One of President Obama’s most crippling habits when it comes to foreign policy is his pretense that he can compartmentalize problems.
He imagines it makes sense to treat al Qaeda, ISIS and other terror groups as entirely separate threats; to negotiate over Iran’s nuclear-weapons program without reference to Tehran’s other criminal activities.
And by refusing to even admit there’s a big picture to see, he leaves himself playing whack-a-mole — and missing most of the moles.
For example, he’s pretty much ignoring the rise of terror groups in Africa. (The first lady tweeting #BringBackOurGirls doesn’t count as serious action, nor does sending a few FBI agents to help in the hunt.)
We’re not saying the United States should send troops everywhere, or even lethal military aid. But America will definitely pay a price someday if the likes of Boko Haram and al-Shabab don’t get stomped now.
Africa is already paying the price — most recently in last week’s al-Shabab attack on a Kenyan college, killing 147.
Meanwhile, the president’s effort to drive a nuclear bargain with Iran has back-burnered efforts to recover Americans being held hostage there.
Indeed, it often seems this administration doesn’t care about rescuing any citizen-hostages unless it helps release a Guantanamo Bay prisoner or two.
Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren, for one, isn’t having it. She was instrumental, for example, in bringing home Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, wrongly imprisoned in a Mexican jail for 214 days.
More recently, she brought decorated veteran and TV host Montel Williams on-air to highlight the plight of Amir Hekmati, a Marine veteran held in Iran.
Hekmati, Williams noted, has been tortured for 3½ years.
His first demand: Let the Red Cross in to check on the prisoner. “The Geneva Convention allows the Red Cross to come in and check a prisoner of war. [And Hekmati] is being held as a prisoner of war for what he did in Iraq,” Williams said. “I say, let’s make sure Iran holds up to at least the Geneva Convention.”
Held in the same prison is Saeed Abedino, a Christian pastor and another US citizen. Tehran also won’t release Bob Levinson, seized in 2007, and Jason Rezaian of The Washington Post.
It’s bad enough that Obama refuses to link the nuclear talks to Iran’s aggression from Syria to Yemen.
It’s unconscionable that he can’t at least request, as a gesture of good faith, that Tehran release the Americans it holds captive.
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