US Foreign Policy-A New Intelligent Approach ? : Obama: "Being The Best Hammer Doesn't Mean Every Problem Is A Nail" - by Mark Lander

Not every Problem is a nail

President Obama on Wednesday May 28 tried to regain his statesman’s mantle, telling graduating cadets here that the nation they were being commissioned to serve would still lead the world and would not stumble into military misadventures overseas.

Speaking under leaden, chilly skies, Mr. Obama delivered the commencement address at the United States Military Academy.

“America must always lead on the world stage,” he said. “But U.S. military action cannot be the only – or even primary – component of our leadership in every instance. Just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail.”

Under pressure from critics who say the United States has been rudderless amid a cascade of crises, the president said that those who “suggest that America is in decline, or has seen its global leadership slip away – are either misreading history or engaged in partisan politics.”

A day after announcing that the last American soldier would leave Afghanistan at the end of 2016, the president told this latest class of Army officers that the United States faced a new, more diffuse threat in an arc of militancy stretching from the Middle East to the African Sahel.

Mr. Obama has been deeply frustrated by the criticism of his foreign policy, which during his first term was generally perceived as his strong suit. He has lashed out at critics, whom he accuses of reflexively calling for military action as the remedy for every crisis.

The overriding objective he said  is to avoid an error on the order of the Iraq war.

He brushed aside as reckless those who say the United States should consider enforcing a no-fly zone in Syria or supplying arms to Ukrainian troops.

In the speech, Mr. Obama described an array of priorities, ranging from the Iran nuclear negotiations to a new global climate change accord, which he said would occupy his final two-and-a-half years in office.

He also spoke of the need for the United States to look eastward to Asia, promoting his long efforts to negotiate a trans-Pacific trade agreement and pledging to defend American allies in the region in their territorial disputes with China in the South and East China Seas.

Note EU-Digest: Kudos to President Obama for at least showing the intention of his Administration to the world, in this major foreign policy speech at West Point, that the "gun-boat diplomacy" of the US is not acceptable anymore and has come to an end.   

Read more: ‘America Must Always Lead,’ Obama Tells West Point Graduates - NYTimes.com