Republicans Target Obama's Foreign Policy

From the Los Angeles Times, "GOP Targets Obama's Foreign Policy":

As he embraces direct talks with Iran and weighs his strategy in Afghanistan, President Obama is facing a new political threat from Republicans: Be hawkish on foreign policy or risk letting your party be painted as weak in next year's midterm elections.

Top Republicans have adopted that line of attack in recent days, led by congressional leaders and at least two of the party's possible 2012 presidential contenders.

Their warnings to the president mark a shift in tone and tactics for a Republican Party that had been largely supportive of Obama administration policies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The GOP lost its long-held advantage as the party of national security when the public rejected the policies of former President George W. Bush in the 2006 and 2008 elections. But now, Republican strategists say that foreign policy could prove to be a potent weapon in 2010.

The Republican strategists are poring over Obama speeches, such as his June address to the Muslim world, that they can portray as apologies for American actions abroad.

Additionally, GOP strategists are homing in on Obama's recent policy shift on missile defense, in which the administration decided to cancel a radar installation in the Czech Republic and ground-based interceptors in Poland that had been proposed by Bush to protect Europe from Iranian long-range missiles. Obama wants to focus instead on combating short-range missiles that some intelligence officials say are a more likely threat.

Republicans are panning that shift as a unilateral concession to Russia, which viewed the Bush missile plan as a threat.

"The agenda is coming down the pike on national security, and Republicans are going to see an opportunity to regain the mantle," said Vin Weber, a former congressman from Minnesota who is advising the governor of that state, Tim Pawlenty, on a possible White House bid in 2012.

Well, it's not like it's going to be hard or anything.

I meant to post this earlier (and take five minutes and read the whol thing), from Pat in Shreveport: Caroline Glick's majesterial essay, "An Enfeebled Obama."

Cartoon Credit: Theo Spark.