Barack Obama has been a good leader on foreign policy.

A. Initial achievements 1. FP Team My opponent argues that Obama is a good leader in foreign policy because he has appointed decently good people, such as Clinton and Panetta. The problem with this is that this doesn’t prove why Obama is a good leader, but rather why his associates might be good leaders. To the contrary, I would say that any good from Obama’s foreign policy, such as the killing of Osama bin Laden, cannot be attributed to Obama’s foreign policy finesse but instead the finesse of those around him. Moreover, just because good people have been chosen does not mean that this argument links to the “successful manner” condition in the first observation. For example, Brzezinski, one of the most intelligent and accomplished IR theorists in the world, was Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor however that did not make Carter a good leader on foreign policy. Carter did not respond sufficiently at all to the Iranian crises, even though he had some of the greatest minds working on his team. 2. America's Image [1] Empirically and statistically my opponent is incorrect in asserting that the U.S. has fixed its tarnished image under Obama. According to this PEW research, the world on average has had a decreased positive view of the U.S. continuously over Obama’s past years in office. Even in areas of the world with usually favorable opinions like Israel, Kenya, and India there has been a decrease in favorability. As always however, areas like the Middle East has very low favorability ratings for the U.S. B. FP Challenges 1. WoT [2] [3] [4] My opponent makes the argument that Obama has been a good leader in the War on Terror, citing the killing of Osama bin Laden and other ranking officials such as Awlaki. First, Obama has not altered the War on Terror policy to counter the fairly new Al Qaeda strategy of “death by a thousand cuts.” Essentially this strategy, as evidenced by the recent attempted terror attacks and speeches by various Al Qaeda officials, is that Al Qaeda must simply continuously weaken the U.S. while just taking the hits of the U.S. for Al Qaeda even failed plots are successful since it forces the U.S. to use resources and capital to respond to various asymmetric and terrorist tactics. This strategy is potent since it slowly “bleeds” the U.S. economy with small and frequent terror attacks and is a war of atrophy on the American people. Obama has not changed his strategy to account for this strategy shift in Al Qaeda, even with his apparently strong group of advisors. Second, Obama has focused more on kill than capture. This is evidenced by the raid on Osama’s compound where the team killed instead of captured Osama. This is even further evidenced by the increased amount of drone strikes instead of special ops raids done on the Pakistan border and in Yemen. Killing is only part of the war on terror because the enemy is not simply a static nation state. Al Qaeda for instance is an entrenched transnational organization to ties to various countries throughout the world including Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Pakistan and Somalia. The organization exists with clandestine intelligence operations and interconnected cells. Whereas Bush focused on capturing terrorists and jihadists to get valuable information Obama is simply attempting to kill them off without regard for increased recruitment or the internal structure of Al Qaeda and its affiliates. Third, under Obama the amount of sanctuaries for Al Qaeda has increased not decreased. Al Qaeda, before Obama, was narrowly confined to the areas of Southern Afghanistan and Northern Pakistan, with independent cells in Saudi Arabia. Now under Obama there are sanctuaries in Yemen, Omar, Somalia, Mali and a stronger AQAP organization. The theaters of combat have been so defined within Afghanistan and Pakistan. Moreover, the Arab Spring has left openings in the democratic movements for Islamists such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the Islamist parties in Libya and the Syrian Free Army. 2. Af-Pak [5] The policy in Afghanistan was simply an extension of the Bush policies so I won’t be arguing against Afghanistan; however the Obama policies on Pakistan are atrocious and outweigh the gains made in Afghanistan. The Obama policy on Pakistan is one of appeasement and ignorance, despite the ISI relationship with groups like Al Qaeda. The Obama Adminsitration has failed to do anything of significance to make the Pakistanis alter their disjointed policy towards extremism. The gains in Afghanistan are admirable, but Pakistan is just becoming a new Afghanistan internally. Waldman's work was based off of numerous interviews with current and formers members of the Taliban. This interviewed work demonstrates clearly the relationship between the Pakistanis and the Afghani Taliban and Haqqani network. Waldman isolates numerous points of contention when evaluating the impact and extent of the relationship between the ISI and these groups. First, that the Taliban and the ISI are involved in a reciprocal relationship which has developed into a necessary synthesis of the two groups. The interviews indicate that to sustain the Afghani insurgency, the Afghani Taliban need and are dependent upon the Pakistanis for supplies, training and sanctuary. 3. Iraq [6] Unfortunately Obama cannot get credit for the success in Iraq since the success is due to rhe surge which mitigated almost all of the sectarian violence in the region. As such, with a decrease in violence the democratic government was able to form and transition with minimal violence. But moreover within Iraq the Obama Administration was seen more as a hindrance rather than a helper. FA writes, "Iraqi elites across the political spectrum felt that the Obama administration was focused more heavily on leaving Iraq than on supporting the country's attempt to build a democratic system of government.” 4. The Arab spring [7] My opponent tries to portray the Arab Spring as a success but where we did intervene and where we did not intervene is critical. We did not intervene in Iran during the Green Movement in the last elections despite the national security interest we have in Iran, we are not intervening in Syria which is the only ally Iran has in the region yet we intervened in Egypt where the Muslim Brotherhood has won elections and in Libya where we had no strategic interest and instead has created another potential sanctuary for terrorist groups. 5. Iran My opponent simply asserts that Obama has done the right thing in Iran with sanctions, but seeing as sanctions are not hindering Iran’s nuclear proliferation I do not see how Obama has been successful. I’ll let my opponent elucidate on this argument in his next speech. [1] http://tinyurl.com... [2] http://tinyurl.com... [3] http://tinyurl.com... [4] http://tinyurl.com... [5] Waldman. The Sun in the Sky:… [6] http://tinyurl.com... [7] http://tinyurl.com...