Speaking of literacy, this sentence is unintelligible. "You possibly couldnt google all unknowns then proofread policy papers."

Couldnt is mis-spelled. It is a contraction of could not, and requires an apostrophe: couldn't.

Truthfully, your whole comment needs editing.

do see an edit key, somewhere

It is funny when you look at the grammar level of these guys (and gals) and then look at their credentials. I know many, many people with much lower educations. Hearing these speeches makes it understandable that our leaders have no clue how to impress a girl or boy who is growing up looking to enter into politics. We need leaders who are articulate and understand the global landscape and can actually talk intelligently about other regions and cultures.

It is pretty embarrassing.

I think Poland began to feel abandoned in Bush's second term already, when the promised trade and investment deals promised in exchange for Polish support for the immoral invasion in Iraq, failed to materialize.

As for the other countries, most don't quite fit the argument. Obama isn't abandoning Iraq. He's being made to leave in accordance to a deal signed by the Iraqi government and Obama's predecessor.

I don't understand your attitudes towards Egypt and Syria. You criticize Obama for giving up on Mubarak but you apparently also oppose his lack of action in support of the Syrian protesters? Why is this? why do Syrian protesters deserve support and their Egyptians cousins, who were calling for the end of an inefficient, corrupt, olygarchic government, did not? Moreover, Syria isn't even a US ally. What is it doing on your list?

and that is that his FP stinks, despite the partisan medias attempt to prop it up.

I dont say he ought to have saved mubarak, I merely say that if he though mubarak had to go, if he thought qaddafi had to go, then he ought to have been more vocal about assad having to go. I only ever hear hillary sticking her neck out, never obie. differences betweenegypt and libya /syria? egypt under mubarak was never going to outright slaughter its own people, whereas in syria and libya they were.

Pwer poland and the czech repub, removing the missile shield per the russian request in return received NOTHING on iran. Wasn't obama's "new" gentler kinder more inculsive multilateral FP supposed to win over russia and china for just this kind of situation with iran? I dare say, obama got schooled by both the russians and chinese...they are not going to do a thing to help obama, no matter how flowery a speech obama gives...

As I have said, drones from las vegas are easy, sending in seals is easy andthe only thing to do in the bin laden case, so no, I dont give obama big credit there... but these are the things the media wants us to believe is making obama a FP guru...its simply not true.

his russia reset button was so full of crap, it was always laughable....china just laughs at obama and tells him to get lost. he has alienated real alllies and empowered real enemies. I honestly see nothing in his 3 yrs that says his FP is a success. All I see is silly PR to attempt to appease enemies by alienating allies. Why is there no peace process progress? obama and his ideology which he found support infrom the likes of zakaria, khalidi, said, wright, brzezhinski, malley, power, koh and walt. All of these talking heads share one agenda...alienate israel and win over islamic radicals....but it was a false notion from the beggining and the islamists merely looked at it and laughed behind obama's back. his announcement about closing gitmo within his first yr in office was a PR stunt of extreme amateur proportion. As if gitmo was ever the reason that terrorists do what they do. and for the record, because israel LEGITIMATELY EXISTS, but the islamists hate it none the less, does that then mean that america, the beacon of morality and freedom should conduct their FP based on what islamists want us to do? its ridiculous. The problem is not israel, never has been, the problem is the islamists and salafists. In case any of you dont remember or dont care to look into it, the PLO(palestine LIBERATION organization) was established in 1964! why is that date illuminating? there were no "occupied"territories in 1964 ....so what was the PLO established to LIBERATE in 1964? you see folks, all this talk of settlements and occupation and lobbies is all bunk...israel was legit in 1948, legit in history, and in 1967, was defending itself once more from an attempt to annihilate israel....israel won, the arabs lost. The land won inwar is not occupied, it is legally in dispute. Israel has offered to trade it back for full recognition and the arabs have always said no recognition of israel. There you have it. look at gaza...or south lebanon for that matter...land given back, in return for more terrorism.

when you liberals and anti's get your facts straight, maybe then a real discussion can be had. Do I support the settlers? no, I dont, HOWEVER, until the pals sit down to real discussions,the settlers will not be dealt with and the pals wont get their country. Israel has removed settlers before and will again, but this time not for empty promises. Obama has enabled complete obstruction on the part of abbas. He scolds bibi for what? bibi froze building for 10 months all while abbas sat on his hands...and obama said nothing. I call that a true lack of clarity and leadership. bibi called for 2 states for 2 peoples, abbas wont. bibi called for recognition of israel as a jewish state, abbas wont do it. obama says nothing. Bibi removed checkpoints, bibi worked with the PA to improve the economy in the wb, bibi eased the gaza blackade....and yet obama STILL treated his ally more like an enemy. and yet, even while bibi did all of this, abbas did nothing and obama said nothing, which only made the peace process that much more intractable.

on balance, obama's FP is all partisan PR hype and very little substance.

Values are what separate natural allies from mere allies of convenience. The former will be stronger and endure.

Can you please tell examples of alliances, enduring alliances, based on shared values alone? The US alliance with Saudi Arabia is quite an old one; it's in fact older than the one with Israel (initially Israel was a Soviet ally, then a French ally, and only by the late 60s it turned to a US ally). Seems to me that an enduring alliance is one based on enduring shared interests; thus, the US-Saudi managed to keep alive after so many decades because of the US perennial need for stable oil supply, and Saudi Arabia's need for support against domestic attempts to overthrow the Islamist monarchy. As for values-based alliances: they don't exist.

The US alliances with Canada and Australia are good examples, or between Australia and New Zealand. These English-speaking countries, all former colonies of Britain have similar cultures and values and so they are usually in agreement on most foreign policy issues. Its hard to think of a circumstance in which they would not be natural allies. When they do have disagreements they tend to be rather minor.

The US and Saudi Arabia on the other hand are obviously allies of convenience. The relationship with the Shah of Iran was similar, and that country switched in a heart-beat to a self-defined enemy of the US following a regime change.

Countries with shared values tend to have shared interests as well because the two are often intertwined. Even far-flung countries like Denmark and New Zealand at opposite ends of the globe take fairly similar stances in foreign policy because they have similar values.

Mubarak was an ally of convenience. Once his people started to rise up that alliance was no longer tenable, so we pushed for him to resign. And resign he did.