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How bad is Obama’s foreign policy? Let’s count the ways

July 14, 2015
Staff

WRITER

Last night on Glenn’s program featured a segment titled ‘Enabling the Enemy’ that breaks down Obama’s horrific foreign policy mistakes. In many instances these mistakes are the exact same ones the Bush administration made. Obama promised a new era of foreign policy -- but has anything changed? Blaze head writer Dan Andros and head researcher Jason Buttrill break it down.

Dan: Hi, this is Dan Andros, head writer for The Glenn Beck Program, along with Jason Buttrill, who is former military intelligence and the chief researcher here at TheBlaze. Over the next couple days, we’re going to be going through explaining something that is really important. It’s just how badly America’s foreign policy has failed. Not surprisingly, the press hasn’t paid much attention to the details of this administration’s foreign policy and the results.

What we want to look at is the last twelve years here, because six of them have been under Bush, and now we’ve had six under Obama’s administration, and how much has changed really, because he promised a big change. Really not much has changed at all. In fact, I think it’s gotten worse. I think the argument we’re going to make here over the next couple days is that the administration is actually enabling the enemy instead of degrading and destroying them as they had promised.

That is quite a claim, and so we’re going to try to unpack that over here in the next few episodes of this. We’re going to start here, with the beginning of the Iraq war. This is obviously under Bush in 2003. Ever since then, there’s been a disturbing trend where Christians are fleeing Iraq in record numbers. Explain the history there, what’s happening, and why it matters.

Jason: Since after the Iraq war, since after the invasion, around 2003, there was around 1.5 million Christians in Iraq. Think about that. These are Christians that have survived multiple genocides, so there was around 1.5 million Christians there. These were Christians that have been there since the time of the apostles. When the apostles converted the Assyrians, the Assyrians were one of the most ancient peoples in the lands. After 2003, these Christians slowly started disappearing. From 1.5 million Christians, today there are 200,000 Christians left.

It’s insane, 1.3 million Christians have been wiped off the face of the earth, and it’s not just the people that are getting slaughtered, it’s national heritage sites. It’s the places that you’ve learned about in Sunday school, the tombs of Jonah, the tombs of Daniel. Those places have been destroyed. So, they’re not only trying to get rid of Christians, they’re trying to erase our history. They’re trying to not only make sure that we don’t go forward in the region, they’re trying to make sure that we never existed at all.

Dan: Okay, so the crazy thing is that ISIS which was founded in Iraq as Al Qaeda in Iraq, they just invaded Iraq from Syria as an outside invading force, which is well, how did that happen? You say the answer to how that came about is kind of crucial to explaining all of the foreign policy mistakes that we’re making right now. Can you explain that a little bit more?

Jason: Al Qaeda had always been an organization that was extremely brutal. We’ve seen that. We’ve see the multiple videos they did, but we never saw them go to what you see ISIS doing right now. You say why is that? Well, it’s not only us that are realizing that. Even Al Qaeda’s own imams are noticing that too. Imam Maqdisi, who is one of their most influential imams, he came out and called ISIS a deviant. Why is that?

ISIS created a political and geographic framework for the caliphate. They provided what Al Qaeda wanted to create, so why would Maqdisi come out and say that they’re a deviant? In 2003, this was one of our first mistakes after the Iraq war, which was probably the actual first mistake. What we’ll track now is in 2003, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, he disbanded the Iraqi military. What he should have done was he should have kept the Iraqi military in place.

Now, these are guys that were trained in the West, some of them. They went to Western schools. They were professionals. They were generals, they were officers in Saddam’s army. Not all of them were bad. Some of them were Christians even. Not all of them were bad guys. What they should’ve done is kept that infrastructure in place and handed them over to the new Iraqi government. They didn’t do that.

So, what were they doing? They were pissed. They didn’t have nothing to do, so what they did was they went to some of these jihadi organizations that were fighting American troops.

Dan: Because now you’ve got a whole legion of people who are not only pissed, don’t have a job anymore, they’ve got to get something to eat, they’re also loyal to Saddam, and they have no reason not to be loyal to Saddam now.

Jason: Exactly.

Dan: And more of an ax to grind.

Jason: Exactly. So, this landed a lot of them in prison camps, more specifically what you’ve probably heard about, Camp Bucca. Camp Bucca housed some of all of ISIS’s current members. Many of their high-ranking membership came from Camp Bucca. There were three specific guys. They met up with the young man named al-Baghdadi, who you know now is the current caliph.

Now, these three guys, these are older gentlemen. They were generals in Saddam’s intelligence apparatus. These were very intense, serious dudes, and if you think about nowadays, you see the brutality of ISIS, and it shocks us. People are forgetting that this was something that we had just saw about ten years ago from the Saddam regime. Their actions are the reason why the majority of us, of Americans, gave our consent and said yes, go in and stop them.

Dan: Right, because he gassed his own people.

Jason: Gases his own people. He would beat people to a pulp and have dogs finish it off and chew them up and kill them. Decapitations, it was crazy.

Dan: On par with how awful ISIS is.

Jason: Exactly, and that’s what we’re getting too. So, these three intelligence guys, they meet up with Baghdadi. They get out of prison. Baghdadi actually gets out first. He’s a nobody. Baghdadi is a nobody. He had no jihadi links whatsoever. He was known to be hanging out with some jihadi folks. That’s what got him arrested. He stayed in for a matter of months.

Dan: Right. That’s how he got out because they didn’t have any hard evidence that this guy was active on the battlefield.

Jason: Exactly. They couldn’t hold him, so he gets out. He gets out, he goes straight to Zarqawi, which is the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq. He goes and hangs out with him. Pretty soon these three intelligence guys, they get out, and they go link up with Zarqawi and Baghdadi.

Dan: Zarqawi was like enemy number one at the time. I remember when they had the picture cards out. They had the ace of spades and everything else. He was one of the top guys on there besides bin Laden at the time.

Jason: He was one of the top guys. He met bin Laden. That’s how you actually became a leader in a certain providence for Al Qaeda. You had to be vetted by the man. Osama bin Laden had to sign off on you. That’s the only way you could get into Al Qaeda. He signed off on Zarqawi. Zarqawi was legit.

Zarqawi dies in the US bombing raid. Somehow Baghdadi slips into his spot. He had never met Osama bin Laden. This was before Osama bin Laden was killed. This was around 2010-ish. He had never met him. He had no fighting experience.

Dan: He didn’t have the cred, but somehow he gets boosted up there. How does that happen?

Jason: A man that had nothing but two things, he had a PhD in Islamic studies, and he came from the correct tribe that Muhammad was descended from, the Quraysh tribe. At some point along this time, they split from Al Qaeda. They make a split. Baghdadi makes a huge public statement that he is no longer in support of Al Qaeda. A guy with no jihadi street cred whatsoever, he’s now in control of one of Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terror groups. How did that happen?

Dan: He would never have been approved for that by bin Laden.

Jason: Never would have been approved for that, and he had no approval for it because they eventually split, and now Al Qaeda is calling them a deviant. Why is that?

Dan: So, it kind of begs the question, who was recruiting who in that prison? Because the answer to it, if it goes the way we think it does, would lead us to believe that we’re actually still fighting Saddam Hussein’s loyalists and Saddam Hussein in Iraq in this battle against ISIS. It’s not just a rogue force that came out of nowhere. It’s born out of our own foreign policy mistakes, and it’s just the first in a whole series of them. We’ll pick up with more of those next time.

A nation unravels when its shared culture is the first thing to go

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Texas now hosts Quran-first academies, Sharia-compliant housing schemes, and rapidly multiplying mosques — all part of a movement building a self-contained society apart from the country around it.

It is time to talk honestly about what is happening inside America’s rapidly growing Muslim communities. In city after city, large pockets of newcomers are choosing to build insulated enclaves rather than enter the broader American culture.

That trend is accelerating, and the longer we ignore it, the harder it becomes to address.

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world.

America has always welcomed people of every faith and people from every corner of the world, but the deal has never changed: You come here and you join the American family. You are free to honor your traditions, keep your faith, but you must embrace the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. You melt into the shared culture that allows all of us to live side by side.

Across the country, this bargain is being rejected by Islamist communities that insist on building a parallel society with its own rules, its own boundaries, and its own vision for how life should be lived.

Texas illustrates the trend. The state now has roughly 330 mosques. At least 48 of them were built in just the last 24 months. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex alone has around 200 Islamic centers. Houston has another hundred or so. Many of these communities have no interest in blending into American life.

This is not the same as past waves of immigration. Irish, Italian, Korean, Mexican, and every other group arrived with pride in their heritage. Still, they also raised American flags and wanted their children to be part of the country’s future. They became doctors, small-business owners, teachers, and soldiers. They wanted to be Americans.

What we are watching now is not the melting pot. It is isolation by design.

Parallel societies do not end well

More than 300 fundamentalist Islamic schools now operate full-time across the country. Many use Quran-first curricula that require students to spend hours memorizing religious texts before they ever reach math or science. In Dallas, Brighter Horizons Academy enrolls more than 1,700 students and draws federal support while operating on a social model that keeps children culturally isolated.

Then there is the Epic City project in Collin and Hunt counties — 402 acres originally designated only for Muslim buyers, with Sharia-compliant financing and a mega-mosque at the center. After public outcry and state investigations, the developers renamed it “The Meadows,” but a new sign does not erase the original intent. It is not a neighborhood. It is a parallel society.

Americans should not hesitate to say that parallel societies are dangerous. Europe tried this experiment, and the results could not be clearer. In Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, entire neighborhoods now operate under their own cultural rules, some openly hostile to Western norms. When citizens speak up, they are branded bigots for asserting a basic right: the ability to live safely in their own communities.

A crisis of confidence

While this separation widens, another crisis is unfolding at home. A recent Gallup survey shows that about 40% of American women ages 18 to 39 would leave the country permanently if given the chance. Nearly half of a rising generation — daughters, sisters, soon-to-be mothers — no longer believe this nation is worth building a future in.

And who shapes the worldview of young boys? Their mothers. If a mother no longer believes America is home, why would her child grow up ready to defend it?

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world. If we lose confidence in our own national identity at the same time that we allow separatist enclaves to spread unchecked, the outcome is predictable. Europe is already showing us what comes next: cultural fracture, political radicalization, and the slow death of national unity.

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

Stand up and tell the truth

America welcomes Muslims. America defends their right to worship freely. A Muslim who loves the Constitution, respects the rule of law, and wants to raise a family in peace is more than welcome in America.

But an Islamist movement that rejects assimilation, builds enclaves governed by its own religious framework, and treats American law as optional is not simply another participant in our melting pot. It is a direct challenge to it. If we refuse to call this problem out out of fear of being called names, we will bear the consequences.

Europe is already feeling those consequences — rising conflict and a political class too paralyzed to admit the obvious. When people feel their culture, safety, and freedoms slipping away, they will follow anyone who promises to defend them. History has shown that over and over again.

Stand up. Speak plainly. Be unafraid. You can practice any faith in this country, but the supremacy of the Constitution and the Judeo-Christian moral framework that shaped it is non-negotiable. It is what guarantees your freedom in the first place.

If you come here and honor that foundation, welcome. If you come here to undermine it, you do not belong here.

Wake up to what is unfolding before the consequences arrive. Because when a nation refuses to say what is true, the truth eventually forces its way in — and by then, it is always too late.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Shocking: Chart-topping ‘singer’ has no soul at all

VCG / Contributor | Getty Images

A machine can imitate heartbreak well enough to top the charts, but it cannot carry grief, choose courage, or hear the whisper that calls human beings to something higher.

The No. 1 country song in America right now was not written in Nashville or Texas or even L.A. It came from code. “Walk My Walk,” the AI-generated single by the AI artist Breaking Rust, hit the top spot on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart, and if you listen to it without knowing that fact, you would swear a real singer lived the pain he is describing.

Except there is no “he.” There is no lived experience. There is no soul behind the voice dominating the country music charts.

If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

I will admit it: I enjoy some AI music. Some of it is very good. And that leaves us with a question that is no longer science fiction. If a machine can fake being human this well, what does it mean to be human?

A new world of artificial experience

This is not just about one song. We are walking straight into a technological moment that will reshape everyday life.

Elon Musk said recently that we may not even have phones in five years. Instead, we will carry a small device that listens, anticipates, and creates — a personal AI agent that knows what we want to hear before we ask. It will make the music, the news, the podcasts, the stories. We already live in digital bubbles. Soon, those bubbles might become our own private worlds.

If an algorithm can write a hit country song about hardship and perseverance without a shred of actual experience, then the deeper question becomes unavoidable: If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

What machines can never do

A machine can produce, and soon it may produce better than we can. It can calculate faster than any human mind. It can rearrange the notes and words of a thousand human songs into something that sounds real enough to fool millions.

But it cannot care. It cannot love. It cannot choose right and wrong. It cannot forgive because it cannot be hurt. It cannot stand between a child and danger. It cannot walk through sorrow.

A machine can imitate the sound of suffering. It cannot suffer.

The difference is the soul. The divine spark. The thing God breathed into man that no code will ever have. Only humans can take pain and let it grow into compassion. Only humans can take fear and turn it into courage. Only humans can rebuild their lives after losing everything. Only humans hear the whisper inside, the divine voice that says, “Live for something greater.”

We are building artificial minds. We are not building artificial life.

Questions that define us

And as these artificial minds grow sharper, as their tools become more convincing, the right response is not panic. It is to ask the oldest and most important questions.

Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of freedom? What is worth defending? What is worth sacrificing for?

That answer is not found in a lab or a server rack. It is found in that mysterious place inside each of us where reason meets faith, where suffering becomes wisdom, where God reminds us we are more than flesh and more than thought. We are not accidents. We are not circuits. We are not replaceable.

Europa Press News / Contributor | Getty Images

The miracle machines can never copy

Being human is not about what we can produce. Machines will outproduce us. That is not the question. Being human is about what we can choose. We can choose to love even when it costs us something. We can choose to sacrifice when it is not easy. We can choose to tell the truth when the world rewards lies. We can choose to stand when everyone else bows. We can create because something inside us will not rest until we do.

An AI content generator can borrow our melodies, echo our stories, and dress itself up like a human soul, but it cannot carry grief across a lifetime. It cannot forgive an enemy. It cannot experience wonder. It cannot look at a broken world and say, “I am going to build again.”

The age of machines is rising. And if we do not know who we are, we will shrink. But if we use this moment to remember what makes us human, it will help us to become better, because the one thing no algorithm will ever recreate is the miracle that we exist at all — the miracle of the human soul.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Shocking shift: America’s youth lured by the “Socialism trap”

Jeremy Weine / Stringer | Getty Images

A generation that’s lost faith in capitalism is turning to the oldest lie on earth: equality through control.

Something is breaking in America’s young people. You can feel it in every headline, every grocery bill, every young voice quietly asking if the American dream still means anything at all.

For many, the promise of America — work hard, build something that lasts, and give the next generation a better start — feels like it no longer exists. Home ownership and stability have become luxuries for a fortunate few.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them.

In that vacuum of hope, a new promise has begun to rise — one that sounds compassionate, equal, and fair. The promise of socialism.

The appeal of a broken dream

When the American dream becomes a checklist of things few can afford — a home, a car, two children, even a little peace — disappointment quickly turns to resentment. The average first-time homebuyer is now 40 years old. Debt lasts longer than marriages. The cost of living rises faster than opportunity.

For a generation that has never seen the system truly work, capitalism feels like a rigged game built to protect those already at the top.

That is where socialism finds its audience. It presents itself as fairness for the forgotten and justice for the disillusioned. It speaks softly at first, offering equality, compassion, and control disguised as care.

We are seeing that illusion play out now in New York City, where Zohran Mamdani — an open socialist — has won a major political victory. The same ideology that once hid behind euphemisms now campaigns openly throughout America’s once-great cities. And for many who feel left behind, it sounds like salvation.

But what socialism calls fairness is submission dressed as virtue. What it calls order is obedience. Once the system begins to replace personal responsibility with collective dependence, the erosion of liberty is only a matter of time.

The bridge that never ends

Socialism is not a destination; it is a bridge. Karl Marx described it as the necessary transition to communism — the scaffolding that builds the total state. Under socialism, people are taught to obey. Under communism, they forget that any other options exist.

History tells the story clearly. Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba — each promised equality and delivered misery. One hundred million lives were lost, not because socialism failed, but because it succeeded at what it was designed to do: make the state supreme and the individual expendable.

Today’s advocates insist their version will be different — democratic, modern, and kind. They often cite Sweden as an example, but Sweden’s prosperity was never born of socialism. It grew out of capitalism, self-reliance, and a shared moral culture. Now that system is cracking under the weight of bureaucracy and division.

ANGELA WEISS / Contributor | Getty Images

The real issue is not economic but moral. Socialism begins with a lie about human nature — that people exist for the collective and that the collective knows better than the individual.

This lie is contrary to the truths on which America was founded — that rights come not from government’s authority, but from God’s. Once government replaces that authority, compassion becomes control, and freedom becomes permission.

What young America deserves

Young Americans have many reasons to be frustrated. They were told to study, work hard, and follow the rules — and many did, only to find the goalposts moved again and again. But tearing down the entire house does not make it fairer; it only leaves everyone standing in the rubble.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them. The answer is not revolution but renewal — moral, cultural, and spiritual.

It means restoring honesty to markets, integrity to government, and faith to the heart of our nation. A people who forsake God will always turn to government for salvation, and that road always ends in dependency and decay.

Freedom demands something of us. It requires faith, discipline, and courage. It expects citizens to govern themselves before others govern them. That is the truth this generation deserves to hear again — that liberty is not a gift from the state but a calling from God.

Socialism always begins with promises and ends with permission. It tells you what to drive, what to say, what to believe, all in the name of fairness. But real fairness is not everyone sharing the same chains — it is everyone having the same chance.

The American dream was never about guarantees. It was about the right to try, to fail, and try again. That freedom built the most prosperous nation in history, and it can do so again if we remember that liberty is not a handout but a duty.

Socialism does not offer salvation. It requires subservience.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Rage isn’t conservatism — THIS is what true patriots stand for

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

Conservatism is not about rage or nostalgia. It’s about moral clarity, national renewal, and guarding the principles that built America’s freedom.

Our movement is at a crossroads, and the question before us is simple: What does it mean to be a conservative in America today?

For years, we have been told what we are against — against the left, against wokeism, against decline. But opposition alone does not define a movement, and it certainly does not define a moral vision.

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

The media, as usual, are eager to supply their own answer. The New York Times recently suggested that Nick Fuentes represents the “future” of conservatism. That’s nonsense — a distortion of both truth and tradition. Fuentes and those like him do not represent American conservatism. They represent its counterfeit.

Real conservatism is not rage. It is reverence. It does not treat the past as a museum, but as a teacher. America’s founders asked us to preserve their principles and improve upon their practice. That means understanding what we are conserving — a living covenant, not a relic.

Conservatism as stewardship

In 2025, conservatism means stewardship — of a nation, a culture, and a moral inheritance too precious to abandon. To conserve is not to freeze history. It is to stand guard over what is essential. We are custodians of an experiment in liberty that rests on the belief that rights come not from kings or Congress, but from the Creator.

That belief built this country. It will be what saves it. The Constitution is a covenant between generations. Conservatism is the duty to keep that covenant alive — to preserve what works, correct what fails, and pass on both wisdom and freedom to those who come next.

Economics, culture, and morality are inseparable. Debt is not only fiscal; it is moral. Spending what belongs to the unborn is theft. Dependence is not compassion; it is weakness parading as virtue. A society that trades responsibility for comfort teaches citizens how to live as slaves.

Freedom without virtue is not freedom; it is chaos. A culture that mocks faith cannot defend liberty, and a nation that rejects truth cannot sustain justice. Conservatism must again become the moral compass of a disoriented people, reminding America that liberty survives only when anchored to virtue.

Rebuilding what is broken

We cannot define ourselves by what we oppose. We must build families, communities, and institutions that endure. Government is broken because education is broken, and education is broken because we abandoned the formation of the mind and the soul. The work ahead is competence, not cynicism.

Conservatives should embrace innovation and technology while rejecting the chaos of Silicon Valley. Progress must not come at the expense of principle. Technology must strengthen people, not replace them. Artificial intelligence should remain a servant, never a master. The true strength of a nation is not measured by data or bureaucracy, but by the quiet webs of family, faith, and service that hold communities together. When Washington falters — and it will — those neighborhoods must stand.

Eric Lee / Stringer | Getty Images

This is the real work of conservatism: to conserve what is good and true and to reform what has decayed. It is not about slogans; it is about stewardship — the patient labor of building a civilization that remembers what it stands for.

A creed for the rising generation

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

For the rising generation, conservatism cannot be nostalgia. It must be more than a memory of 9/11 or admiration for a Reagan era they never lived through. Many young Americans did not experience those moments — and they should not have to in order to grasp the lessons they taught and the truths they embodied. The next chapter is not about preserving relics but renewing purpose. It must speak to conviction, not cynicism; to moral clarity, not despair.

Young people are searching for meaning in a culture that mocks truth and empties life of purpose. Conservatism should be the moral compass that reminds them freedom is responsibility and that faith, family, and moral courage remain the surest rebellions against hopelessness.

To be a conservative in 2025 is to defend the enduring principles of American liberty while stewarding the culture, the economy, and the spirit of a free people. It is to stand for truth when truth is unfashionable and to guard moral order when the world celebrates chaos.

We are not merely holding the torch. We are relighting it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.