Trump juggles the foreign policy balls Obama dropped

"By the time Obama left office this January, America’s official words meant almost nothing. Take, for instance, Obama’s declaration in 2013 of a “red line” over the use of chemical weapons in Syria. That gave way to former Secretary of State John Kerry’s Lilliputian assurance that an American strike on Syria’s chemical weapons facilities would be “unbelievably small.' ”

The Hill  "The Trump administration is taking heat for striking a Syrian air base with Tomahawk missiles and hitting ISIS terrorists in Afghanistan with a MOAB, a conventional bomb so big that it has been dubbed the “Mother of All Bombs.” No doubt there are useful debates to be had about the pros and cons, both tactical and juridical. But one sure upside of these strikes is that they are a step toward restoring abroad the credibility of America as a power to be reckoned with. 

"That’s big, in ways that go way beyond the immediate battlefields. In a world grown dramatically more dangerous during President Obama’s eight years of appeasement and retreat, America badly and urgently needs to restore its lost credibility.

"It would be great if diplomats could protect America, its allies and its interests with words alone. But in matters involving aggressive tyrannies, words don’t mean much unless they are backed up by military muscle and the credible willingness to use force. When that threat goes missing, predators take notice." . . .

Fecklessness made manifest:

The rolling debacle in Syria has been just part of a ruinous global trajectory that began with Obama’s 2009 Russia “reset.” This included, in deference to Putin, America welshing on its promise of missile defense for Eastern Europe. When that became an issue in America’s 2012 presidential election campaign, Obama was caught on an open microphone promising Putin that after his reelection he’d have “more flexibility.”

Claudia Rosett is foreign-policy fellow with the Independent Women’s Forum, and blogs at PJMedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @CRosett.