Saturday, April 28, 2012

Limited success - the MSM's new euphemism for failure: "Limited success for Obama's Russia, China approach"

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's "pivot" to China's neighborhood and the "reset" in relations with Russia have produced limited results for signature foreign policy initiatives designed to improved America's standing with its former Cold War rivals.

Obama has succeeded in increasing cooperation with Moscow on nuclear arms reduction and shoring up U.S. partnerships in Asia to counter expanding Chinese power. But on other questions crucial to U.S. interests, those countries have proved stubbornly unyielding.

From nuclear-armed North Korea to potentially nuclear-armed Iran, the Obama administration has won only lip-service pronouncements of agreement on the endgames, but little more. U.S. officials say Russia and China supported new penalties on Iran and fresh condemnations, but previous administrations had similar records.

China and Russia have blocked Obama's attempts to get the United Nations to take significant action against Syria's government and ignored U.S. warnings that they will end up on the wrong side of history.

The overtures have left Obama vulnerable to charges that he is being naive or too accommodating to both China and Russia.

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