have not done, not to mention make the issue worse with the Arab Spring (e.g. Libya and Egypt). Pakistan Conquering Pakistan is not really what I was arguing for, but rather geopolitical strategies can be employed to compel Pakistan’s cooperation. As indicated by the evidence, Pakistan is using terrorism as a political tool while at the same time taking U.S. aid and using it for other purposes. One solution is to switch aid to India which has geopolitical superiority in the region, which would make the advantage Pakistan has of terrorism an actual disadvantage for Pakistan. However, my opponent has yet to explain that Obama has done anything to change the strategy in the region in light of Pakistan’s cooperation with terrorism. His only argument is drones and the killing of Osama, which from a macro-level is insignificant in the region because the Haqqani Network (an ally of the ISI) harbors and defends Al Qaeda in the region. Unless we can deconstruct the root causes of protection of terrorism (i.e. state sponsorship) we will never be able to truly defeat terrorism in the region – killing terrorists only goes so far. Iraq [1] His argument does not refute my claim that the strategy which has mitigated most violence in Iraq was the surge. Obama cannot gain credit for this success since it wasn’t his policy, and even worse he opposed the surge in the first place. The Arab Spring [2] The Arab Spring has yet to play out, though one thing is certain, no radical Islamic party has yet achieved power in Libya or Egypt despite the fears of pundits. Is Con arguing that we should have crushed the Arab Spring? My opponent is incorrect that Islamists have yet to gain power: Egypt just elected the Muslim Brotherhood president. For Libya, he misses the argument presented by the evidence that the chaos in Libya has resulted in terror groups moving in creating sanctuaries. The evidence doesn’t claim they won elections in Libya, but rather are exploiting the transition. On the Green Revolution, he is just blatantly false and probably read his own source incorrectly. His source is quoted as: “But the bulk of the movement agrees less with the so-called leaders and more with the Islamic Republic's young third generation, who form 70 percent of the Iranian population and make up most of the demonstrators. The true leaders of this movement are students, women, human rights activists, and political activists who have little desire to work in a theocratic regime or in a government within the framework of the existing Constitution.” Thus, where it mattered we did not intervene, and instead have been fostering clandestine and sometimes outright (Egypt) Islamism. Iran His argument about Iran is counter-intuitive: he says military intervention will probably occur yet we need to waste time with diplomatic efforts. He misses the fact that the more time we waste the closer Iran gets to a nuclear weapon which would make military intervention much more dangerous and the risk of escalation more likely. [1] http://tinyurl.com... [2] http://tinyurl.com... I have enjoyed this debate :D