In less than two weeks, President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney will square off in the first of a series of presidential debates that will include foreign policy. But who should they be drawing their inspiration from? And whose examples should they be avoiding?
Global Public Square asked a group of historians and commentators for their take on the most successful and least successful U.S. presidents, from a foreign policy point of view. Here, we feature their picks of the best, and on Friday, we'll highlight those considered the least successful. (All views expressed here are, of course, the writers' own.) Agree or disagree? Share your thoughts in the comments.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
Bruce Jentleson is professor of Public Policy and Political Science at Duke University and the author, among other works, of "American Foreign Policy: The Dynamics of Choice in the 21st Century."
His take: Both for his leadership turning one of our country’s moments of greatest vulnerability into the triumph of World War II, and for the vision to begin building the postwar peace, Franklin D. Roosevelt deserves the highest ranking. Congressional isolationists had blocked most of FDR’s efforts to start mobilizing the American industrial base and preparing the American people for the war. We would have had our work cut out for us even if the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor hadn’t crippled the Navy. FDR’s fireside chats provided a mix of reassurance and call to action. From only 175,000 troops, enlistments and the draft brought the military to 8.5 million. Government and industry worked together. American families did their share buying war bonds and growing “victory gardens” – including my then-14 year-old Mom who still had her official thank you letter for her Scranton, Pennsylvania plot of lettuce and tomatoes when she died more than 60 years later. And even before the war was over, he began laying the groundwork for a postwar order: the Bretton Woods open international economic system, the United Nations, diplomacy with the Soviet Union to at least try and avoid what later became the Cold War.
More: The current candidates' global challenges
James Lee Ray is director of undergraduate studies at Vanderbilt University.
His take: Franklin Delano Roosevelt is hard choice to avoid as most successful foreign policy president. He faced the greatest, most serious challenges, and he dealt with them successfully.
He managed to make important contributions to the anti-fascist effort even when faced with overwhelming isolationist opposition before 1941. (Lend-Lease, for example.) Japan attacked in 1941, and then Hitler declared war almost immediately. That declaration made it possible for him to focus on Europe first. His planning for the attack across the English Channel took a very long time. Meanwhile, the Nazis and Communists were killing each other by the millions. The difficulties faced by the Allies even in 1944 when the cross-channel attack was launched suggest that an earlier attack might have been premature and unsuccessful.
Holding together the Allied coalition was difficult. Adopting the policy of “unconditional surrender” was probably a key to doing so. He did put too much faith, at Yalta, in his ability to deal with Stalin after the war. He didn’t count on being dead when the time came. But it is unlikely that any policies would have prevented the Soviet Union from taking over in Eastern Europe, or the Cold War.
Andrew Bacevich is a professor of international relations at Boston University and a retired career officer in the U.S. Army.
His take: The measure of merit: A successful statesman enhances the wealth, power, and influence of the state; the unsuccessful statesmen depletes those assets.
Based on those criteria, Franklin D. Roosevelt ranks as our most successful foreign policy president. Thanks to FDR’s skillful management of World War II, the United States by 1945 had become the richest and strongest country in the world. Americans were the sole beneficiaries of the cataclysm touched off by Hitler’s invasion of Poland in September 1939. By the time the smoke cleared, the ranks of Great Powers had been reduced to two and in every way that counted, the United States enjoyed vast advantages over its only conceivable rival, the Soviet Union.
James M. Lindsay is the senior vice president and director of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
His take: In the spirit of the bipartisanship that Americans long for in their foreign policy but typically don’t see, two presidents rate as most successful in foreign policy: Franklin D. Roosevelt and George H.W. Bush. With the destroyer-for-bases-deal, the Lend Lease Act, and other actions, FDR secured critical support for Britain during its darkest hours and against intense isolationist head winds at home. He then led the country to victory in World War II and oversaw the creation of the bedrock international institutions of the modern world: the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank.
More: Next president faces a dangerous world
GEORGE H.W. BUSH
Thomas Schwartz is professor of history at Vanderbilt University.
His take: Two very different presidents who come to mind almost immediately are Harry Truman and Richard Nixon. Truman’s presidency laid the basis for the successful policy of containing the Soviet Union and built such important foreign policy institutions as NATO, through which American policy was exercised throughout the Cold War. He presided over the reintegration of Germany and Japan into the American led system of alliances. Truman did fight an unpopular war in Korea and fire a popular general, but his decisions have largely been vindicated by history even though they made him extremely unpopular as he left office. The other president is Richard Nixon, who with the help of Henry Kissinger reversed America’s decades-long estrangement from China and dramatically improved relations with the Soviet Union, playing the two communist giants off against each other. Although Nixon’s policy of ending the war in Vietnam was controversial, it was ultimately approved by the American people, who gave him one of the largest landslides in American history. But the collapse of his presidency over Watergate keeps his presidency from being seen as a success.
But the president I would select as the most successful post-1945 president in foreign policy is George Herbert Walker Bush. Bush came into the presidency during the tumultuous year of 1989, which saw the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, and most importantly, the reunification of Germany. Not only did he manage these changes with an intelligence and modesty that facilitated America’s goals, he also worked quietly behind the scenes with his Soviet counterpart Mikhail Gorbachev to minimize any violence and bloodshed. At the same time, Bush engineered an extraordinarily effective international coalition to oust Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. He was a president who both recognized the potential strength of the United States, but also the limits of its power.
James Lee Ray:
His take: George H. W. Bush is surely the most highly qualified foreign policy president in the history of the country. He had been a Congressman, head of the CIA, ambassador to the United Nations, envoy to China and vice president of the United States for eight years by the time he became president.
And that experience seemed to pay off. He did launch a gratuitous attack on Panama in 1989. But then he put together the greatest, most powerful coalition ever (compared to its enemy), to push Iraq (and its million man army) out of Kuwait in 1991. He avoided the temptation to go into Baghdad. (Had he not, the hardline Communist coup in the Soviet Union in August of 1991 would have succeeded.)
Bush faced a situation in Germany after the end of the Cold War whose potential for disaster is also still under-appreciated. The Soviet Union still had 300,000 troops in East Germany. It did not want to see Germany united, and it considered a united Germany as a member of NATO totally out of the question. But President Bush managed to pull that off anyway, without creating a very messy crisis in the middle of Europe, with a desperate Soviet Union in its death throes.
James M. Lindsay:
His take: George H. W. Bush did not enjoy the FDR’s electoral success. But during his one term he successfully handled some of the stiffest foreign policy challenges of the last half century. He helped manage the peaceful collapse of the Soviet Union and pushed for the reunification of Germany against the advice of close U.S. allies. He also liberated Kuwait and resisted calls to send the U.S. military onward to Baghdad. No, the elder Bush never figured out what the “new world order” would look like. But then again, neither have his three successors.
RONALD REAGAN
Danielle Pletka is Vice President of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
Her take: Measuring the relative success of American presidents in foreign policy is an almost impossible task. Even narrowing the task to the 20th and 21st centuries demands almost ridiculous comparisons. What are the metrics? Lives lost? Lives saved? American interests served? But which ones? Many might argue that Franklin Roosevelt was one of our nation’s greatest foreign policy leaders, ushering in the era of American global leadership, ridding the world of a vile dictator. But World War II was also a tale of missed opportunity; of lives lost because the United States would not act. Can any war that ends with the death of six million Jews be considered a “success”?
Then too, there are contests, many partisan, for the title of worst foreign policy president. Was it Lyndon Johnson, who failed to successfully prosecute the Vietnam War and sacrificed tens of thousands of American lives only to see us leave a few short years later? Was it George W. Bush, scourge of liberals for beginning the Iraq War, a conflict supported by the United States Congress but long and complex in its undertaking? Or Jimmy Carter, for whom ideology was paramount, therefore allowing the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Islamist takeover of Iran?
There are no serious answers to the question because American leadership doesn’t lend itself to a neat, nonpartisan dissection of our presidents. Different Americans want different things for our country, and even those Americans aren’t divided into neat partisan lines. There are Republicans and Democrats for retreat; conservatives and liberals for internationalism.
Still, two men vie for the title of best and worst, though each has many competitors. Each governed at a seminal moment, and saw the United States through a crossroads, determining a path that would govern our future for many years.
Ronald Reagan had a vision for America in the world. Importantly, his ambitions for America’s role on the world stage were not shaped by our enemies, but rather shaped by his own view of American exceptionalism. Reagan hastened the end of the defining battle of the 20th century, the fight between those who believed in freedom and those who embraced communism. True, there were bad choices of allies (Pinochet, Savimbi), but in the aftermath of the Carter era – dominated by a president who believed American power was an embarrassment to be lived down – Reagan knew not only what the United States opposed, but what America supported: freedom in all its iterations.
More: What can history teach the next president?
Honorable mention
JIMMY CARTER
David Ryan is professor of history at University College Cork, Ireland and author of Frustrated Empire: US Foreign Policy from 9/11 to Iraq.
His take: Jimmy Carter reflected in his second State of the Union that it was “sound.” The troubles of 1979 had yet to compound his presidency. Carter reflected that on his watch, not one American service person had died abroad. He asked his audience, in words that now seem incredibly ironic, what sort of world the early 21st century would be as that generation of kids grew up – would America be at war? “Our children who will be born this year will come of age in the 21st Century. What kind of society, what kind of world are we building for them? Will we ourselves be at peace? Will our children enjoy a better quality of life? Will a strong and united America still be a force for freedom and prosperity around the world?” Little did he realize that it would witness two presidents trying desperately and ineffectively to withdraw from two theaters of combat with mixed results.
Of course, Carter was weak! Or so the conventional narrative ran. He received constant advice that he had to hit someone, somewhere. Americans were confused about the direction of his foreign policy. Americans had been taken hostage, the Soviets had moved into Afghanistan, the Sandinistas had succeeded in Nicaragua and Carter moved around the White House in indecision: such is the caricature.
Yet Carter realized that the use of force in each of these instances would be counterproductive. On Iran especially, he confessed to an interviewer that bombing Tehran might make the country feel good, perhaps if timed well, he might have even been re-elected. But in terms of local and specific objectives, he would not have advanced the agenda much. Despite his early rhetoric, his was a more cautious and realistic presidency. After a decade and more of the atrocious use of force, he recognized the limits of U.S. military power and the power of the country’s appeal. That it did not work is in part due to the domestic discourse that straitjacket presidents in so many ways, limiting their choices, generating expectation, frequently of a pugnacious sort, and most insidiously questioning their “credibility” should they fall short.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
Bruce Jentleson:
His take: Thomas Jefferson gets my second nomination, principally for his deft diplomacy in pulling off the Louisiana Purchase. These 820,000 square miles, encompassing an area that eventually would include all or part of 14 new states and provide the gateway opening the Far West, transformed our small Atlantic Coast country into a vast continental one. Despite blustery urgings from Alexander Hamilton to try to seize these areas militarily, Jefferson got it done through skilled statecraft. He played French-British-Spanish rivalries off one against the other. And when he and his emissary James Monroe saw how much Napoleon needed the money, they savvily shifted from their original plan to buy just the port of New Orleans for $10 million to dealing for all that territory for just $15 million.
None of the above:
Scott Lucas is a professor of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Birmingham, England.
His take: I don’t think there is a best, at least in the post-1945 world, because each of them has been limited by the demands of American power. Franklin D. Roosevelt might have prevailed with a vision of the “international” had he not died in office, but Truman and Eisenhower were both caught up in the confrontation with the Soviet Union – the good of the Marshall Plan has to be set alongside not-so-good U.S. interventions outside Western Europe. Kennedy’s inaugural address is one of the most aggressive speeches ever delivered and partly-implemented, Johnson sank in Vietnam, and Nixon complemented “détente” with a cynical U.S. policy that rampaged through much of the world from Cambodia to East Timor to Chile. Reagan? Overrated – the fortuitous economic exhaustion of the Soviet Union saved him from a less-exalted reputation built on the excesses of U.S. power, such as Iran-Contra and the aftermath of 1980s Afghanistan.
Jimmy Carter could have made a difference, but his well-intentioned attempt to shift U.S. policy to international justice and rights was sabotaged by the Soviets, Congress, and an inability to deal with cases like Iran.
But the one lost chance of “best” that sticks with me is seeing the last overseas speech of Bill Clinton, given in December 2000 in Warwick, England. He spoke in a tired but eloquent voice of the necessity to meet the challenges of climate change and global warming, epidemics and basic health care, and the vast divide in living standards. And I thought, “Great speech. What have you been doing for the last eight years?”
What do you think? Which president set the bar when it comes to U.S. foreign policy? Who would you argue in favor of? Against? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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Carter made the short list. That's too funny.
Jimmy Carter was certainly, in my opinion, a weak President. However, I think he has become one of the greatest statesman in American history and that puts him on a very short list!
Based on what?
I agree with yurlipsrmuvn. Carter is a racist who hates Jews. He proves it every day. Carter is the 2nd worst president ever way behind Obama.
That is ridiculous! Because of his extreme incompetence North Korea now has nukes! The guy was pathetic when he was president and after the fact when it comes to foreign policy.
You're hilarious.
Jimmy Carter talks his talk and walks his walk. He also hammers his hammer... What other president has or will build homes for the homeless? Who out there reading these posts does as much for humankind? I'm not religious, but he certainly seems to follow the rules of what it means to be a true Christian. Jimmy Carter is a hero of mine. Better human being than I'll ever be, that's for sure.
Oh, and he, too, inherited a bad economy and foreign policy mess. This things don't just happen overnight depending on the president.
Mr Carter is a seriously misunderstood individual. I have radically different views (politically) than Mr Carter. However, he is the most genuinely honest man I have had the pleasure of meeting. He is a relentless advocate for peace. There is not a racist bone in his body. He is a Christian man and he has tried to sow peace wherever he is sent. He has not been the best advocate for America, but he IS an advocate for peace. Again, I disagree with his politics but he is an honest broker of peace.
Reagan ?All the dead military in Lebanon,carrier groups sent against 350 Cuban construction workers on a coral rockpile?I guess for a senile guy....
Jimmy Carter was a very under appreciated President. He was able to get Israel and Egypt together. He had three problems. The OPEC oil embargo, that caused an increase in gas prices, the Iranian Crisis and John Anderson. Note no civilians died during the Iranian Crisis. John Anderson a liberal republican, became an independent and took votes away from Carter.
yeah, what murlip said!
Obama is weaker than Jimmy Carter.
I wouldn't totally knock Carter – we would be a lot more independt of foreign oil, if followed his suggestions on fuel.
Also George Bush, Sr. had a great help with James Baker - not disrespect to President Bush Sr.
Jimmy Carter is quite a stark contrast to FDR, who was the only US president elected to office four times and led his country through two of the greatest crises of the 20th century – the Great Depression and World War Two.
Ronald Reagan was widely regarded as a key figure in the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. He is seen as a source of inspiration by Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney.
We can now look back and see that Carter was right, and he was the most courageous because he stood up for his beliefs, he do not knuckle under like Reagan or Bush jr and follow their chicken hawk advisors.
Still, John Kennedy should be credited with defeating the Soviets by challenging them in Cuba and Berlin. After the Missile Crisis the Soviets never had the international influence they had previously. They were beaten. Reagan gets credit for at least staying out of Gorbachev's way as he converted Russia.
Thomas Jefferson tried to maintain America's neutrality in the Napoleonic wars, although England and France interfered with American shipping. Jefferson responded by forbidding American ships to sail to any European ports. This proved disastrous for the American economy.
I have no doubt to say that under many measures Mr. Carter was a weak president. Hardly this will be taken off his biography. But there is something that the history has yet to fully recognize: that the "human rights policy" that Carter tried to implement would have direct influence over the destinies of millions of people living in countries like Brazil, my home country, in South America. Carter forced the elimination of a military agreement between the U.S. and Brazil, which, somehow, had given power to the Brazilian military, which ran the country for more than two decades. During the Carter administration, the U.S. withdrew of help the Brazilian military, allowing the country slowly walked to the long period of democracy that is living now. The same happened in other countries, such as Argentina, where military dictatorships began his downfall after the "silent actions" of President Carter. One day the history will still recognize him.
. Jimmy was and is the man. The US got what it deserved by not reelecting a man tied to ethics and character.
Under the Camp David accords we inched toward a ME solution. The hostage crises, $34.00 crude and 22% inflation doomed him. (All products of policies he inherited).
Another four years may have helped him. In my life time he was the only president I would loan money to or trust as a friend.
We are blessed by his service and ill served by the blamers
Yes, the great statesmen comment is baseless. However, calling Carter a racist who hates Jews is a political opinion void of fact. Carter tells the truth about how Israel treats the Palestinians (poorly). Simply because Carter's reports don't agree with the U.S. portrayal (which is often untruthful) of everything in the Middle East, does not make him a racist or a Jew hater. It makes him an independent thinker who has the courage to be honest, in addition to the fact that he is not tied to policy or an agenda since he is no longer president.
Are you talking about Jimmy the Jew hater? The most overtly anti-Semite the dems have to offer?
Carter, He has been a big help to the world after his presidentance but not during it.
Now FDR is some who should be on the list , but maybe not first. He gave into the Soviets to many time and cause the iron curtain.
A think you may have forgoten a few like Linclon He Held the the greats empire from getting to in invoved in the cival war
yes we forget That England rule alot of the work back in 1860-1865.
When Carter left office, I thought well, was certainly an inept boob as a president, maybe he'll make a better ex-president. He certainly couldn't be worse right? Carter is an irresponsible and dangerous person. It's gone from bad to worse. Naming a book "Israel not Apartheid" The comparison is evil and he know it. A really disgusting person.
I was serving in the Army during Carter Administration and the Iran Hostages. Carter was an idiot, he would not listen to his JCS or the CIA as he knew he was right, Carter was told to use Army Helicopters as they were equipped with the proper air intake filters for desert use. Carter said No!!, I will use the Marine Helicopters as the Army was 100 miles further out than the Marines, well first helicopter in to fly below radar sucked that sand up into their intakes and the helicopter crashed in the desert. Jimmy had no foreign policy to talk to our allies we had let alone our enemies. Carter short list or not was the worst president to have a good foreign policy. LBJ was not the best either as I was in the Army serving under him as well, his negotiations with Vietnam sucked as he was main cause for the loss siding with Hanoi over PHYOPS the US Army was running to make Hanoi think we were in North Vietnam. Hanoi complained to LBJ and LBJ folded and stopped all PHYOPS. in June 1967, we had the USS LIBERTY of the coast of Israel, United States Navy technical research ship, was attacked by Israel in unmarked planes, as Israel was at war against Egypt and the the captured Egyptian Soldiers were being tortured by israel and took it upon their own to attack the USS LIBERTY even after being told by a pilot that it was an American ship flying the American flag. There were 34 American Servicemen killed that day. This is “one of the classic all-American cover-ups,” said retired Admiral Thomas Moorer, a former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman. LBJ says the incident was an accident. COVER-UP 15 years later Israel admitted it was their fault and had to pay millions of dollars to the US for a number of years, although LBJ accepted Israel's apology..
I do Not Think WEAK and STRONG are Good Ways to Judge a President. Does a STRONG President satisfy the BLOODLUST of his people for his Own Purposes? Invading a country to find Fabricated WMDs and in doing so cost the US a Trillion dollars and THOUSANDS pf Soldiers Killed – Tens of Thousands MAIMED and Brain Damaged and Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis KILLED and in the END make a Billion Muslims HATE US.
No president of the US was worst than Nixon, I take exception to the international policies he applied, VietNam Fiasco, support for criminals like Sabimvi, and the installation of the most bruttal diactator in South America Pinochet. Only secon to regan, who was an idiot..
Statesman? Too funny. If you think someone kissing the rear end of every little two-bit dictator he could find is a great a statesman, go for it! Carter was an American embarassment only to be exceeded by obama
Carter's mucking around trying to make 'peace' in the Middle East led to a forced accommodation between Israel and Egypt that got the leaders of both countries assassinated. Thirty some years later, events have proven that Carter's peace initiative did no good and failed to stop the killing. Iran and the failed hostage crisis speaks for itself. North Korea – another failure. His attempt to unravel the Haiti situation after his presidency was also a failure. He allowed the dictator and his henchmen to walk off with a stolen fortune. Carter's blatant anti-Semitism is incomprehensibe for a man who purports to be a good Christian. He may be good with a hammer, but every attempt he has made after he left the White House to 'contribute' on the international scene has been a painful reminder of his failure as a statesman.
I agree with other posters that Polk was a great foreign policy president. Successes: Reagan, FDR (but with reservations), Bush, Sr., Polk, Monroe, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower (with reservations), Jefferson, Washington. Failures: Wilson, Carter, Bush, Jr., Truman (let the Communists run rampant after the war), Coolidge, Taft, Clinton, JFK (blundered into Cuban missile crisis, Berlin Wall). Too early to tell on Obama but the record so far doesn't look favorable.
cnn is a con job . . .a zine O ist con job.
GW Bush was the worst president in history, followed closely by Nixon and Ford. Carter comes in 4th in my book. LBJ wasn't too great either. But FDR was by far the greatest president of the 20th century, hands down.
I think Carter was perhaps one of my favorite presidents as a person and as a moral character. However, to be an effective president, I think you have to be pragmatic. I think you have to realise that peace negotiations only work when peace is the goal of the other side. Otherwise, any offers of peace will simply be abused by the other side into a delay that furthers their aggressive agenda. There is nothing offered by peace that cannot be taken forcefully by war, and the "carrot on a stick" approach loses its appeal next to the "gold on a platter" rewards of conquest.
Thinking the same thing about Carter.
fake news is what cnn is all about. No respect for FREEDOM OF SPEECH. Just pro israel garbage is what cnn is about.
fake cnn news.
President Carter brokered the only lasting peace between Israel and Egypt at Camp David in 1978 and a formal peace treaty in 1979. Name any other president that has been successful at negotiating any peaceful settlement in the Middle East.
If you measure diplomacy by the degree of world peace, it's Carter. His strength in this area was the weakness that lead to his undoing domestically. He was a micro-manager who chose weak subordinates.
Bill Clinton got a peace agreement between Israel and The PLO.
Signed, sealed and delivered.
Then months later Arafat tore it up.
So close, yet so far.
yeh, he brokered it by paying both countries 1 billion a year for as long as they would keep the peace.....yeh thats real leadership.
Carter's peace treaty got Anwar Sadat killed. That is why Carter's signature achievement was ultimately a failure.
Baptist_Deacon posted: "Carter's peace treaty got Anwar Sadat killed. That is why Carter's signature achievement was ultimately a failure."
Anwar Sadat died for what he believed in. Would you?
Was that before or after Sadat was murdered?
I read speculation once that the way Carter forced Israel and Egypt to reach an agreement was he told them both he would cut off all aid if they didn't agree. Nobody since has done that.
Let's see,
He got the Israeli's to give up the Sinai, initiated what has become the "Palestinian solution" and got Anwar Sadat executed by the extreme groups for signing a treaty with Israel. Turned out great. He is a nice guy but was a horrendous president.
Egypt is in Africa.
When did it become the Middle East? Even Saudi was considered Africa all the way until 1878.
Those of you who don't remember the tremendous problems our support for Israel caused for us with other Middle Eastern nations until Jimmy Carter brokered the Camp David Accords can be forgiven for thinking Carter did little to fix the economy – which had been thrown into a state of disorder by oil jumping up from $2.50/barrel to $12 thanks to the Nixon Administration just a couple years earlier. Think today what would happen to the economy if oil suddenly went from $90 to $700/barrel – that's the same rate of increase. Just before Carter became President, I and many others were sitting in long lines at the gas stations that still had gasoline. Carter ended that for good. He also pointed us to greater energy savings, which was destroyed by Big Oil's Ronald Reagan, who tore down the solar panels from the White House and pointed us to two decades of decreasing gas mileage.
@The_Mick Carter was great in Iran too...
Carter is a total joke- and now his d bag grandson is a pain in the a ss.
btw, ISLAAAM IS A CANCER, IT IS A RELIGION OF VIOLENCE AND HATE
Southerners are shlt
i'm a yankee du m ba ss
Do shut up and get back to the drive thru window, Tim.
You're RIGHT! We should rally up the Christians and get rid of them!!
You are a tool. I am an agnostic. But I must say nothing is sadder to me than a so-called Christian (because intelligent atheists, agnostics, and other Christians and Muslims) right wing scaredy cat calling another religion a cancer. How do you differ from an Irani extremist? The Irani extremist is closer to you in mindset than any of your fellow American citizens. You are the worst kind of small-minded hypocrit. May I suggest you emigrate to Iran where they welcome narrow-minded clowns like you?
And also, can I just say that Christians in the name of religion over the Thirty Year War, the Spanish Inquisition, the conquest of South America, the Holocaust, etc....have killed millions upon millions of people....don't get me started on pedophilia in the church....
I grew up in northern New England outside of Montreal and have lived in NY, GA, LA, CA and now CT. I can honestly say that I, nor anyone I know from a northern state, have never referred to myself as a yankee. I've been called a yankee on numerous occasion, typically in some derogatory fashion, but never referred to myself as one. So Tim in FL, sorry, but you've been called out for your racial discrimination.
so is it's cousin. Christianity.
Panda Bear (what are you 12?) Im 54 and retired. Carter was and is still a joke.
Same with islaaaaam.
and will too......
Tim, you're Nazism is showing.
calm down pslongfellow- you'll have a stroke.
Islaaaam is a cancer....
.....it is a religion of viloence......
.........it is a religion of hate............
..what is so difficult to understand..you. tool.
.....nope, not a nazi mike.....
Im going to jump in my pool, its hot.
you all have a wonderful day!
(dont forget your lesson on islaaaam today... and Carter....and his d bag grandson...)
I'm perfectly calm. Probably because I work with those of all faiths and my colleagues all, regardless of their religion are respectful, intelligent and a joy to work with. I'm also perfectly calm because I am a citizen of a country whose dollar is stronger than yours, unemployment rate lower, a country that has had no housing crisis, less gun crime, higher ratings in post-secondary education. So, yep. Your Mr. Romney is the one sweating bullets. It's not our election. It's yours.
Oh and Tim....I'm female. 5 8" 135 lbs, blood pressure normal, heart rate normal, sugar levels are fine. I'm highly educated and laugh and run everyday. You see I know this because I have free health care and can engage in preventative medicine. Now, you sir are a 54 year old angry male...hmmmmm. Stay well....if you don't you might lose your house.
Lucky for the US (or unlucky depending upon your perspective), we won't have to try to differentiate between a religion and a government much longer. The Islamic region will be entirely controlled by the religion and... surprise... they will still hate us! Barack Obama built that!
A military or country who fails to properly identify the enemy doesn't know who to shoot at. They all know who their enemy is though. It's easy because it's in the Quran, everybody but them. They don't have to be bogged down by the politically correct details (garbage) that we do.
Based on your own hypocritical comments of what is "hate," let me guess, you're a Christian?
I'm sure Jesus would say the same thing?
Whats funny is you say you are a yankee, and yet your education (or lack there of) tells me otherwise. I also don't believe you are since your name includes the initials for Florida (FLA). Your comments are not only ignorant and uneducated, but offensive and unnecessary. You clearly know nothing about Islam (and Im guessing any other religion) and what it stands for. If you are a Christian, you are a terrible one and do not follow what Jesus teaches. Love and acceptance of all his Father's creatures is the backbone to all his teachings and what the bible preaches. You bring shame to Christianity and people who properly follow and love Jesus and God. You are a fool, an uneducated tool, and a zit on the face of humanity. Good luck with Romney in office, Im sure he will really help your poor unfortunate life a lot down the line. Before you speak you should read up on some facts before you open your mouth and spew words or ignorance and hate.
One of my best friends is Islam. He goes to my school and is respectful and smart. I am tired of everybody making radical generalizations like this.
Conservatives will argue that he was weak domestically, but I don't think anyone can question his foreign policy. As others noted he brokered the most significant peace agreement between Israel and the Arabs in Israel's history.
Like was mentioned above, he paid them off. That is not real leadership.
to Guest: If paying them off isn't real leadership, then the troop surge in Iraq in 2007 didn't work. After all, we were, at the time, basically paying the Iraqi people not too kill each other. So then, even by your own standard, George W. Bush failed us in Iraq.
The mission of erasing Iran/Contra from the history books is complete! I dont understand how Reagan can even be listed. The history lesson here is .... well know your history.
Uh, you remember that thing called the Berlin Wall?
Did you read the article? "On Iran especially, he [Carter] confessed to an interviewer that bombing Tehran might make the country feel good, perhaps if timed well, he might have even been re-elected..." The fact that Carter did not order the bombing of Tehran to advance his own gain says a lot about the man. Had he listened to populist sentiment ("just nuke 'em"), he would have stuck the country in another horrific, expensive, and unwinnable war, which could have escalated into a catastrophic WWIII. Remember, the Cold War was still an issue at this time.
And Iran is also our biggest enemy today, and one of the main antagonist to peace in the middle east.
Actually, not so much. Carter wasn't a great president. He's a really great ambassador for peace.
I'm actually surprised Clinton didn't make the top three.
Carter was the US President that got Egypt and Israel to talk to each other...
...making Egypt the first Muslim country to recognize Israel...
...despite the hardships the economy faced at that time (from another useless war), Jimmy Carter was a decent and a good President...
And the current president has single-handedly dismantled that achievement.
I think Carter would have been better if the Republicans had not set out to make sure he lost the election to Regan...
Funny how history repeats itself. Economy in shambles, unpopular war, and a partisan House trying to win the presidency for their party by not allowing any bill, good or bad, to pass.
During my lifetime Carter had the worst foreign policy until Obama was elected.
While everyone is entilted to an opinion, I ask that you at least research your facts before spreading your lies. And no, Fox News does not count as research. The vast majority of the "civilized" world is happy with our current President's foreign policies. While no one will agree with all policies, he is well liked throughout the world, unlike our previous president.
Opinions are interesting. They're like elbows, most people have a couple. But the statements that don't belong in the blogosphere are the cursing, degrading ones that come from both sides! The funniest though are those from the left. They continually expect to have a Utopian world. They continue to believe that talking nice and listening to everyone's complaints about American success and American values will actually make a difference! Dumb. Not that we bomb everyone, and we've done way to much of that in the last 50 years!, but that we don't expect that "diplomacy" will work with real enemies. It works when both sides want to come to some compromise, but not when one side wants total victory! Keep up the diplomacy with our friends and get them to join us to keep the enemies at bay. That is what our Pres has not done. Our friends – Britain, Israel, Poland, to name a few – have not been courted by the Pres. He takes contrary views to their's and does minor things to actually insult them. And yet he has not made any progress with the Middle East, none with Iran, none with North Korea, none with Turkey, and none with Russia (yet, but wait "till his second term", he says). So where is all this love you lefties say he has gotten? And that he said he would get? Not there folks. Of course, just some more nice speeches and nice glorious objectives and then – Utopia will be here!! Right.
Clinton and Obama both have something in common: They are do nothing presidents that have used public perception, rather than public policy to shape their administrations. Funny how Clinton threw out Glass-Steagal which allowed US banks to go overseas and sell deriviatives to European countries....which helped to cause the meltdown in Europe, and he deregulated Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac...which led to the 2008 recession, and failed to kill Osama Bin Laden when he had the chance. Obama has passed a health care initiative that will cripple the business community, he has apologized to those who are killing our ambassadors, and 86% of all military deaths in Afghanistan have been during his administration. THESE GUYS ARE AWESOME!!!
@ The Man,
For these "do-nothing" presidents, you sure had a litany of the things they did, like them or not. Sounds like they were actually pretty busy.
If Carter made the short list then Obama would be the one with the bast foreign policy.
Richard Nixon was a great statesman. He ended the war in Vietnam that Vice President Hubert Humphrey, if he was elected, wanted to continue. Nixon opened U.S. foreign policy to China recognizing its long term future, and he signed several arms controls treaties with the Soviet Union. In fact, Nixon was the only former president Bill Clinton heeded advice from in his first year in office.
Although Hubert Humphrey was Johnson's Vice President, during the general election Humphrey became the anti-war candidate. His plan was to bring the troops home immediately. Nixon's campaign was based upon a peace with honor platform. Nixon escalated the war and had numerous opportunities to end the war. The war became very unpopular, due to the loss of life and only then did he end the war.
Nixon had no choice but to end Vietnam. None.
Nixon ended the war because congress cut off funding. No other reason. He was a psychopathic liar.
Reagan making the short list is what I find Funny. The world would be so much better if we had given Carter a second term instead of electing Dr Feelgood Reagan. We are still paying the price for his disastrous admin, and will be for decades to come... in so many different ways.
I guess YOU must know something the HISTORIANS do not know. Please share your wisdom with them because the WORLD is lacking you insight as to why Carter was such a remarkable president.
Sorry like it or not he is going down in History as a great president, the same way JFk did. Lots of people didn't like these two. But he was there when the cold war thawed in Geneva.
The greatness of Ronald Reagan is a myth perpetrated by the Republican Party. Trickle down economics was a total disaster. Reagan was forced to increase taxes eleven times. He traded arms for hostages. A lot of George H.W. Bush's problems were a direct result of Reagan's policies.
I am a far left liberal, and I could not stand Ronald Reagan. But he befriended Gorbachev and they ended the Cold war. HW Bush gets a lot of credit he doesn't deserve for the end of the cold war; he didn't screw up the end of the Cold War, but he isn't the one that ended it, Reagan and Gorbachev did. I still think Reagan did America a lot of harm by lowering taxes on the wealthy far too much, ratcheting up defense spending too high, ignoring the environment, AIDs, and other problems, but liberals should apologize for being wrong about Reagan's roll in ending the Cold War. None of us thought he would befriend a Soviet leader and end the cold war, but he did.
The statement that not one US serviceman died on foreign soil during the Carter administration. Did everyone forget the tragic rescue attempt of the hostages that resulted in the death of several military personnel in the desert.
I am stunned to see Jimmy Carter's name on this list! Carter & Zbigniew Brzezinski are responsible for igniting the Islamists/ Jihadist movements we see today, when they authorized the CIA covert operation in Kabul to trick the Soviets into starting a war with Afghanistan & ...
I quote: Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski
U.S. President Carter's National Security Adviser
By 'Le Nouvel Observateur' (France), Jan 15-21, 1998, p. 76. Note: There are at least two editions of 'Le Nouvel Observateur.' With the exception of the U.S. Library of Congress, the version sent to the United States did not include the Brzezinski interview.
--------------------------–
Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs ["From the Shadows"], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?
"Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.
Yeah no on carter, he could make another list where we rank the worst. Also no on Jefferson, he fell into the LP. He was in shock when trying to buy some of it the whole thing was offered up. I cant believe these two made the list.
Carter brought peace between Israel and Egypt. That is an accomplishment worthy of this short list.
In due time Jimmy Carter will rightly be regarded as one of our nation's greatest presidents. It has gotten too easy to repeat the party line that he was a bad president. But ask that person why he was bad and they either say he was weak (although it takes far more courage to restrain from using force than the easy "bombs away," that Reagan and GW got popular using) or that the economy was bad (unemplyment was higher under both Ford and Reagan than under Carter). Or they just stammer how everyone knows it. The fact is, as a president he did more right than his predecessor or successor. As a human being, he is probably the greatest president we have ever had.
lol delusional
Completely insane but Richard Nixon did open relations with China.
Two notably absent from the list – Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
Clinton failed to take the shot at Osama Bin Laden on mutliple occasions when he had the opportunity. His weakness let this tyrant survive long enough to mastermind 9/11. Obama has chosen to coddle the Muslim world, while turning his back on our most loyal ally Isreal. Now that dog has come to hunt, and his administration blames protests of a You Tube movie for attacks on a US Embassy for over a week, only to be forced to admit it was a pre-planned terror attack by someone in his administration who chose not to lie to lawmakers.
NorCalMojo – You're not very well informed I'm afraid. Macho rhetoric does not a good foreign policy president make. The travesty is that Ronald Reagan would be pictured as one of three presidents for this article. George H.W. Bush I could understand, Richard Nixon I could understand, but Mr. Reagan's inclusion just demonstrates, once again, how far CNN will go to pander to, and for, the Fox News audience. It's shameful. I can only imagine what Ted Turner says these days about his "baby." CRMiniowa
How can the list not include Richard Nixon?? This was a man who ran on an anti-communist platform, who as President achieved Detente with Soviet Russia, opened up relations with a very isolationist China, and ended the war in Vietnam.
anyone who hates Jews is a perfect president
the jews are the scourge of the free world
JFK demanded the Jews under ben Guriyen undertake WMD weopons inspections...the Jews assassinated him
Regan was a monkey with a walnut brain ...Bush father/son....warmongers who do Kissengers biddig. Clinton a bag of wind only good for poking young girls genitals... Carter a nice guy who saw the Jews as the real enemy of the USA ..and paid the political character assassination price for it
Scott Young, the British Scholar, is such a poser.
He was asked to pick the best, and he replied with that mamby pamby typical UK Ivory Tower I am soooo much better than you tripe. (I know the type, I used to live about 20 miles from Cambridge)
He is obviously enamored enough with the US to study it and make it his profession.... Maybe he just can't get over the fact that the torch has been passed from GB to the US.
I am sure that it just torques his nuts that the BEST of England's Foreign Policy PMs in the last 150 years was half American.
I knew someone would have to post some anti British drivil it always happens why have you got such a chip on your shoulder, dont read into things so much. I too should take my own advice maybe!
NorCalMojo, this piece is about foreign policy, not the overall term of the President. Carter certainly belongs on this list. What made him a "weak" President was his success with domestic problems. He faced perhaps the greatest domestic problems of any President, when the shift in America's cultural and economic dominance was in full swing. It didn't help that he had an army of politicos working against him in Congress. So yes, Carter's legacy suffered from his performance with the domestic economy, but when talking about foreign policy, the man was a genius. He was definitely underappreciated.
The worst president ever: Regan!, yeah, the "trickle down" economics....big joke. How does a dumb-ass old actor ever get into politics? Big words and puffed up chest like a big white gorilla that got everybody thinking he was "taking charge" but he was stupid and a puppet to the rich.
Carter! Not even CNN can actually believe that! We are still cleaning up his foreign policy mess.
@NorCalMojo-Carter being on this list is no funnier than Reagan being there. Reagan had a terrible case of inadequacy complex because all he got to do during WW2 was sell bonds and play with a smelly old monkey. Once he did get elected he felt compelled to show everyone that he had (or at least thought he had) a big set of brass balls. Turned out that Nancy knew better. Reagan's biggest claim to fame was Iran Contra and letting Ollie North take one in the rear for the good of the party. Carter's biggest problem was that he was too nice to foriegn countries and their leaders. He made the supreme mistake in foriegn diplomacy by trying to be all things to all people. That doesn't work either.
I believe something has to be said for John Kennedy. Granted, his time in office was brief, but in the face of unbelievable provocation by the Soviet Union and unrelenting pressure from his military chiefs, he deftly negotiated a settlement that saved faces on both sides. HE SAVED THE WORLD FROM ALMOST CERTAIN NUCLEAR DESTRUCTION when hardly any of his advisers were encouraging him to take the non-combat way out.
After his preidency Carter came to my home town. An opinion piece appeared in our state's largest newspaper over his signiture/byline that contained gross & verifyable factual errors. Our very popular Governor, also a Democrat, responded with the appropriate corrections. There it should have ended. Much to my surprise there followed a personal attack by the former president on the Governor. For all Cater's good works since he was "fired" as president, this still sticks in my craw.
What about Richard Nixon? His opening to China was a masterstroke. I'm not saying I would have wanted the guy for my next-door neighbor, but give credit where it's due.
I am a Georgian, and a veteran. Carter (who I have met on 3 occasions) is a honest, caring, genuine person. He was also so confused on how to reconcile his religious beliefs with his responsibilities that he was a horrible president. Presidents kill people, christian preachers probably have a real issue with doing so. He is the pastor of a church in southern ga. Great man, any statements to the contrary are silly. Great president no way.
@Bruce Jentleson: But the one lost chance of “best” that sticks with me is seeing the last overseas speech of Bill Clinton, given in December 2000 in Warwick, England. He spoke in a tired but eloquent voice of the necessity to meet the challenges of climate change and global warming, epidemics and basic health care, and the vast divide in living standards. And I thought, “Great speech. What have you been doing for the last eight years?”
Apparently, balancing a massive deficeit budget, and producing amazing economic growth was not enough, and he was lazing around the White House.
Let's not forget to mention who the worst foreign policy president is. BHO
Got to disagree. Carter wins that honor going away. Pahalavi might have moved Iran to a secular democracy, but St. Jimmy the Sanctimonious cut him off at the knees. SAVAK was bad, but at least 2 orders of magnitude less so than the folks Jimmy handed Iran over to.
St. Barry is certainly in 2nd place for the 20th and 21st centuries. Like Carter, he has almost no Latin American policy beyond placating Hispanic voters in the US, and he is not doing a very good job of that. He has ignored Africa almost completely. He has botched the Middle East. He put a Secretary of State in place who had ZERO foreign policy experience, and he had none as well, so the result has been chaos.
Carter never lied to the people. Obama has on a number of occasions such as lst week saying the attack in Libya couldn't possible be related to his wonderful foreign policy. Calling himself a moderate, another lie. Calling himself as good as Lincoln, another.
Worst president in US history ?
George W. Bush.
What is the first and most important job of any sitting president ?
Protect the United States Of America.
911 was the worst attack on US soil in history.
Not one, not two, not 3, but F O U R jets hijacked by 19 morons with
Box cutters ?
Then he invades Iraq ?
No good people, this man is not only a failure,
but he is a traitor and belongs in jail.
This idiot upon being told that America was under attack,
sat in a school room, holding an UPSIDE down book
about a pet goat.
He looked like he just peed himself.
How does he follow that up ?
Start two unfunded wars, give tax breaks to the rich,
And bury the US economy.
Till this day, i wish that Iraqi journalist had konked Bush
straight in the head with one of those shoes.
This man was an embarassment to America.
This man was so stupid, he couldnt count to three unless you
spotted him the one, and two.
But he had Dick Cheneys hand up his butt.
Rumsfeld, Rice and Powel lying thier face off about WMD,
Condy Rice caught lying in a video.
Powel admitted lying to the UN.
Rumsfeld telling the parents of depolyed soldiers that we go to war with what
we have not what we want.
I could go on, but it would take a month.
This administration is a dark cloud in American history.
Ne – Cons, one step to the right of Neo Nazi's.
To NEOCONS: In what way was W Bush worse than Lyndon Johnson? If you think Iraq was a bad idea, what must you think of Vietnam? At least in Iraq we left with something resembling a democracy, in Vietnam we left with....? Plus, leave the poor Iraqi alone, Bush did a great job dodging those shoes...
Bush wasn't responsible for 9-11, I agree with most of the rest. Those guys were in the country before Bush. It was a breakdown between the cia and fbi. President really doesn't have his hands everywhere we like to think.
NEOCONS: Watch your info. The "upside down-ness" of the book was Photoshopped and became a popular gag photo on the Internet. You're correct about everything else, but don't give his remaining 5 supporters room to question your information.
please explain.
Barry? Not even in the top 5 for worst. However, George W. is there.
Obama is the worst.
@jschmidt No your the worst.
You're* the worst.
You guys are so cute.
What's so bad about Obama's Foreign Policy? What has he not done right? If you can't back up your claim, then you have no basis for your comment.
How about on 9/11 not protecting his embassys? How about apologizing at the drop of a video or to all the Islamic world on his Egypt tour. How about telling Putin he'll have more room to negotiate after the election after he;s dropped the eastern europe missile shield idea and turned his back on our ally Israel. How about doing nothing to stop Iran.
@jschmidt Dude your a m()ron! I served 8 years in the Marine Corps and did two years of MSG duty and I know that you don't know what the heck your talking about.
Obama didn't apologyse to anyone, The embassy simply released a statement stating we're not involved with the film. It's called self preservation. Get your facts straight.
The only thing I've seen Obama do is, a pic of him shaking Quadafi's Hand, and a short time later he was dead.
Let's see, republicans love to be cost effective and one of you conservatives tell me which plan is more economically sound.
140 boots on the ground.. Country Invaded for 9/11 that had nothing to do with 9/11. No Osama Bin Laden anywhere to be found.. 10 years later...
Obama sends 3 helicopters, a boat and seal team 6. Justice is done...
@chrisB – then obviously you have been living in a cave, because what jschmitt said is correct.
@Tk1969 – wow, you are ignorant. Do you really believe that Afganistan had nothing to do with 9/11?
jschmidt: Since you're so confident about the crap you're spewing, it should be pretty easy for you to provide proof of what you're saying, about Obama "not protecting" the embassies and "apologizing", shouldn't it?
Go on, show us the unsourced right-wing blog you're quoting from. OR... Go to Google and enter "Subject: Marines in Libya and Egypt" in quotes, and see if you have the courage to learn something.
Explain? You want GOP's to actually explain their lies and baseless assertions? Now that's just asking too much.
Lies- The Libyan attack was in response to the video advanced by Carney and Ambassador Rice.
I am a moderate by Obama.
I;ve cut taxes.(didn[t happen)
I've created more jobs than lost in my term. (he is net negative)
I'll reduce the deficit.
Just for having the guts to take out OBL in such a challenging situation, and also the fact that he did not start up a new.... and someone else's war using our tax money (or he could resist the 'evil' forces inside here suggesting him to engage again)... he is right up there in my opinion...
...and how about all the terrorist he has taken out out using just drones... with least damage to US lives/assets... (altho we all regret the rare collateral damage that has come with those)...
Obama gets a vote for me....great on foreign policy...too soon to tell but I think history will treat him well...Go Obama!
Barack has done quite well. It's amazing to me that people still refer to Mitt's argument that BO apologized for the video. Watch Fox News, go to cnn.com to flame, repeat. Complete morons.
Hoover would probably win the worst president of the modern era in all categories, foreign and domestic.
I was going to say Bush II was the worst but then it occurred to me that, despite his generally terrible record on foreign policy overall, he had a pretty good record on foreign policy as it applied to Africa. Liberals should give him credit for that part of his administration, if little else.
"Iraq" "WMD" "Afghanistan"...actually if we successfully take over every foreign country, they won't be foreign anymore. That is a great policy.
Oh please. That's weak even for a weakling like you.
Obama's Middle East policy has been terrible. The key to success in the ME has been(1) Build strong ties with Israel and then keep them quietly out of the way, (2) Be on good working terms with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Turkey, (3) protect national sovereignty and (4) Try a few Hail Mary peace conferences between the Israelis and Palestinians knowing they probably won't work. (HW Bush was the epitome of this strategy, with the exception of King Hussein in Jordan being uncooperative)
Obama has utterly failed on the Israel front, constantly annoying Netanyahu and calling for the return to '60s era borders (will never happen but asking for it will anger Israel). He "lost" Egypt as an ally but through no fault of his own. My impression is that Saudi Arabia and Jordan are lukewarm allies at best right now. There doesn't seem to be much of an Iran policy outside of hoping sanctions work (they won't)-there are no military resources in the region ready to confront them. There have been no attempts at an Israel-Palestine peace conference. Overall, pretty poor results in that most-important area of the world.
We have a wing of F-22's and three carrier strike groups in Iran's front yard. But you keep on believing that we have no military in a position to confront Iran.
Wrong, wrong, wrong – stay after school and check your history.
You say "constantly annoying Netanyahu". I say Netanyahu has been constantly annoying our President and he has certainly been constantly annoying me. He has NO business demanding anything of the United States. We have said we will not allow Iran to have an nuclear weapons. We do not have to draw a line where Netanyahu want a line drawn. He has no businsess interfering in our elections. I hope the people of Israel elect a less pugnacious leader next time.
nixon, get out the record book.
Tom, you are right on. Best we had, but should not have taped anything!!!! Can't believe anybody put Jimmy on this list, and I live in Georgia!!!!!
Im with ya on that one. Nixon foreign policy was amazing. How could he not make this list?
My vote will infuriate liberals, but, so what?
I vote for Reagan.
yeah, that Alzheimer helped him to be a great president
Classy
What's your excuse?
Typical close minded liberal.
I am liberal and I am not infuriated. He was a pretty decent foreign policy president if you get rid of that invasion of Granada thing. Too bad he was such a lousy domestic policy president.
But you can't get rid of that"Grenada thing". It never shouldhave happened. I would not vote for Reagan
Reagan was called the "Great Communicator" for a reason and being able to communciate is a prerequiste to any succesful foreign policy leadership. We can site his many successes, but the real success came as a result of his ability to put people at ease and gain trust. This is why I think he was the best. Aside from the fact I just loved him.
Reagan was an actor.
Guess he had you fooled huh ?
The thing that i remember most about Reagan speeches where....
He would always turn his head and say.....well.....
Like a programed robot.
"Programmed robot"? Try "millionaires and billionaires", among at least a dozen other O'Bunghole mantras.
All but one of these are post-1914?! Where's Monroe (Monroe Doctrine anyone?), where's Lincoln (kept Britain and France out of the Civil War), where's Theodore Roosevelt (Panama Canal, White Fleet, stronger ties to the WWI Allies)? And I think Woodrow Wilson had a better claim to be on the honorable mention list than Jimmy Carter Why is the importance of the 20th always elevated above the 19th century in debates like these?
Skitch: Good point !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Skitch, Great Point ! I was looking for Monroe's name from the start of the article. I also agree with the choice of G.H.W. Bush, and although I didn't repeat my first Vote for him, mostly because he Didn't push on to Bagdad, in hindsight, he made use of All his Career's acquired knowledge in his Foreign policy, and most important for Today's political scene, he coined the term "Voodoo Economics", which the Republicans are still trying to force-feed us, despite the thrice proven paucity of it's results. I even forgive him for siring W ! LoL
I'm in agreement with the authors – the world, and foreign policy, became infinitely more complex beginning with the era of the World Wars and presidents that have been successful in this era deserve a higher ranking.
Was looking for Monroe in the list as well. Without his setting the tone, there is no such thing as foreign policy.
It's really hard to make a case for pre-WWII presidents, mainly because the US was basically confined to its own corner of the world back then. It's really only been since WWI that the US has had any influence outside of Latin America, the Caribbean and the Pacific and only since WWII that the US really been interested in pursuing global power politics. Monroe, T Roosevelt and Polk may have been great, but they lived in "simpler times" as it were.
Why is the importance of the 20th always elevated above the 19th century in debates like these?
Closer to memory ?
Because the United States was much more engaged with the global community in the 20th century than the 19th century. The Monroe Doctrine (which was successful only because the British allowed it) basically cut the US off from the day-to-day happenings in Europe. While revolutions swept through Europe in the 1830's and '40's, the US went along like nothing was going on overseas. Starting with the Spanish-American War in 1898, the US became much more active internationally, culminating in leadership of the western world through the duration of the Cold War. So in a discussion of foreign policy, it is difficult to talk about American presidents prior to the McKinley Administration.
Thank you skitch41! Someone who actually remembers some of our history...not like someone who writes that Ben Franklin was the best president....really?!? I think it's fair to say that with every President we believe was great – none of them were perfect and their accomplishments were sometimes as much luck as it was skill. Definitely NOT an easy job to be President.
Madison and Monroe, lose out for the fact that they started a war with England, and we got are asses handed to us. The only reason Washington still exist because of a storm doing more damage to the Redcoats than the US army. The Monroe doctrine did little to help until much later. Teddy did a good job, but taking over a country to build a canal isn't the most peaceful of actions. Wilson did great for keeping us out of WWI for the most part, but lost his biggest battle, with Congress to ratify the WWI Peace Treaty thus keeping the US out of the League of Nations. Indirectly causing WWII.
Polk should get the nod, he peacefully set our largest boarder. Next closest would be Truman, helped Europe after the war and made US a superpower.
The absence of James Monroe gives this list no credibility.
Nixon normalized relations with China. I think he should have been on here. His corruption obviously blighted his record, but that wasn't his foreign policy.
Deep Blue, Nixon was mentioned, but so was his disgrace and resignation. When he and Dr. Kissinger "Opened" China, it was a Foreign Policy coup with few rivals, But, who could have foreseen that the "Sleeping Dragon" was really just a dozing Capitalist, yearning to break free? I wonder what Tricky Dick would think of Today's Us-China relationship ?
Nixon was clueless as to why China wanted to normalize relations until he actually met with Chou En Lai ,Chinese agronomists had warned Chou that if there was a historic famine in China as habitually happened that this time China could lose upwards of 100 million people. This would devestate China for at least 100 years if not more. At this time in history Chinese agriculture was at a historic low after the excesses of the Cultural revolution, the average Chinese citizen was existing on about 650 Kcal per day not quite starvation but close. The one thing China needed but could not build on it's own were Bosch/Haber fertilizer plants. Nixon and Kissinger promised and delivered 6 of the largest plants ever built (by Kellog Brown Root) . most people have no idea that this happened. In return Chou promised to open up China to American trade. Nixon scored a publicity coup and at the same time opened up a rift in Sino soviet relations that destroyed once and for all the feared monolithic Soviet Chinese communist block.
I give Nixon a pat on the back for opening the gates to China, an accomplishment that really boggles the imagination in retrospect (remember all the media going gaga over the architecture, arts, dance – ping pong and acupuncture?)
But he deserves a kick in the ass for his performance in Southeast Asia. That and Watergate pretty much took all the fun outta all that China stuff.
On the other hand, even this dyed in the wool bleeding heart liberal will agree with the selection of Bush the First. His consensus building skills in the UN for Kuwait and Desert Storm were amazing and an embarrassment to similar efforts by little W when he tried and failed following 9/11.
And yes – Monroe, Abe & Teddy.
Reagan? Hell no – what a bully.
Bush the First. His consensus building skills in the UN for Kuwait and Desert Storm were amazing....
Kuwait.
When the Ottoman empire fell, the British carved up what was left of the "fertile crescent".
Kuwait had been for thousands of years part of Mesapotamia/Iraq.
Kuwait city is where all of the middle east oil shipped from.
The British created the state of Kuwait to control the oil.
No fan of Saddam here, but he had every right to demand "Kuwait" back.
So much for those incubater babies.
Nixon was good with China, though overall I'd rate him a pretty poor president (based on economic policy).
George W. Bush was the greatest foreign policy president ever! He democratized Tunisia, Morrocco, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, etc. George W. Bush killed Osama Bin Laden.
How long did it take to chew thrrough the straps on that straight jacket?
Too True, Ali Baba must be smokin' some good Moroccan Hash ! Is there a Shrink among those 40 thieves ?
Troll alert. Don't feed the troll, get your sarcasm detector fixed.
and Richard Dawkins killed Santa.
Can I have just a little bit of what you are smoking.
"He killed Osama Bin Laden." You're too funny.
Ali Baba – thank you for the comic relief.
Reagan? Seriously? Does anyone remember the Iran Contra affair, when the Reagan administration sold weapons to Iran in order to get Iran to encourage the Hezbollah to release hostages? Carter may have screwed the Iranian hostage situation up, but he didn't sell us out. President Reagan's administration then used those funds, without congressional knowledge or approval, to fund a war in Nicaragua behind the American public's back. President Reagan funded the Mujaheddin, which later morphed into Al Qaeda.
Reagan was a sham..left the U.S. a wreck,and did start the whole contra thing.
But it was Carter and the CIA that started the Mujaheen,that Reagan twisting in illeagal and unethical moves,
created the CIA funded and trained group that they paid for with US tax dollars.
Mental midgets need not comment. The adults are busy w/ real discussion!
OBAMANOS!!!
Dalin, and DeepBlue, agree with you about the Iran-Contra fiasco, but the fact most forget, is that Reagan's agents sought to delay the Hostage release until After the election. I think Ross Perot had some firm knowledge of that, but his paranoia discredited all his good ideas, and smeared his Personal Hostage rescue Legend.
Don't forget the war on drugs & Noriega
iI still like Clinton.
I really think he is underrated.
Liking has nothing to do with this. He had no REAL fioreign policy. Good domestic/Republican agenda, but nothing of real significance on foreign affairs, unless you want to talk about why he didn't allow our armor into Somalia to rescue those folks in the crashed up Black Hawks. You remember, the ones they dragged through the streets and defiled? Just like the bodies Obongo allowed to be dragged through the streets in Libya. That foreign policy?
OBAMANOS!!!
Reagan.
380 Marines died in Beruit Lebanon.
Reagans response ?
Pull them out.
ReaL TUFF GUY THERE.
Crawl home with your tail between your legs.
Should have bombed the crap out of Hezbollah.
Clinton helped stop the genocide in Bosnia
by attacking Serb forces.
He did it without UN or NATO help.
As for Bin Laden, i dont have the whole story,
but Clinton was offered Bin Laden by the Sudanese government.
The Sudanese government is pro Al Queda.
You do the math.
Which marine's bodies do you speak of being dragged through the streets? I thought it was universally reported that they all died of smoke inhalation at the embassy. Just because you think everyone that isn;t Fox are communists doesn't mean you get to make up whatever nonsense you want.
For doing what specifically? Missing an opportunity with bin Laden? The deaths of American soldiers in Somalia? DId he have a success?
Clinton managed to forestall war on the Korean peninsula, true. We have to remember to give credit to Presidents for disasters that didn't happen on their watch. But his eight years of dithering about Al-Qaeda, from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing through the Kenyan and Tanzania embassy bombings and the USS Cole bombing led directly to 9/11. Of course, that didn't stop Clinton's friends in the press from blaming Bush, for not sorting out the mess in eight months.
1993 World Trade Center bombing ...
The Egyptian who was contacted by the CIA to blow up the Trade tower,
got scared when he found out that the CIA had not only given him real explosives,
but told him to carry out the bombing.
It was caught on tape and is available on the internet.
It was supposed to be a scam to catch the bad guys
but turned into a live drill.
The Egyptian was removed and replaced, and the Drill happened.
I think the greatest tragedy of the Clinton administration is the fact that nothing really happened. I believe we had a brilliant mind who could have navigated the problems caused by 9/11 or the Cold War brilliantly, but really there was no large foreign policy disaster that allowed him to prove himself. Maybe that is the best justification for including him in this conversation: nothing that bad happened under his watch.
You make the point that Clinton was president during an exceptionally easy time in US history-no foreign policy issues, giant post Cold War peace dividend and strong economy. Clinton gets credit (shared with Congressional republicans) for good policy-balanced budgets, welfare reform, but we have to acknowledge that it was, unlike 1929-1989 and 2000-2012, a very easy time to be president.
I think it's too soon to talk about Clinton yet. The major internation event of the early 21st century is obviously 9/11 and a lot of that was growing during the Clinton years. The events haven't finished playing out yet. He might end up being one of the brilliant minds, or one of the worst, and everything in between those two extremes. We don't know yet. Was his policy toward North Korea genius, laying the groundwork for a peaceful resolution to the situation over there? Or did it allow an open sore to fester, leading to more bloodshed than what would have occured in the mid-90's if he was more aggressive? Why did the Israeli-Arab peace become so derailed? It seemed like, at the time, that peace in the Middle East was a real possibility, and then it all came crashing down, even before Bush took over. We just don't know yet.
What about the fact that Clinton oversaw the Al-Qaeda ring of fire around the world during the 90's that finally ended up with 9-11 on 2001.
Reagan bent the entire Communist block over and made them his @#%!#, he's definitely the best modern president.
FDR is a close second – the only two reasons that he isn't first in my book was that 1) he delayed entering WWII WAY too long, and 2) he allowed Pearl Harbor to happen. Once we were in the war he was golden – he was a man smart enough to know that HE couldn't win the war, so he found people that WOULD win, put them in charge, and got out of the way – Patton, Eisenhower, MacArthur, Nimitz to name a couple.
Seems like republicans equate "good foreign policy" with "the most military confrontations".
Why is that?
Republicans generally don't. Americans in general respond to a president who doesn't allow the US to be pushed around. Whether that equates to sound foreign policy or not is up to debate. The foreign policy disasters of the 70's made it very difficult for Carter to win re-election, even though most people acknowledge that he was very knowledgable. What puts George HW on the list isn't so much the Desert Storm campaign, but his deft handling of the breakup of the Soviet Union. There was no time in the 20th century more dangerous than when the Soviet Union broke up. The fact that the Iron Curtain was able to fall with no military confrontation is a testament to, amongst others, Bush's skills in diplomacy.
Some people have this strange idea that Reagan said "tear down this wall" and the
Soviet Union fell.
1) The Berlin wall fell before the Soviet Union did.
2) The Berlin wall fell because the Communist government in East Germany
collapsed under protests.
3) The Soviet Union fell beacuse its economy collapsed for two reasons.
Top heavy on defense and weapons.
The world banking system shut off the flow of money.
The falling of the Berlin Wall was a symbolic event, one that was fatal to the Soviet Union. You have to understand how fast this all happened. Germany was reunited within a year, the Soviet Union collapsed a year later. It was so fast. These events were an impossibility just two months before the event. Gorbachov was in East Berlin proclaiming the success of socialism in East Germany. Two months later, Honecker is out of a job. Nobody saw this coming. By comparison, the American Civil War took decades to occur. The American Revolution developed over the course of a three year period before the actual break with Great Britan, after a ten year period where tensions were rising. The process of the Russian Revolution took 15 years, from 1906 through 1921.
Wait a second here. FDR waited to get into WWII too long? Are you out of your mind? If he would have asked Congress for a declaration of war on Germany in 1939 or 1940, he would have lost that vote which would have been a calamity. It was amazing how he was able to keep the Allies supplied despite the isolationism of the persisted throughout the nation. Without anybody knowing it, he was able to put the US into a pretty good position for when the war would come and it seemed like he was the only one who knew that war was coming.
Don't even go there with Pearl Harbor. Yes, we knew an attack was coming, but no, we didn't know where. Military planners were debating if an attack would come to Pearl Harbor, Manilla, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, Guam, amongst other possible targets. Nobody knew they were going to hit all of them. How do you defend against that?
We remember Iran Contra, we also understand that Reagan was the chief architect behind the collapse of the USSR. o try to keep up here.
As for obama, when is CNN going to talk about the real mess our precious leader has gotten us into? WE ALL understood that the attack on our folks in Libya was organized to take place on 9/11. Is it that the president is so inept and or naive that he couldn't recognize that, or is it that his announcement that the WAR ON TERROR is over would be exposed for being the LIE it was? Either way, he eats crow and is standing there with egg on his face. So CNN, which was it? Typical liberal, socialists RAG!!!
OBAMANOS!!!
Reagan also supplied the Mujaheddin, forerunners of Al Qaeda, establishing supply networks between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Afghan terrorists.
Actually he made the mistake of trusting the Pakistani government. The CIA had little direct contact or training with those in Afghanistan, this was done mostly by the ISI. So we blindly sent billions to Pakistan, who used the money to train radicals. Eventually Pakistan help to form the Taliban. Great allies.
Well, at the time, Pakistan was pursuing a nuclear weapon. At the time, we needed them, so we told them, it's fine, don't worry about it.
As soon as we didn't need them, we through them under the bus. We had a true ally of India to worry about.
I'm not saying that Pakistan was a great ally. I'm just saying that, from Pakistan's point of view, we were definitely a fair weather friend.
So Carter gets a nod for essentially doing nothing? I do not think that qualifies.
He peacefully transferred the Panama Canal Zone to Panama.
He kept us out of Grenada.
Well, the obvious choice out of those offered is Jimmy Carter. He was by far the best FP President out of this list, and possibly of any President in US history. Between his tireless work to free the Iran hostages and patience with the USSR, he proved himself a statesman. He was personally responsible for the fact that we did NOT have nuclear war with Russia, and that all of the hostages were freed instead of being beheaded.
Combine that with his expert fiscal policy and how hard he worked for the poor and middle class, he is easily the best President the US has ever had.
Truman? He was decent overall, but made one key error during his presidency that still haunts America, nearly 40 years after it ended... Ignoring a personal plea from one each Ho Chi Minh to help his country (Indo-China aka Vietnam) get the French out...
Look what that foreign-policy blunder did for us...
Ho was always a communist, back since the 1920s. No way was any President going to side with him against France.
That too is an issue the U.S. has had globally, more specifically in the Western hemisphere... "Brand-loyalty". We cannot expect every single regime/country to follow the Great American Experiment and be Democratic or a Republic.
That way of thinking is no different than a particular religion (islam) that feels every nation and man, woman and child who lives within should follow their lead, or else. It just does not work that way...
Which was a shame, because Ho Chi Minh was a nationalist first and a Marxist second. Besides, we were helping the French, what a waste of money...
FDR supported an independent Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh. If it wasn't for Truman, the Vietnam war would have never happened
Reagan, for winning the Cold War. Liberal cartoonist Jules Feiffer had enough honesty to acknowledge it at the time:
When that fool, Reagan, called the Soviet Union `The Evil Empire,` I knew we were headed for war. . . .
When that fool, Reagan, gave a blank check to the arms race, I knew the odds favored nuclear annihilation. . . .
When that fool, Reagan, launched Star Wars on the premise that the Soviet Union would go broke trying to keep up . . .
I knew he was a dangerous kook living in never-never land. . . .
When the Soviet Union went broke, surrendered its empire and called off the Cold War, I knew it was Gorbachev`s genius and Reagan had nothing to do with it. . . .
Because if that fool, Reagan, was right all along. . .
What kind of fool am I?
Reagan didn't win the cold war, he just ran a solid anchor leg when we were already well ahead in the race.
So if Reagan had nothing to do with ending the Cold War; then Carter would have been able to end it !! There is no way that a continued USA policy of "Babying" the Soviets would have ended anything. We would still have the Soviet Union here today had Reagan not changed our policy. If Carter had been re-elected; Carter would have been lending money to the Soviets to keep their economy going.
Yup, libs can lie, which is all they ever do, remember a time when one was honest? me neither, but we were losing the cold war under Carter, Raegan saved not only our country but the world from Soviet rule. Another 4 years of Carter and I would be typing in Russian.
Calvin Coolidge, hands down
Of Course Reagan would win the Cold War....he treated the US treasury like a bottomless pit to outspend the USSR, but left us debt ridden and budget defecit dependent on foriegn loans from China. Meanwhile, Russia is laughing at us all the way to the bank.
Hands Down...Ronald Reagan! "We begin bombing in five minutes!" No one F'd with the USA. As a matter of fact, Iran released the hostages as he was sworn in. Smart move on their part!
right, because when hostages were held in Lebanon under Reagan's watch, he told Iran that they needed to get their allies to cut it out. He sent missiles to punctuate the point. Except, the missiles weren't armed, and they sent us money back so we could fund war in Nicaragua.
Bribes with arms deals for hostage takers? They must be quaking in their boots.
I won't put them in any order, but how about a top five that includes: James Monroe, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman?
James K. Polk is the best. America reaches from sea to shining sea thanks to his Manifest Destiny. And Texas too.
Peacfully establishing the 49th parrallel border with the UK/Canada when many in his party were calling for war (54-40 or fight) definitely puts him in the running.
Amen
Bush the Elder was not a great President, but he was equal to his moment.
I am no Nixon fan, but I thought his dealings with China when they were still a rather closed society were pretty impressive.
He also saved Israel from extermination, by a massive airlift of supplies during the 1973 Yom Kippur war.
Bill Clinton did a good job, he got Israelis and Palestinians as close to peace as they ever have been
Underrated, could have easily taken a 3rd term had he not had a stroke. Had Europe listened to him in 1919, there would have been no second world war. Had the U.S. listened to him, there would have been no Cold War. Woodrow Wilson is the single most underrated foreign policy president.
??? Too progressive and was rather weak, concerning world-affairs pre WWI.
Absolutely not. Woodrow "He kept us out of the war" Wilson was terrible. He sent US troops to die in France simply because he wanted to be the Professor and re-order European politics based on his utopian visions. His league of nations was a joke that Congress rightly shot down (we have sent billions to the UN, with nothing to show for it).
Or one could argue that if Wilson hadn't sent our people to meddle and die in Europe, the war may have had a different outcome. It was in part thanks to Wilson sending our people over there that the Allies were victorious and decided to stick it to Germany with the treaty of Versailles. The only note Wilson deserves is that he was a president who undertook a massive propaganda campaign to gain support for the war, initiated a draft, and sent thousands of Americans to die in a war that we really did not have a stake in.
Listing George H. W. Bush among the greatest foreign policy presidents is ridiculous. He just happened to be president when the Soviet Union collapsed; neither he nor any of his predecessors had anything to do with making that happen. And to add insult to injury, when Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania were declaring their independence from the former Soviet Union and countries were rushing to embrace that independence, Bush Sr. held back officially acknowledging same for at least a day if not longer. His subsequent excuse/apology? "Nobody will remember who was the first country to acknowlege their independence, anyhow."
As an aside, I'll also never forget Bush senior infamously declaring to a reporter who asked him if he, a former diplomat and U. N. Ambassador, favored the foreign policy side of his job to the domestic side: "You got that right."
HW Bush was great. The Lithuania situation was much more complex than you realize-there were a lot of hard-liners in the USSR that wanted to intervene directly to prevent the breakup of the USSR. Eisenhower's greatest sin was encouraging Hungary to rebel against Soviet influence knowing full well that the US would not step in when the tanks rolled in to Budapest and when Nagy was killed. Bush acted prudently, supporting the cause of the Baltics without sending the wrong signals like Ike did in E Europe.
hindu, worst presidents of USA in recent history, start with hindu ignorant Reagan, American debt before him, less than a trillion dollars, end of his term 6 trillion dollars, hindu, ignorant papa bush, American debt 8 trillion dollars, end of Clinton time, 5 trillion dollars, 3 trillion dollars paid off, end of hindu criminal son Bush term, national debt up to 9 trillion dollars, and hindu ignorant Obama 14 trillion dolls, all to please hindu Jew's, criminal self centered, hindu sanatans, criminal goon man god's of Mithriac hindu's, pagan Christian's, follower's of hindu Mithra ism, pagan savior ism labeled as Christianity to hind, fool humanity. visit limitisthetruth.com/blog.html and click on word Choice on website to open file.
What is it with you and Hindus??? I see your posts on other blogs and yuou have the same rant... What gives?
Word hindu is based on Latin word hindered, negative, Hun, great, Han, to be in greatness, hin, to be negative to both of them, hindu, a noun in negativity, hinduism, way of negativity. hope you get it.
Will you please see a doctor and go back on your meds. What in gods name are you talking about you incessantly post your Hindu hate drivel in response to anything it could be about flower growers in Holland and you post the same nonsense. Please go away and stop wasting electrons.
What is your problem, didn't take your meds? Using a really poor translation engine? you keep posting the same bizarre nonsense in every forum. Either learn English so you can get your point across whatever the hell it may be , stop taking powerful hallucinogens, See a good Psychiatrist or all of the above. In the meantime please go away.
I am the liberal to end all liberals, but I agree that George HW Bush was the best in my lifetime. He was a former CIA director, yet he used sheer diplomacy to rally Arab nations against Saddam's illegal takeover of Kuwait. I know it was all about oil, but he understood very well the power of many voices coming together against that invasion. He gets my vote, although I cannot honestly say I agree with a single thing he did on the domestic front.
BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA!
He will prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Obama will make North Korea a democracy. All our enemies are afraid of Barack.
Iran is closer to getting nuclear weapons than they were four years ago? You have no idea what you are talking about....do you not see what is happening in the middle east on a daily basis?
James K. Polk and Nixon
The Iranians didn't release hostages during Carter because it would've seemed as shameful to their own people that they let Carter win. They waited it out purposely until Reagan took office. That whole thing was psychological and its a shame it tarnished Carter's record yet made Reagan look like some tough guy.
Reagan ?,
LOL, Ronnie was clueless. Unless you believe the GOP's stance that "greediness is next to godliness".
Remember this?
JFK.....told off the commies, and even made us look good during the bay of pigs incident and fall out.Had he not been assassinated we might have pulled out of Vietnam conflict earlier perhaps and fired his brilliant defense secretary who acknowledged his mistake much later.
You would think this is April 1st.
1) Nixon
2) Clinton
3) Reagan
Yes I agree, Since the 1st Bush was a one-termer hurts his legacy. Carter would make the top 10, as Iran really tarnished him.
Everyone knows it was Richard Nixon, who brought sharpei and pug dogs back from China as gifts to the U.S. people.
Harry Truman- his decision to use atomic weapons to bring WW2 to a quicker end, his Marshall Plan to save millions from starvation and prevent the spread of communism in Europe, his support of Taiwan against the Chinese Communists, commitment to South Korea and his dismissal of MacArthur were his foreign policy highlights. All massive undertakings for a Commander in Chief with a high school education, only 10 years of political experience and less than a year as VP.
Killing innocent men, women, children (and family pets) to save soldiers somehow doesn't seem like the best policy...ever. Foreign policy implies at least a shred of decency and diplomacy.
Richard Nixon should be on anyone's short list. Watergate should not be considered in any reasonable persons thoughts on this subject but it often is.
FDR by FAR was the absolutely greatest President ever !! Elected to FOUR consecutive terms in office until he passed away (due to Polio), FDR, by far, had the best foreign policy of any living or deceased (past / present) US President !!!!
Would you feel the same way if it was ever proven that he allowed the Pearl Harbor attack (and subsequent thousands of deaths) to occur to justify our entry into the war?
Washington had the right idea: friendly relations with all, entangling alliances with none. Didn't fly though, so I go with Jefferson, who winkled the French out of Louisiana AND had the sense to explore his new purchases. Teddy Roosevelt also did a great job, showing the flag with the White Fleet, intervening in Cuba, and in general making America, hitherto a very down-rated power, far more visible in the British-dominated world of the early 20th century.
Who was the best foreign policy President? That's easy! Before I answer the question, I'll like to post a question of my own. That question is this: how many U.S. Presidents have inherited two wars and an economic crisis? My second question is this: how many U.S. Presidents have had to deal with a divided congress of peers on the opposite side that stated from day one that they wanted the President and the country to fail? My third question is this: how many incoming Presidents have had every policy deliberately blocked with the sole objective of seeing to it that his administration is undermined and sabotaged? Now, in your response to the question, who was the best foreign policy President, without a doubt, President Obama is unarguably the best foreign policy President in U.S. history.
First and foremost, President Obama has restored our our image, our trust and credibility abroad. And just note, the recent unrest and hostility in the Arab world had nothing to do whatsoever with the foreign policy of this administration. The President has sucessfully ended the illegitimate Iraqi war, putting the Iraqi people back in charge of their own country. He has set Afghanistan on a path to self relience and governing while subsequently setting a deadline for withdrawal. The President has been able to get leaders of the free world on board to stabilize Libya and put it on a path to democratic rule where the people can determine their own destiny. He has successfully brought democracy to a war thorn Sudan and he has rid the world of some of the most dangerous and ruthless terrorists it has ever seen, including Osama Bin Laden. And that is just the tip of the iceburg, all accomplished in under four years despite the obstructionist measures by the GOT. Yes, President Obama is unarguably the best foreign policy President in U.S. history.
Obama/Biden 2012 by a LANDSLIDE!
How's that Arab Spring working out so far?
Preident Obama started the TEA party, they wouldn't exist without his left-wing agenda. i.e. President Obama has divided this country more than any President in modern history including G.W.Bush. The Bush haters have been replaced by the Ombama haters, way to go extermist on both sides.
In an over-all look at the 20th century and early 21st century there is one very obvious fact about American foreign policy during this time and that is that only one president had a very comprehensive truly global master plan that actually worked. Richard Nixon. Yes, I know that too many over you will stumble over watergate but if you put that aside he and Henry Kissinger are so far the only team to work from a well-thought-out master plan that made sense. Time magazine had Nixon as man of the year twice (and Kissinger was with him on one those years and it was for their mastery of foreign affairs. For those that lived at the time you will remember that when Ford took over after the resignation the whole world was worried about if Kissinger would continue (he did of course) in the job and continue Nixon's policy. Even though Carter tried to move away (to his downfall – stupid) we have basically been working under the Nixon global concepts of foreign policy since then – reagan, Bush, – even Clinton took advice from Nixon many times before he died. We have strayed a little recently and of course are in trouble because of this dumbness. I know it is hard to face but anyone that studies world politics (obviously not the people above) knows that even with all his characters quirks and watergate, Nixon was and to a certain degree still is the global master at this job.
Reagan: Superb balance of hawkish stance toward "evil empire" and meaningful negotiation with Gorbachev, ending the Cold War on our terms.
HW Bush: Very effective president, just finished reading a book about his foreign policy-very complicated time to be president; Kuwait liberation was only true example of collective security in action, and done with Bush leadership.
Nixon: opened China, which was the only brilliant move of his presidency. High marks for that alone, however.
FDR: Good management of WWII-let a group of highly competent generals run the show and with great effect. Did not establish much of a vision for a post WWII world and really had no business seeking a fourth term given his health-left Truman in an awkward position.
LBJ: Probably the worst, the Vietnam experience left the nation in a terrible way.
Carter: Should not be on this list, basically had no foreign policy. Let the US military languish when he could've pressed the Soviets and spent much of his term negotiating with terrorists in Iran. Israel-Egypt is small consolation.
Truman: Quite a resume: Oversaw end of WWII, created NATO, established state of Israel, Marshall Plan. Really set the stage for the Cold War; difficult to establish whether the animosity between the US and USSR could've been alleviated during his and ike's terms though.
Nuts
Dear God. it is apparent our higher level history "professors" are in most part a waste of money and space.
FDR either had been duped by his wiser partner in the coallition, or had been a complete idiot, with intelligence level of that of a 12 year old boy.
Look at what transpired after the world war 2, the tremendous human waste, and trillions of dollars spent on the cold war. without regards to both domestic and international agenda.
Remember Russia is just a continuation of the Sovet Socialist Republic, and their policy towards the USA did not nor will it change, as an enemy and adversary.
We have come a full circle since the days of, in my opinion, the worst president of the USA.
Agree with FDR. What about JFK? (Or does preventing a nuclear disaster not count? And the fact that he was the only president who stood up against the USSR until Reagan?). But the most impactful US foreign policy program created was under Truman with the Marshall Plan. Sending aid to your enemy within a year of their defeat was a visionary and gutsy move and showed a real understanding of global policy. Without this decision the world map would look totally different today. That said there is too much focus on recent history – what about Monroe, Adams?
FDR certainly number one but James K. Polk and William McKinley close behind.
Monroe, Truman, FDR or Reagan, all made a difference and helped to shape the world order. But none of the great Presidents before President Obama ever inherited two war and an economic crisis simultaneously. Furthermore, its difficult to compare Ali and Marciano for example because the challengers or in this case, the challenges each President faced were different. But given what President Obama inherited (the first U.S. President to inherit two wars and an economic crisis) and what he has accomplished in under four years, if you want to compare, President Obama is unarguably the best foreign policy President ever. No ifs and or buts about it!
Obama/Biden 2012 by a LANDSLIDE!
Woodrow Wilson, Polk was nothing short of Adolf Hitler.
Wilson was a segregationist, an Anglophile, and the most bitter racist to ever hold the office of President. Self-determination was fine and good when applied to white people, but did Africa, Asia, or the Middle East get to decide their own destiny? If you want a President from this era who really believed in freedom and equality, that would be William McKinley, who truly believed everyone of every race should enjoy the blessings of liberty. The war he fought was one he didn't ask for, unlike Wilson, he let Congress do its job, and respected the separation of powers.
Polk kept every promise he made (including the one not to seek re-election), and gave everything of himself to the job, living barely more than 3 months after leaving office. He didn't fight any war he didn't have to, and gave the next election to the opposing party by virtue of the Generals (Scott and Taylor, both Whigs) he sent to win the war, who did so as honorably as any victorious army has ever done. We even paid the vanquished Mexico for the territory which was ceded, something no victorious nation has ever done (indeed, normally the winners take money and territory). Polk would have gladly purchased the territory without resorting to war, it was Mexico which commenced hostilities, because they thought their army (which was thrice the size of ours) would win that war.
FDR ordered the Asian Americans into camps... those wacky liberals
That was a stain upon our country. I doubt you would have found "conservatives" opposed to the camps. A tragic mistake.
No, conservaties just enslaved African-Americans for four hundred years. Then following the Emancipation Proclamation, they made certain to keep us in bondage further by introducing Jim Crow: seperate and unequal! That is the worst stain on our history!
In response to BLAH... the republican party was fomed as an break-off from the previous Whig party because they were conservative, and felt that slaves should be free. Southern Democrats, who ardently opposed this view were first to come to blows over their rights to both slave's and states rights. Democrats being the leaders of modern civil rights is a recent thing. Only 150 years of anti-integration under their belts... not a bad record...
Carter is indeed one of the greatest statesmen for making human rights a central part of US foreign policy, for the Camp David accords, and for the work of the Carter Center in election monitoring word wide.
Henry Truman.
Harry Truman? Anyway, the one that dropped the nuke.
How about Lyndon Johnson for bringing peace and prosperity to Vietnam?
(1) Carter
(2) Polk
(3) Ford
(4) Johnson (Andrew)
(5) Obama
Hitler, by far the best.
"...but in the aftermath of the Carter era – dominated by a president who believed American power was an embarrassment to be lived down..."
Sound familar??
The Middle East Hates Americans because of how many millions have been killed by the GOP presidents of the past President Dwight D. Eisenhower over through the Iranian Government and put the Shah into power when the Iranians tried to nationalize the Iranian Oil fields and Oil production... Reagan started the Iran-Iraq war 1980-1988 and that killed over one million on each side...Sold those WMD's to Saddam and then we had to fight two unfunded wars to get them all back... GHWBush killed about as many Iraqi's in the first gulf war.... GWBush Killed about as many in Iraqi's invasion and occupation... GWBush Killed many in Afghanistan too.... If the GOP had not killed so many Arabs and Muslims over oil and just followed Jimmy Carters plan to develop renewable energy we would not care about the middle east oil and they would not hate us....Thanks GOP.... If you look at history and watch "Three Days of the Condor". from 1975..you might think we planned our wars in the middle east decades before.
FDR and the lend lease plan, and the marshal plan and other to rebuild both our allies and our enemies was what separated the US from other countries in history...FDR was probably the best for that....
Dead sand nigras are funny.
Dead bigots are funnier.
People like you make me weep for humanity.
@abacab. Let's see, I'm a troll and made you weep .... YES!
Andrew Jackson .... because he knew the importance of self governing... he removed the Federal reserve central banking... only to have it return in 1913 to begin the destruction of America.
Jefferson set in place many of the policies that shaped our country for generations to come. He helped to establish the US Navy as a tool for international commerce in putting down the pirates of Tunisia and along the Northern Africa coast. But, to argue two centuries of presidents is an impossible task. Each man dealt with specific problems both domestically and internationally. FDR had to overcome Charles Lindbergh and his isolationism and was only really able to muster support at home for WWII following December 7, 1941. This, in of itself does not make FDR a great international policy president, but only showcases the strain of managing policy/
My choice Is Ronald Reagan. His policies ended the Cold War. The Cold War was the biggest foreign policy issue in the mid to latter 20th century.
Capitalism ended the cold war. Reagan happened to be president at the time.
I disagree, Reagan spent 1 billion dollars a day on defense for 8 years, the Russians couldn't keep up.
Obama's a silly nigra.
Ronald Reagan was good, but one problem he was passed 9/11, foreign policy is completely different today just about every Muslim country have it in for us.
You do know that Osama had no problems with the US until GH Bush set up forces in Saudi to attack Kuait?
Boy, Mr. Reagan sure did botch the Beirut, Lebanon Marine barracks bombing. He sent them in poorly armed and fortified and ignored the warnings from his own Defense Secretary to pull them out. 241 marines murdered by a suicide bomber. Tragic and preventable.
GHWB? Really? That's funny.
Reasonably with AIDS is funnier.
I can say who the worst is; Barry Soetoro aka Barack Hussien Obama.
Best president foreign affairs: Harry Truman.
Worst president foreign affairs: George Bush Jr.
If you really understand history, Reagan is a very overrated president in foreign policy. The convention wisdom is that Reagan ended the Cold War, in reality it was the PC/telecommunications revolution that needed the Cold War. The USSR knew it needed get involved in the world market economy or would end up hopeless behind. How bad were the economies of eastern Europe that the USSR was willing to leave without firing a shot? After the Berlin Wall fell, we found out that there were a number of false alarms in 1983 that actually had us going closer to war than the Cuban Missile crisis. There was also a great deal of pressure in the West from the international peace movements to avoid a showdown.
Best president overall: Jefferson is my pick.
Considering Reagan's weakening of the military by funding useless programs instead of common sense and the fact his senility almost got us nuked at a time when his administration’s incompetence left us with no possible way to respond. I am surprised he is even included.
It will take decades before we recover from Reagan /Bush, and longer for the GOP to recover from the Tea Party Traitors and Benedict Allen west.
I think you mean Benedict ARNOLD
No I meant Allen west, he has lied to the troops to further his own career while destrpoying moral and getting the ones who believed his lies q=courtsmartialed and even given bad discharges, and the worst part is he iknows he is lying.
Seditionin a tme of war is treason, and the tea party are traitors, otherowse why the aversion to the truth?
How could they forget to mention JFK? In my opinion John Fitzgerald Kennedy was the best American president to have ever lived.
what did JFK do tha was good? His fatehr was a NAZI and he was was an anti semite, we are still argueing about who eliminagted him, I can only think of one group who could do it and leave so many questions, Israel will never let an antisemite in the white house.
Truman ended WW11'started N.A.TO.,contained communism,established the UnitedNation,Dept of Defense,C.IA.,re-built western Europe...to you Reagan lovers..PEEP!
Errr, you mean he completed FDR's accomplishments.
History is filled with myths...
Jefferson was the great thinker and revolutionary – and also one of the most inept presidents of the United States, who nearly ran the country into the ground. He weakened the military and then recklessly got into war with the Great Britain. Brits sacked and burned the US capitol on his watch, and it was pure luck they were to busy in Europe to finish the job here.
As for the Louisiana Purchase – it was done on the spot by the US envoys to France, without Jefferson knowledge and approval. He learned about it post-fact, and has no choice but to approve it.
The attack on the White House happened on Madison's watch, and it was Madison that started that war. An absolute disaster foreign policy wise.
President Wilson should be on the list. If it wasn't for an isolationist congress we may not have had WWII
The extreme right hates Woodrow Wilson. They think he is behind all of the progressive elements in our society. Hurts my fellings since I went to Woodrow Wilson High School in Portland.
Only CNN would include FDR and " gasp " Jimmy Carter on a list of Best Foreign policy Presidents. FDR was a socialist pig who was forced into foreign policy and Carter is a peanut brained m o r o n .
.Carter had a distinguished Navy career, unlike most GOP types who seem to avoid the military even as they want to expand it.
I must have missed the part of the story about Carters Navy career. Although i do remember his being attacked at " Sea" by a killer rabbit.
We could not have gone on to the remarkable achievements our country has produced without the revolutionary ideas implemented by Thomas Jefferson, as well as his visionary addition of the Louisiana Purchase! What a remarkable man.
Good Article!!
Are you high?
During my lifetime Carter was the one with the worst foreign policy until Obama got elected.
There was a good PBS special I saw once that basically gave credit to The Beatles for ending the Cold War. While you might think that is crazy, you have to consider how influence Western pop culture had on the youth of the USSR.
GHW Bush! Too bad he engineered the GOP's hard turn to the Right. Also, Harry Truman. Both of them carried out the end games of more fabled presidents. But w/o the end games both achievements would have gone for nothing.
SARAH PALIN BECAUSE RUSSIA IS BY ALASKA LMAFO
My vote would go to Eisenhower, the last US President to keep the country entirely out of international conflicts. He ended the Korean War and resisted intervening in Vietnam. For a few short years, the United States had no boots on foreign soil, anywhere on Earth.
Ike sent the marines into Lebanon in what was one of the more ridiculous moves in US foreign policy...
I liked Regan and Kennedy. I think Romney will be like Regan.
Please get help and maybe a prescription for some reality pills.
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Nixon was pretty good at foreign policy.
Truman was the greatest because he dropped the Bomb. I wish more presidents would do that.
How quickly we forget that if not for Ollie North taking the fall for Iran-Contra, Reagan would have been impeached.
I think JFK would be an excellent "role model" for Obama in terms of foreign policy and pentagon-related issues as well as general outlook for the country.
What good does this article do? The media is the cause of ignorance being spread. I will celebrate the day educated people realize that CNN is just as divisive as Faux. The U.S. is going down hill fast, thanks to so-called- credible cable channels like CNN. I just wish it would stop.
Nixon was very good, but JM would have been even better...
Reagan making the short list is what I find funny. If we had given Carter a second term instead of switching to Dr Feelgood Reagan, the world would be a far better place today. We are still paying the price for the disastrous Reagan admin, in so many ways.
You must be joking. Carter would have failed miserably the next four years and we would probably have already paid the price.
This is where people simply vomit up the name of the president they like the most – no matter how bad those policies may have been – because they don’t really know anything about foreign policies of any other president.
What’s going on here? We thought George W. Bush was the problem. Isn’t that why our bumptious young president promised, in his victory speech, to restore regard for the US?
In the Middle East, President Obama has lost whit little credibility he had. The promises he made in his 2009 speech – intended as a “reset” to our relations with the Muslim world - have come back to haunt him and us. In his speech, President Obama said he sought “a new beginning” in our relations with the Muslim world. He confirmed that the US was “not at war with Islam” and professed sympathy for the plight of Palestinians. He apparently thought that decades of failure could be overcome by a few well chosen words, but since then, there has been little to no progress on the ground.
The appalling events in Libya, Afghanistan, and Egypt, together stiff-arming the Israelis signal grave times for America, but the Pres seems to be too busy attending campaign fund raisers or relaxing on the links.
Just like Americans, people in the Muslim world were suckered by fine speech-making; we, and they, are disappointed in the follow-through. For Arabs, the let-down has been grave, partly because the build-up was out of proportion. Americans have suffered a similar disillusionment – on jobs, on education, on our finances – and on foreign policy. Now, President Obama’s failure to keep his promises – both at home and abroad – should cost him his job.
Ronnie could talk but no walk. He made token responses to 200 marines killed in Lebaon and Pan Am flight over Lockerbee. He could yell and shake his fist at the Russkies and the Wall. So, what all the Presidents talked of the wall coming down. He did nothing about it just talk. He was President at the end of the Soviet Union falling from trying to occupy their colonies called the Soviet Bloc, just as the colonial period ended for all the European Nations. And RWR had nothing to do with it. History will eventually show he dealt with Iran making a deal so he could be President. Sold them weapons after they held our people hostage for 444 days. You people never could see the true RWR, worthless as a President and should have been impeached and removed.
Exactly. But to listen to Republicans, one would think old Ronny was the second coming.
I agree with all your comments about the best presidents concerning foreign policy except I don't think Ronald Reagan was an especially good president on foreign policy. I feel he was just lucky to be in office when all good things related to foreign policy happened. He did not personally make them happen.
I followed closely the political events of the 70's on, and I have to say that Ronald Reagan is second only to George W Bush as the worst president in my lifetime as it pertains to foreign policy and domestic policy. Reagan was the great communicator without a clue and Bush was a puppet on a string. The neocons pulled the strings during both administrations.
Pssst, Comedy and SNL skits are not real........
Thank God for Thomas Jefferson, first of all for his assuring each of us a voice in government, and second, for his embargo policy with deplomacy in dealing with other nations. Ronald Reagan is my next choice of a statesman worthy of ten times his hire.
Oh come on, Carter? This is a joke. The perception (and reality) of his weakness was extremely dangerous. All it would have taken is some idiot offing a few of the hostages and you'd have US troops in Iran, Soviet troops in Afghanistan, and World War III just waiting for another stupid move.
No Nixon? You have to give Tricky Dick credit for his strong suite.
Probably Ike goes to the top of the list.
Ronald Reagan should not be in even the top 30. He set up Osama Ben Ladin in Afghanistan to chase out the Russians and laid the seed for 9-11-2001. He crowed about "bring down this wall", but had little to do with causing it. The CIA had said years before that Russia's economy was not sustainable. He almost tripled the national debt with large tax cut for real estate investors which led to a bubble in real estate and the S&L crisis. He ignored laws and bought guns from Iran to sell to the Contras in South America and back hauled cocaine to the US to pay for it all.
With out a doubt it was Truman. After he dropped the bomb, nobody but nobody messed with the USA.
That's right. We should drop one every now and again to keep the rest of the world honest.
Nixon?
Did I read this correctly? Who should Obama and Romney try to draw inspiration from?" Isn't Oidiot already Commander In Chief? If we are asking this question after four years I would assume his policies are a failure? Because if his policies were successful wouldn't those interested in running for the highest office of the U.S. be drawing inspiration from him. I can't get over that you liberals do not see this?
BTW – White House Press Secretary states "it was self-evident' that the attacks in Libya are terrorist attacks, REALLY??? Wow, it only took you guys over a week to figure that out? And, let's see Fast & Furious? Why isn't CNN reporting those headlines? Because it brings to life that Oidiot is a failure on all fronts. One last point, job numbers are still horrible.
Obama is himself the best foreign policy president. We will all acknowledge that 20 years from now. If Obama were white, we might even have an inkling of that fact already.
HAHA this is probably the most hilarious comment I have read today. Yeah, Obama will be right up there with GW Bush for best foriegn policy presidents... PFFF! (Obama despite his campaign promises and talk has been a double down on bad GW Bush policy)
Just like Americans, people in the Muslim world were suckered by fine speech-making; we, and they, are disappointed in the follow-through. For Arabs, the let-down has been grave, partly because the build-up was out of proportion. Americans have suffered a similar disillusionment – on jobs, on education, on our finances – and on foreign policy. Now, President Obama’s failure to keep his promises – both at home and abroad – should cost him his job.
You know its pretty sad. I am white and don't even think about the color of Obama's skin unless someone brings it up. Usually saying how he is mistreated or not respected because he is black. What a joke.
Seriously? You just discredited your entire argument! If he were white. . . Please. Obama and Hillary have both done great things on foreign policy and they've both avoided bad situations. They've done the best they could with what they were given. Osama bin Laden is dead, we are not sending troops to Syria. World relations (At least within their power) have improved. The situation in Iran could be better, however, this is a concern for the World government, not solely the U.S. Government. U.S Politics are one thing, World Politics are a whole different ball game. And from the sound of things, Hillary Clinton doesn't want to continue as Secretary of state.
Nixon was good with China. Eisenhower was the best. Carter had to deal with the GOP dealing arms to Iran, that treason must have been hard to deal with.
Eisenhower was pretty cool
Carter. Are you kidding me?
Jefferson takes it. FDR was a bit of a tool bag all things considered. Carter should not even make the list. Reagan created too much deffense debt, but when I travel around central europe people seem to like him (even if I didn't care for him all too much).
I'd say more mention of James Monroe (Monroe Doctrine), Theodore Roosevelt (made the US a superpower), and Harry Truman (filled FDR's shoes, brought the US from WW2 into post-war recovery).
I would like to offer several opinions:
Washington and Eisenhower should be high on the list
– Washington set the paradigm or pattern for the presidency, including foriegn policy
– Eisenhower because he got us throught the riskiest years without a nuclear war or attack. everyone else seemed ready to use nukes for everything, but he held the line.
I would also opine that Jimmy Carter along with Buchanan is the very worst and should be impeached retroactively.
How could Ronald Reagan be named as one of the best? Didn't he sell weapons to our sworn enemy Iran, just a few years after they held our citizens hostage for nearly two years? The same weapons and weapons technology that Iran is threatening the US and Isreal with today? Didn't he carry out secret wars in South America so he could control the drug shipments coming into the US, while also waging the so called "war on drugs" against his own countrymen?
Didn't Obama's administration give guns to the mexican drug cartel?
YES THEY DID.
I still don't understand how we let Reagan and Bush pardon their own criminals from Iran Contra. I guess Casey was killed to protect the guilty.
Reagan was the best foreign policy president. It was because of him, eastern Europe is now free of Socialist Totalitarianism. He challenged the Soviets to keep up with our military build up, and it bankrupted them. Socialism is EXPENSIVE!
The best foreign policy president will be Mitt Romney.
No doubt. A domestic disaster but foreign policy genuis... Richard Nixon. He got the Strategic Arms Talks started with the USSR...diffused the situation in Berlin...opened up relations with China.
We went from the real possibility of living to see the next morning to actually feeling secure in our beds. The issues today are so minor compared to the inasanity of the dark days of the Cold War.
REAGAN?!!! HAHAHAHAAHAAHAAHAHAHAAHAHAH
FDR certainly was an enormous figure with regards to his accomplishments but the fact that he turned his back on the Jews will forever be an unforgivable act in my book. JFK and his handling of the Cuban Missle Crisis ranks as the #1 foreign policy decision for me.
Can you explain more of your thoughts on JFK? I wrote a paper on the Cuban Missile Crisis in college and in many ways Kennedy's administration provoked the Cuban crisis. The Soviets were fearful of US nuclear missiles existing in Turkey at the time and had requested their removal. JFK had ordered their removal but people in his admin 'slow-balled' their removal in hopes of keeping them and the Soviets retaliated by attempting to put missiles in Cuba.
Ben Franklin was the best president. He even invented electricity, and the cowbell.
GO RON PAUL 2016!!!
These are the statements that make me think about the lack of culture.
Benjamin Franklin invented the electricity? Ha, ha, ha, ha.
I forgive you just if you are six years old, but I thank you because you made me laugh.
"Who should Obama and Romney draw inspiration from when it comes to foreign policy and the White House? "
Obama should be looking for 'another inspiration'? Many insane people are in the world. There's no shortage of folks who feel bad about themselves. And then disown it by making others feel bad. When these folks get a position of power, it creates suffering for many. A GOB reaction of "go in and get 'em! We are America" didn't work well in Iraq. Obama and Clinton are acting more patiently. Perhaps wise, when dealing with potentially insane foreign leaders.
Seriously? Clinton was warned about Osama before Bush took office. That's for handling that so well.
Warned?
I did mean Hilary Clinton.
This just in, Obama has had gold plated knee pads made for the whole crew at CNN.
With all the respect for Prof. Bruce Jentleson, I think that his vision of "best foreign policy" is just a little triumphalist and doesn't fully and correctly interprets what foreign policy means. Saying that "thanks to FDR’s skillful management of World War II, the United States by 1945 had become the richest and strongest country in the world. Americans were the sole beneficiaries of the cataclysm touched off by Hitler’s invasion of Poland in September 1939. By the time the smoke cleared, the ranks of Great Powers had been reduced to two and in every way that counted, the United States enjoyed vast advantages over its only conceivable rival, the Soviet Union" he doesn't depict a great man of state, he seems to depict a ravenous shark. Overall in the moment he shortly summarizes the situation of Europe during the WWII: this war made 40/50 million civilians dead (including diseases and famine) plus 25 million military dead.
We are talking here about 70 million people who died. I'm not counting here the Holocaust and the Soviet Victims in the aftermath (see Stalin) estimated around 27 million. I think that prof and journalist could have been, at least, more precise. Respect? Why, does it still exist? By the way,foreign policy should mean a policy that is able to cenvey peace.
Therefore I would leave the Bush's saga aside.
CNN why is this article more important than our; DISASTROUS ECONOMY, RISING DEBT, GAS PRICES, INFLATION, UNEMPLOYMENT....I have come to the conclusion that you could careless about AMERICA...our people and our current MESS....you are in bed with the OBAMA administration and you will do everything to elect him at the COST of our GREAT NATION!!!!
do you have a red bull IV in you?
Johnson and Nixon were great because they killed a bunch of qooks.
What happen to TRICKY DICK. RICHARD NIXON?
Why wasn't he on the List?
Nice Scott Lucas. We don't give any of your British leaders much credit either.
FDR
Jefferson
GH Bush
Regean
In that order.
Roosevelt ended a world war that his lack of good policy intially made bigger and longer. Reagan prevented a world war that would have destroyed most of mankind. Jefferson promoted freedom, and the opportunity for free people to grow into a larger nation. My vote would go to Reagan first, then Jefferson. Obama, Johnson, and Carter are about tied for worst.
Lumping Jefferson in with modern POTUS's is skewing the who was best list. Jefferson was POTUS in a very different era. My list; FDR for a lot of reasons mentioned
GHW Bush for his service both as POTUS but include time as ambassador to PRC,head of CIA
R.Reagan helped end the cold war
J Carter well a failed POTUS because of external events , Iran hostage crisis
All American Presidents are Great.
What have you done for America, except hiding behind keyboards?
America = Christianity!!!!
RICHARD NIXON was terrible about the COLD WAR and he actually did visit SOVIET UNION and CHINA. Eventually become friends. He attacked FBI J.Edger Hoover. Because he hated that man.
What about James Polk
While a strong argument can be made for several presidents, my order of preference is: 1) Nixon because of his detente with both the former Soviet Union and China...as well as laying the ground work for disengaging from Viet Nam; 2) Truman for navigating the close of WWII, the Korean conflict, and the commencement of the 'Cold War'; and finally, 3) I will give the nod to Carter for the Camp David Accord and for choosing to appear 'weak' over Iran. For those who would have preferred a 'good war' under Carter, consider how many Americans have been killed due to W's search for WMD's in Iraq.
Nixon – established ties to China, withdrew from Vietnam, and SALT I
Obama's the greatest because he's setting the stage for a mass Third-World culling. Without Obama this cleansing would not have been possible.
obama will turn AMERICA into a third world nation. this is what happens when you import people from the third world then adopt their economic policies.
No, you got it wrong. The best 'foreign policy' president was George Washington. If you interfere with us we will kill all of you, and if you get in the way we will kill all of you. We didn't invade other countries, we defended our own and kicked everyone else out.
President Reagan without doubt. God rest his soul. Loved him!!
Reagan?? A guy who wanted it to be 1950 again, get a grip. That world was gone in the 80's and is definitely gone now..
Reagan? Who funded and aided the Contras, the Mujahideen (Taliban), Saddam, bin Laden?
Abraham Lincoln
He managed to keep the Brits and the French from siding with the Rebels during the Civil War. It inlcuded an almost apology over the Trent Affair, a paper blockade that gradually becasme real and it includes timing the publication of the Emanciapation Proclamation. There were also the problems of the Laird Rams and other vessels which were managed to kept from Confederate hands.
If either of those two nations had assisted the south the united States and indeed the political face of the whole world would look enntirely different today; there wouldn't have been a US to interfere during WW1 and WW2. People forget that we are the among the oldest if not the oldest continuous political government on this earth.
This list is a joke, Truman did a lot of good things but did NOTHING to stop China from turning to Communism. Also Jimmy Carter is included? Where is John Adams?
John Adams is dead, Zack.
FDR, then Obama
Anything associated with 'deal' and 'government' can't be good, including Obama's no deal.
Reagan did not "hasten" the end of the Cold War- he prolonged it. The Soviet citizens were already starting to riot in the streets over having to wait hours in line for basic things like toilet paper. Reagan gave the Soviet government what it desperately needed- a villain. All they had to do was play his "Evil Empire" speech unedited and suddenly Soviet citizens were less worried about food rationing and more worried about the crazy cowboy with the nukes. Notice all the revolution happened towards the end of Reagan second term after he had been shot, embroiled in the Iran-Contra scandal (which that and the supporting people like Hussein, Al Qaeda and the Taliban should put in on the "worst" list), and was showing signs of Alzheimer's and had pretty much left the world stage to other people.
Each of the above Presidents had successes and failures. Truman failed in his first year as President because it aggravated the conflict with the USSR. But during his next seven years he was successful at everything EXCEPT Korea. Carter was not very strong especially in his last year but his biggest failures were due to interfering in military minutiae too much and being the first victim of irrational Islamic extremism. Of the Presidents above, Jefferson was the worst on foreign policy.His only success was the Louisiahna Purchase and that occurred only because his envoys to France ignored his instructions. The Barbary Pirates matter was a leftover from the Adams Presidency. Jefferson nealy bankrupted the country over his economic policies with respect to France and Britain. He stripped the navy thus jeoparizing national security and mishandled relations with Spain and the Indian nations, laying the groundwork for problems throughout the 19th century.
Truman: Marshall Plan; UN; Korean War creating S.Korea. His omission on the list shows how defective the list is.
One glaring omission: Theodore Roosevelt. He gets my nomiination for being the best of all our presidents to date. That Bill Clinton did not make the list is surprising considering that his presidency is vastly overrated.
Kennedy Cuban misile crisis.
Bush Sr. was the idiot that after Iraq's military had been smashed gave permission to the Iraqi Air Force to fly gunships over its country and slaughter the civilian engaged in the uprising. Iraq actually asked permission and to their shock Bush said "sure". We could have been rid of Saddam a decade earlier, but I guess Bush and his buds at Haliburton had other plans for Iraq. Luckily he was only one term but his cancerous legacy gave us W., 9/11, and the collapse of our economy because of a phony war fought as a personal ego trip("He tried to kill my daddy!").
Nixon. Detente and China. Carter didn't do too well with Iran
The one who helped beat Hitler and Tojo.
Discussion over.
W. Wilson was actually above all of these and on the right track when his illness and the Republicans in the Senate let WW II happen.
had he NOT involved america in a foreign war there would not have been the second. and probably not a russian revolution to boot. germany would have LOST without the US.
turkey was beaten before the US intervened as was austria.
Hogwash
Nixon was one of the best foreign policy presidents, he ended the Vietnam war, opened the USSR and China to the west, signed many arms agreements, started the middle east peace process
How can this list not include Kennedy
kennedy had a foreign policy? oh yeah, slouching towards war in laos and vietnam and setting up your successor for failure with a crap cabinet.
October 1962
Obama
George Washington Buckwheat.
I disagree Obama then Carter. Carter was just not very smart but he came up with his original lines shoot first and aim second was Carters line. Carter did not do what ever he wanted against the will of the people.
Why is George W not on the list? The guy kept us safe from terrorists.
you mean he prevented 9-11? Any idiot can bolt the barn door after the horses have fled.
Can't include Jefferson in this list. Remember the XYZ Affair??
Yeah not sure how that effects Jefferson as a choice.
A lot of people forget what John Adams did to keep us out of an unnecessary war between Britain and France during the nations most vulnerable time. If we went to war then, it would have killed our economy and the nation might look vastly different. The decision to stay neutral pretty much costed him the reelection to Jefferson.
I think the one President that many people tend to forget is Dwight Eisenhower. Remember he did what he could and prevented a major war over the invasion of South Korea.
More important he sounded a warning that, it seems, most people forget. In essence, he said "beware the military-industrial complex." As a former general, he knew what he was talking about. What he was saying was that the military will constantly demand increasingly expensive equipment. More than that, the military would have the backing of those businesses that depend upon the military constantly demanding more increasingly expensive equipment.
Take a look at what has happened to the air force–nothing against the air force. We are now being lobbied heavily to equip the air force with aircraft that will cost tens of millions of dollars each. The goal, of course, is to keep the companies employing ever increasing numbers of people along with the profits.
Eisenhower predicted that that is exactly what would happen.
James K Polk. The mexican dictator wanted a war and he got one.
Now all of the south west US is one of the greatest economic regions on earth. Compare this to the rest of mexico.
And Monroe. The Monroe doctrine was the foundation for a brilliant period of foreign policy. Interrupted by the near dictator known as Woodrow Wilson.
Lastly Andrew Jackson...he gave foreign policy the direction america does best...ISOLATIONISM!
Polk's my #1... I like your list, but Monroe credentials are not impressive enough. Good enough for the 19th century, though
Teddy Roosevelt.
For us in the "ROW" the answer is easy: Bill Clinton – one of your presidents in recent times.
FDR: "Bomb them into submission. Stay on as president when he was barely medically functional".
Reagan: "Borrow our way into bankrupting the USSR so 20 years later, we're bankrupt".
Jefferson: "Make secret deals with France behind England's back and cause the war of 1812. Delay ending slavery".
No, I don't think those 3 deserve the spotlight. I like Woodrow Wilson, who delayed our entry int WW1 and made the Europeans fight their own battles.
Then I don't understand why you don't like FDR. He delayed U.S. entry into the war in Europe till 1944 when Russians and Germans were pretty much done annihilating each other.
Missing from this list are the obvious candidates for anyone familiar with presidential history: Theodore Roosevelt, Harry S Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, and RIchard Nixon.
And Ike would be on the list because of the U-2 debacle that was the gold standard for presidential embarassment before "I did not have s.. with this woman"?
Richard Nixon: "I come before you tonight to announce I'm sending ground troops into Cambodia"
Roosevelt sold out Poland to help save "Western Europe". It was he who made the deal with Stalin to hand Poland and the rest of Central and Easter Europe over to the Soviet block. It was also he who did everything in his power to help cover up and play down the Katyn Massacre. Thanks to Roosevelt WWII did not end for us Poles till 1989. I had no idea that putting millions of people into virtual slavery was considered good foriegn policy.
All wrong, with the exception of Jefferson, but that was too long ago. Roosevelt forged a wartime alliance, but this is an entirely different game than peacetime foreign policy. Reagan was clueless in foreign policy matters. The collapse of the Soviet Union just happened to start on his watch, but his administration really had nothing to do with it. Soivet Union collapsed under the weight of its internal problems, not because of U.S. pressure, or Afghan war. The most successful modern president in the matters of foreign policy was Richard Nixon, to a great extent thanks to his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. End of Vietnam war, opening of China, stabilization of relations with the USSR, strategic armaments and missile defense limitation treaties, all that is Nixon and Kissinger's work. Kissinger was actually the first U.S. statesman to base his policy on the realization that Soviet Union will collapse on its own given time, so it makes no sense to risk nuclear war to topple it.
And, yes, also missing are 19th Century presidents James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, and James K. Polk. John Quincy Adams, who became president, is also generally regarded by historians as our greatest secretary of state.
If you'd leave out mythological characters like Ronald Reagan, this could be an interesting conversation. But cartoonishly following a macho, cowboy Cold War playbook did not make him a great, good or even not atrocious president. The messes we're STILL mired in can, in large part, be laid at Reagan's feet. He wasn't just bad, he was a generations long disaster.
What about G "Dummya" ? He's was one of the bes........... I mean worse. No mention of him by his own party. Aha. R -money's already lost because of his own mouth
Well who ended 2 wars and had their leader killed. That would be the best president
There are four U. S. Presidents that have won a Nobel Peace Prize. Thats a good place to start. Oh Yeah three of the foui were Democrats, the one Republican (Theodore Roosevelt) was kick out of the Republican party for leading the trust busters.
Yes. Theodore Roosevelt would get my vote too. Trouble is CNN interns who write this lame stuff don't read history books. Heck, I don't know if they read anything at all, or just Google and digest.
What, no Polk? Solidified northern border and avoided war with Britain over Oregon, stole the West after the Mexican War. Without him, this is a very different country!
Please don't take this the wrong way, but I believe the media didn't want to bring up Polk because after the War with Mexico slavery was reinstated in Texas. Since, Mexico outlawed slavery when they won there independence from Spain. Therefore, Polk would been a even greater president if he would of made Texas a free state. Again Im not insulting you but sharing my opinion.
I still have to rank him very high. A man of his times and tough as young hickory.
Reagan?....the one who sold arms to our "enemy" to fund Central American killers?...no....Jefferson?...the slave owner who said all men are equal...ill go with the lesser of the evils...Roosevelt...he dealt with the mother of all wars and led us to be THE world power
Take a lesson from Reagan. When he became president, the hostages were released for Reagan would take no s*** from anyone.
take a lesson from President Reagan. When an enemy takes hostages, offer them weapons deals in exchange for their release.
Iran Contra affair. Google it.
Where is James Monroe?
Didn't this reporter get in trouble recently for plagiarism? Please correct me if I'm wrong.
So many reactions about this subject! It is important that we have good relationship the nation. Some Presidents are better then others, Mitt Romney would not be able to fell that role! I rather look at the present.
I want Obongo to put a plate in his lower lip a do a little nigra dance for me.
Again spreading my opinion if some people the fair right but not the majority of the right. Want people to stop calling them racist than stop saying racist ??? I'll let figure out the rest.
Have a little respect for the president.
President Obama is a filthy nigra beast.
The approach the best presidents used was "peace through strength" that is the only thing the macho cultures like Islam understand. When America follows appeasement and apology it sends a message of weakness...this is what we are seeing now in the world.
Jimmy Carter? Really? That is whacked.
I believe it's clear from reading FDR's correspondence as published by W. Churchill, that FDR was declining in mental capability several months before the war ended. I don't recall when he began to fade but I recall it possibly being in 1944. We essentially had a caretaker goverment by then. Of course he still sucessfully set up the Alliances and the opening critical moves of WW-2.
How about Dubaya?....yeah..Dubaya...he lead us to hell...and Romney will take us all the way to the bottom
While FDR was greatly accomplished, it is worth remembering that from the perspective of central and eastern Europe, he was a disaster. Under FDR, the United States provided significant levels of support to Joseph Stalin. While this support was perhaps necessary in the face of Hitler's onslaught, it did help the Red Army gain sufficient strength to ultimately subjugate the nations of central and eastern Europe. The US ultimately acquiesced to Soviet domination of nations that had a history of democracy and were victims of Hitler. Winston Churchill saw the iron curtain coming, but FDR either failed to see it or more likely made a cold calculation that the freedom of these nations was not important enough. Recently we learned that the US knew full well of the Soviet murder of more than 20,000 Polish officers in the Katyn forest and suppressed this knowledge so as not to offend Stalin.
While some would say that Stalin was a lesser of two evils and the support he was given was necessary to defeat a common foe, many, George Patton among them, would take the view that we did not have sacrifice the freedom of more than 100 million Europeans to defeat Hitler. It was a sad chapter in history and one that for me significantly blemishes FDRs foreign policy legacy.
Until President Obama, Jimmy Carter was the worst failure in foreign policy in at least 200 years. (They War of 1812 did not go our way.) The results of the Obama Presidency is not yet decided, but is not promising. Personally I like Ike. He kept us out of foreign adventures while keeping our military and security strong. Regan was successful in spending the Soviets into bankruptcy, but left us with so much power, the following administrations have found it hard not to use it.
Ike kept us out of foreign policy adventures?
Ever heard of Operation AJAX? Ike installed dictators for British oil profits. The blowback from that decision still affects foreign policy today.
I like President Eisenhower's domestic policy. His interstate highway security system was needed.
I think presidents who cower to Israeli dictation are the best presidents...Romney will win my vote for this prize when he declares war the day after he gets elected by the fools that are poor yet hate
wolf is a gop hack working for romney and thinks we answer to Israel.
Time to fire wolf.
IIf we are talking about the best foreign policy president of all time, I would have to mention Abraham Lincoln. I know that might be a very surprising pick but please hear me out. Lincoln understood that, not only were we fighting the South during the Civil War, but perhaps just as importantly we needed to handle our foreign relations with Britain and France in a very delicate manner. Handled incorrectly, those two nations might very well have recognized and given legitimacy to the Southern Confederacy and the Civil War might have turned out very differently. I know it's not an obvious choice, but I think Lincoln's handling of our relations with Britain and France at least deserve an honorable mention!
How is it possible to have a discussion about our best foreign policy Presidents without mentioning Nixon? I am not arguing that he is clearly strongest on the subject, but his work in China ushered in an whole new era of American-Chinese relations, which in turn changed how we dealt with all of Asia. I think it is a very poor job to not even mention Richard Nixon.
Any character from Disneyland would work better than the guy sitting in the White House.
wolf,cnn and fox news work for the romney campaign.
Nothing but gop propaganda with bushies and neocons.
Jimmy Carter is an amazing mediator. Reagan did good with forieign policy, he was able to get Russia to talk to us.
It seems that JFK should be on the list. After all, he did resolve the Cuban missle crisis, avoiding global nuclear war. It also seems that Reagan should be disqualified from the list since he took us to the brink of global nuclear war.
check again.there is a little about the cuban missle crisis thats not popular to report.
Kennedy had the Bay of Pigs problem. It could be argued that the Cuban Missile Crisis was handled well, but I think the Bay of Pigs disaster disqualifies him.
I agree Kennedy could of done a little better than he did with Cuban missile crisis but Eisenhower had set up the invasion. while he was still president. Just like a security measures to kill Osama Bin Laden were put in place before Obama . Eventhoug, Obama deserves some credit for killing Bin Laden and Bush should have completed the job. He knew dame well he was in Packistan.
ronny raygun on this msm list?they must have forgotten how much they hated him when he was potus.he's too old,he'll accidently hit the button.he's just an actor.he'll start wwIII with the soviets.on and on.
I love how much interest this thread is getting. The Reagan "tough talk" worshipers and W. Bush bashers are a bit unimaginative and/or delusional, but most of the comments are surprisingly informative and intriguing.
Obama has more in common with Curious George than he does with past presidents.
That's raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaacist!
Who's going to be stuck with the bill to remove "that nigra odor" from the White House when Obongo is voted out of office? That's right: all of us. Democrats should be forced to pay for it.
There's no reason to post anything this vile except to show what a low class person you are. Congrats.
Agree, this is a friendly debate to discuss the question and not to throw out racial terms because of our own disgust with our own government
I see: You're just determined to ignore "that nigra odor," huh, Jeff? You should help pay for the fumigation!
Big black karma will find you.
"Big black Karma"? Like some primitive nigra curse? I'm not worried. Blacks ARE worried, however. They know we're going to take their handouts away from them come November. And eventually, as the United States demographic changes, nigras will once again take their rightful places in the fields, doing the only sort of work for which they're qualified.
Food stamp Republicans will vote Romey the elitist into office...and he wil bring us more war....enjoy the future best fpreign policy prez...like your boy BOOOSH
So.... Benjamin Franklin was never president....:
It amazes me every time people try and say Ronald Reagan beat the Soviet Union. The SU was systemically flawed and on it's way to collapse. They spent all their money propping up a military industrial complex and suppressing their peoples economic mobility. When the price of oil collapsed in the mid 80's they lost their primary revenue stream and had nothing to fall back on, thus collapse. Reagan didn't do anything except make some very inspiring speeches at just the right time. He was not bad but he was no hero. G.H.B.W. I can definitely see on this list. Pragmatic, very intelligent, a good practical leader. He doesn't get nearly enough credit from conservatives today as he should.
EXACTLY. He just hopped up on a wall that was already crumbling and took an advantage of a photo shoot. The great man in that situation was Gorbachev
And think about the Iran-Contra mess. It's going to be fun to watch Ronald Reagan return to human status now the the Age of the Raging Republican is over.
The same guy that pushed trickle down and killed the middle class.
The same guy that ran the iran contra deals.
The same guy that negotiated with terrorists to free the hostages.
Hmo's
Can't agree with Carter. Better on the list would be Wilson, Monroe, Polk, Nixon.
Polk intentionally sparked a war with Mexico. To me, that should disqualify him. I would need to look more into antebellum history to consider Monroe. All I know about his foreign policy is the Monroe doctrine. I agree with Nixon and maybe Wilson.
But Polk did peacefully negotiate the border with British North America when members of his party were calling for war. That decision ultimately led to the single largest and most peaceful trade relationship in the history of the world. That's not hyperbole, that's a fact – the trade relationship between the USA and Canada is the largest and most peaceful in human history. Polk has to get some credit for setting that up.
Polk did not spark the Mexican war. Hostilities with Mexico began after we annexed Texas at the end of John Tyler's administration, not to mention going back to Andrew Jackson and the Alamo. Yes the war began once Polk was President, but by the time he came into office there was no way for him to simply go back and undo what Tyler had started.
Thomas Jefferson, the same guy who killed millions of Native Americans??
I hope you were joking as the Trail of Tears is no way to do foreign affairs...
(Natives weren't citizens until the 1930's therefore it was a foreign relations policy)
It was necessary to cull the brown horde in order to make room for the superior White people.
Thomas Jefferson was not responsible for the trail of tears. The Indian Removal Act occurred in 1837 which was the first year of Andrew Jackson's administration, and it was his signature legislation. Read your history.
TRUMAN = GUTS TO DROP THE BOMB.
i vote Dick as our best foregin policy prez...cause my Dick...woukd lead us clowns to world peace
Quite honestly, I'm surprised that Nixon wasn't on the short list. The guy was the first President to visit China and paved the way for ongoing communications between the US and both China and Russia.
Say what you want about his domestic "issues" ... he was brilliant when it came to foreign policy.
My opinion.
Without Carter there would have no Reagan. Carter got the Soviet Union to agree to treaties they thought would never be enforced. Reagan took those agreements and made the Soviet Union abide by them and hastened the down fall of the empire. So, to think of one, we must think of the other locked forever in history.
Very good point.
BUSH?? How soon we forget his Neville Chamberlain moment, when he sent the deputy embassador to Iraq to meet with Sadam, with the Iraqui troops massed along the Kuwait border. "It is an Arab affair" he told them. The NEXT DAY Iraq invaded Kuwait, and we paid with American lives for his mistake.
Nothing could have stopped Iraq's invasion. Saddam was convinced the Kuwaities were stealing his oil by horizontal drilling across the border.
Ronald Reagan left Lebanon with his tale tucked between his legs like a little b.i.t.c.h
Nixon: Just by inviting the Chinese to play some ping pong, he turned the cold war from a one front war to an un-winnable two front war for the Soviet Union. That was the decisive moment in the battle that ultimately lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Nixon did not have to fire a shot. If that's not crafty statesmanship and an efficient use of resources than I don't know what is.
Bill Clinton. The world still respects/fears him.
Obama will be oin the list for the weakest on foriegn policy, apoligizing all over the world for the US hasn't seem to work. Even after the Terrorist attack in Libya, the White House wouldn't call it a terriost attack until it was obvious to us all but the White house. Can't use the word "Terrorist"
Thanks for adding so little to the thread.
You know, we can all see that there's no one sitting in that chair you're arguing with.
How about Lincoln? He managed to keep England and France from recognizing the Conferderacy and giving aid to it when, for three full years it was not at all certain that the Union could win.
Indeed. This whole article is ridiculous. They get some character from a right wing propaganda outfit to write a piece about how great Ronald Reagan was and don't even mention Abraham Lincoln. The entire nation hung on a thread and Lincoln was dealing with even less support in Washington than Obama receives from the saboteur GOP. He somehow managed to hold the whole thing together and keep Europe out of it. Even the Emancipation Proclamation was, to a degree, a work of foreign policy.
I noticed that too. I wonder if the Myth of Reagan is going to go back to reality now that the political mood of the country is shifting. If you were an adult during Reagan's presidency and you look at the things the right say about him you just go ".....What????"
Yet another good point. What a disaster that would have been if Europe formally recognized the confederacy. I think Lincoln may have to be disqualified just because, well, its Lincoln.
I was thinking this too. Keeping France, England, and Russia out of the insurrection was a coup. A professional diplomatic corp contrasted the amateurish buffoons sent by J. Davis...
Think you mean Britain Act of union 1707
1969 brought us Woodstock. 2013 will bring us Baggerstock, a gathering of the faithful. The baggers, birthers, John Birchers, Palinistas, and every other concievable republican miscreant and evangelical loser. But first they must find a suitable trailer park to hold the event.
Ahhhhh Woodstack. That gathering of smelly brats in NY state where they took drugs and whined about the future. Dirt bags.
I vote for Dick...My Dick would lead us to world peace!!!!...in other words Romney....aka...Israeli Balz sucking Dick
An AEI rep picked the GOP lord and savior Ronald Reaganl, go figure.
Teddy Roosevelt or Andrew Jackson.....two of the best EVER!
Even the Soviets liked Reagan, I'd say he did a great job.
What about James Knox Polk? Backed the British down in NW territory over "54-40 or fight" and won Mexican American War. Gained huge tracts of land that became our western United States.
I don't know if I'd say he "backed the British down." He did peacefully negotiate a settlement with them – British North America came out well in that agreement as well, with Polk's party demanding all of what is now called British Columbia. That decision led not only too the US stretching from coast to coast, but would ultimately aid the solidification and confederation of Canada, which in turn would create the single largest and most peaceful trade relationship in world history. That negotiation is one of the best foreign policy calls ever made by a president, and has had likely the longest lasting positive impact on the US. We couldn't ask for a better neighbour than Canada and the Oregon treaty is the main reason that relationship exists.
Perhaps a hundred years from now, historians will put Jimmy Carter in his proper place. It's impossible to do so today, as we can see from all the incredibly stupid opinions being expressed here. They can't dismiss the Camp David Accord, which have kept the peace between two countries that had been at each others throats for decades. Carter ws a visionary, who saw the need for a comprehensive national energy strategy and began to put one in place. Too bad we allowed Reagan to dismantle much of it because "the private sector will set our energy policy". Exxon sure has done that, and we are paying for it. I have a questionfor those who would deride Carter on this. How would you like to be paying $4 a gallon for gas and getting the gas mileage of the typical American car before he imposed CAFE rules? By the way, he told us that Reagan's taxcuts and increased Defense spending would blow a hole in the deficit and increase the national debt. Was he right? The Gipper inherited a debt of $651B and left us with $4T. Judge for yourself.
Nixon would rank above Carter.
Was there any American president that was not be involved in a war or some armed conflict, somewhere in the world?
Actually, Nixon was very good. Too bad he kind of shot his reputation.
Much as Carter was inept at home and during the Iranian Hostage Crisis, he did manage to achieve a previously unthinkable peace between Egypt and Israel, all but guaranteeing the survival and future prosperity of the Jewish state, and a peaceful return of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt.
Theodore Roosevelt is the clear number one. Without even a mention of him in this article makes me refuse to entertain the veracity of any argument that lies within it.
If Franklin (crippled monkey) Roosevelt were here next to me, I'd kick him out of his chair and urinate on his face.
You are Correct....."Speak softly but carry a Big Stick"
How did Republicans manage to erase Reagan's Beirut disaster from the memory banks? It's like it didn't even happen, apparently. Congress and even some of Reagan's own advisors warned against it but Mr. Tough Talk just went ahead and sent our people into a war zone with no clear objective. Then when our people were killed, including 220 Marines, he pulled us out. Terrorist training films in the following decades were known to cite this episode as proof that America is a "Paper Tiger" that is definitely worth attacking. Reagan had exactly the opposite effect on the world that his worshippers have come to believe.
All the macho posturing and sleazy deals with dictators of the Reagan/Bush years led directly to the first Gulf War and to 9-11 and the wars we're still mired in today.
Jimmy Carter.... are you kidding me??? He was as worthless at this as Obama is.
Turn off Fox and read a book that wasn't written by Sean Hannity. Just a friendly suggestion.
George Washington. A warrior and a statesman. No other president can ever do what he did for our country.
Thumbs up
It is amazing to me that a pair of skin sacks(Reagan & Bush) would make the list of foreign policy mavens. The senile driveling idiot sent Marines off to be blown up, chase a bunch Cubans out of Grenada. Gorbachev gets credit for bringing down the wall. That idiot switched SS cash for T-Bonds in attempt to crash social security. And Bush the smart idiot (oxymoron) whose idiot son gave us two wars that someone else has clean-up. AMAZING!!!!!!!!
Reagan's "successes" in dealing with the Soviets (in quotes because Andropov's and Gorbachev's reforms along with the failed war in Afghanistan and economic recession had much more to do with the fall of the USSR than Reagan saying "tear down this wall") were overshadowed by his huge failures in South America. As a new generation of conservatives tries to crown Reagan as their hero, they conveniently forget his support for despots who murdered their own people and his war against peasant coffee growers in Nicaragua funded by the illegal selling of weapons to Iran that occurred right under his nose, if not to his knowledge. The last 30 years has revealed just how dumb an idea that was.
You're kidding, right? Are you seriously worried about the brown South American horde? Cull the horde! CULL THE BROWN HORDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Obama looks to Carter the second worst president (after Obama himself), where he learned how to BOW.
Romney looks to Reagan, the man who brought down the Soviet Union, freed eastern Europe and made America proud.
"Obama looks to Carter the second worst president (after Obama himself), where he learned how to BOW."
Really I guess that's why Iran waited until he was gone. I guess that is why he refused to negotiate with terrorists but Reagan did the minute he got into office.
Nixon was the best braking down the Wall with China with a pingpong tournament
Washington. The only president to put the nation before himself and party. Warned us of getting into foreign affairs. Also valued individual rights more than any other.
all at the new book The Dimension Machine
Regan was a Union buster and did not stop until the new air traffic controllers start letting planes fall out of the sky.
Two notably absent from the list – Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
Clinton failed to take the shot at Osama Bin Laden on mutliple occasions when he had the opportunity. His weakness let this tyrant survive long enough to mastermind 9/11. Obama has chosen to coddle the Muslim world, while turning his back on our most loyal ally Isreal. Now that dog has come to hunt, and his administration blames protests of a You Tube movie for attacks on a US Embassy for over a week, only to be forced to admit it was a pre-planned terror attack by someone in his administration who chose not to lie to lawmakers.
Clinton did carry out an attack on bin Laden, but it failed to kill him.
Jimmy Carter is responsible form the mess in the middle east. Had he not been behind bringing back the Ayatollah from exile in the late 70's, and getting him back in power in Iran, there's a much better chance that the middle east would be far more stable and less volatile than it is today. Obama just managed to throw gas and a match on the kindling all in the name of his "Arab Spring". What a mess. Obama may go down as the worst president in US History.
Jimmy Carter was around when Lot and Abraham went separate ways?
I have news for you, Chief. The middle east issues were sure there before Carter. But I don't expect a partisan hack like you to accept that.
Jimmy Carter was a good president, please tell me how numerous equipment can all fail at the same time in a mission to bring our troops home, was there a setup?
He was let down by the military. It was not intentional by any means but they just failed. Had the rescue been a success, Carter would have served 2 terms and we could have avoided the Reagan scam that has built today's economic disparity. Trickle down?? Your leg maybe!
reagan, reagan, reagan????????????????????????????????????
jim111506 you are the equivalent of a non legitimate human being......
Funny monkey want banana?
[From the movie, Roots]
"What's your name, boy?"
"Kunta Kente."
[Whip!, Whip!, Whip!]
"What's your name, boy?"
"Toby."
I just adore that scene.
What is your malfunction? I've read nearly every comment you've written on this blog, none of them have anything to do with foreign policy. All you have to offer is the most racist swill you can concoct. I don't know if you're trying to be funny, exercise your freedom of speech, or are just trying to start a reaction. Listen, people actually do come to these things to share real ideas and opinions, and I'm sure that nearly everybody writing here, republican and democrat/conservative and liberal alike, are all offended by your 19th century mentality. I honestly hope you one day die of Lou Gehrig's disease.
I'm a troll, wade, just trying to get a reaction. Thank you for your amusing reaction. Now, if you're too dense to recognize an obvious troll when you see (read) one, then you deserve to spend the rest of your life in a state of naive confusion and frustration. You hope I die of Lou Gehrig's disease? That's pretty harsh. "Today, I consider myself the luckiest troll in the world ...."
The problem is that we do not get greater disclosure of the president's records till the 50 year mark. We thought Truman was a terrible president till his archives revealed he was actually one of our best. There is much we do not know about Reagan, Bush I or II, Clinton or Obama.
Clinton would easily come in ahead of Reagan. Reagan was nothing more that Hollywood publicity. He was to the presidency as Paris Hilton is to acting! Nice enough fellow personally, but completely in the dark while the minions ran wild. They stabbed him in the back too (North/Poindexter).
When it comes to FDR – the rest of the Presidents on the list pale in comparison. Without his efforts, we probably would not even be allowed to have this conversation. He not only led the charge to defeat the Axis powers, he was able to keep Joseph Stalin happy and soothe the ego of Winston Churchill.
His family was just as wealthy if not more wealthy than Mitt Romney – but he certainly did not act like only the rich people in this country counted for anything. I believe that Roosevelt had a true love for this country and gave his all to put her back on her feet during the depressin and he did it again in WWII. He truely was part of the "Greatest Generatioon"
I think that Abraham Lincoln deserves an honorable mention. While he is primarily known for his efforts at ending slavery as well as the War Between the States, he was also successful at holding off two major powers, France and Great Britain from entering the War on behalf of the South. Folks also forget his successful threats that pushed Maximillian and France out of Mexico. Not bad while you're trying to reunite a divided country.
Another piece that looks at the world through the rear-view mirror rather than addressing today's realities head on. The past may be a nice place to visit, but we can't live there. I know many Americans would like to. We long for the good old days when there was enough wealth floating around loose that even working people could get ahead. But the world, and this country, have changed drastically since any of the presidents mentioned above were in office. Reagan presided over the dismantling of American science and education, two things that were critical to making us a world power. His foreign policy ideas were that of a feudal war lord, only fought with taxpayer dollars in an arms race that benefited no one but the defense contractors and left both the Soviet and U.S. economies a shambles. The battle between the political ideologies of communism and capitalism is over, as far as the rest of the world is concerned. We lost, and there is no way that we are ever going to convince people who have safe streets, guaranteed pensions and health care, free public education through graduate school and equal rights for all of their citizens that our way is better. Americans who have been discriminated against since time immemorial and still live in poverty are even starting to doubt it. We need a president who sees the world and this country as they are today. Romney would like to start gearing up for war again, refuses or is incapable of understanding the implications of global climate change, and thinks the rich should get an even bigger share of the national swag than they already do. Obama seems to be the only one who is willing to accept that most of the difficulties we face right now are new and unprecedented, and that the solutions of the past will no longer work. He also recognizes that the rate of change in the world is accelerating, and that we cannot lead again if we keep falling farther and farther behind in science and technology. Even if I thought Romney was on the side of the poor and middle class I would not want him in the White House. His thinking is stuck too far in the past, in the American he and I both grew up in. But he does not seem to be able to keep pace with a rapidly changing world. He is not only out of touch with the American people, but out of touch with reality itselfl. Obama, like FDR, seems ready and willing to try new approaches to new problems and is willing to ask the American people to understand that the times, they are a changin', and that they are going to have to change with them. I think he's the best man for the job. I think he deserves another four years.
sorry man but it's too early to say much about Obama foreign policies. In any case this article is about PAST presidents.
Bob, no one cares what you think, dear. We're not going to reelect your nigra for you either. It's over, Bob. Obama has done a fine job of reminding the American body politic of the poverty of liberalism. No more social constructivism; no more pretending that the mean American nigra I.Q. is over 85. We shall not re-nig in 2012!
Teddy Roosevelt and Reagan/Bush senior
I think the long term effects of the foreign policy of george hwbush and ronald reagan were very bad to say the least.
Would love it if you you can expand a tidy little on your idea...
Without a doubt, hands down Jimmy Carter was the best in foreign policy. In 2002, President Carter received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work "to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development" through The Carter Center.
Which US President had a more robust foreign policy is irrelevant in the context of todays world. it is a mess out there and all U Presidents have contributed to it. Let us focus on what is relevant: Let us, for starters, thank one of our allies for their contribution to us and the world.
PAKISTAN !!!!
THANK YOU …. THANK YOU…. THANK YOU!!!!
FOR MAKING USA SAFE FOR MAKING THE WORLD SAFE>>>>>>>>>>>>
Since Sep 11, 2001, over 200,000 Pakistani civilians, armed forces personnel have either sacrificed their lives or wounded; more than 3.5 million have been displaced while the country has lost over
US $ 1 Trillion due to terrorism.
Despite sacrifices, Pakistan was still engaged in 'the war for world peace”.
No other country has even come close to selflessly sacrificing so much.
Pakistan, no one can ever repay you enough for your contributions.
You deserve a permanent seat in the UN Security Council for your contributions to world peace and emergence of a new world order. We welcome your rise as the new regional military power. God Speed.
Pakis are dirty monkeys.
Yes Pakisthan has helped and it has also hindered. Regional power? You have got to be kidding! First clean up your house before you pretend to be the leader of the region. Don't forget the 13 year old girl who was arrested for supposedly burning the bible, the murder of lawyers who spoke up earlier to help a Christian woman, the women with acid eaten faces, the gun totting mobs killing shea muslims and their own people. You created the Taliban in the first place. Please!!!
Ehud Barrack of Israel has said that Obama has worked with Israel more than even George Bush. Check CNN interview – those were his own words. Obama did not create islamic countries and Obama or any other US president cannot stop the revolutions in any of these places. Diplomacy always helps. Obama never apologized for the crazy movie about Islam. Saying so is a lie. The envoys in Egypt made a atatement disowning the contents to be diplomatic – that is there job. Obama called the president of Egypt and said whatever he said and Mr. Morsi immediately called off the demonstrations planned for that Friday. Obama cannot stop attacks the same way Bush could not stop 9/11 Read the history and list all the attacks and check who were the presidents at that time. There were republicans and democrats so don't just blame one and not the other. Jimmy Carter is a Christian and not a racist. He spoke up about the conditions of Palestinians. I am no friens of Pakisthan but calling them dirty monkeys is just based on bias and anger. It is terrible that the Islamic world errupts in violence when ever Mahammad is criticized. There was a Fatwa on Salman Rushdi because of the book he wrote which was not as terrible and bad as the latest video.
Why don't you ask Netanyahu what he thinks today about the Obama administration.
Without a doubt, the best foreign policy president EVER is Obama. After all, He personally took the shot that killed Osama Bin Laden.
True story: My wife's employer (a labor union) set up a "voluntary" phone bank in '08 urging members to vote for Obama. One confused "volunteer" was overheard urging a member to vote for Osama Bin Laden.
James K. Polk.
Not only did he peacefully settle the Oregon border dispute with Britain, leading to a favorable trading relationship with Canada, he (for better or worse) settled our Southern and Western Border concerns with Mexico. While there may be a dispute over his role in the provocation in Texas resulting in our eventual take over of Mexico City, he clearly intended to solve our California desires/problems.
Additionally, he laid the ground work for our eventual (albeit overly colonial) control of the Isthmus of Panama. Without US control there, global trade would significantly be hindered, along with US interests.
Simpler times indeed..? He came to office with 4 goals. Accomplished them in 1 term, and left office, and America, much better off.
Would that our politicians today learn a lesson or two.
Not sure who the best is, but I know who the bottom two are, and the order matters not they both stand at an even level. And the losers are James (Jimmy) Earl Carter and Barrack Hussein Obama hands down.
Jimmy Carter was probably the poorest President in my lifetime. He was also probably the most honorable and honest man to ever occupy the White House. It takes a charismatic crook to govern the American people (sadly).
Was the high point of Mr. Reagan's foreign policy "exceptionalism" when he broke the law by selling weapons to terrorists in Iran who kidnapped, tortured and murdered Americans in order to break the law again by giving the dirty money to terrorists in Nicaragua so that they could kidnap, torture and murder Nuns? What a peach of a President.
The people should boycott CNN. They only print what they find fits their political agenda. Talk about censorship, theyrate as the worldw worst.
FDR, George Bush Sr., Reagan, and Carter all fail on the list of Presidents with great Foreign Policy. FDR and George Bush weren't men of foreign policies but leaders in war. Reagan and Carter both had diplomatic challenges in foreign affairs. While one backed the liberation of Afghanistan and the other pushed the dissolution of the USSR, this does not mean they had a great foreign policies. James Monroe is the president with the best record on Foreign Relations. With the Monroe Doctrine, Europe's influence in the west disappeared and South America became a land of independent nations. This foreign policy has had a lasting influence throughout history and has stood on solid ground. Our presidents should strive for that kind of influence word wide.
Ronald Reagan?? But America's credibility in the world never recovered from his reign. America won't even be America again until every building is renamed, every statue torn down. He turned America from a relatively egalitarian to a class-based society, and I can't think what greater crime short of genocide one can commit against a country. Plus he deserves none of the credit for Gorbachev's genius and foresight. If anything, he wrecked Russia's smooth transition. Reagan?? Defile his grave!
There's nothing wrong with a little genocide, you sissy! Take your maudlin whining elsewhere, Alan Alda!
Ronald Raygun? Let's see what he's done. Found a country we could invade and get a military victory over the powerful nation of Grenada. Shot down an Iranian commercial airliner killing men, women and children. I think Carter was better at pushing Democracy than Raygun.
ludvig likes manbutt.
In spite of short-comings, Carter brokered peace between Israel and Egypt, which has saved God knows how many lives over the years.
Brown horde (subhuman) lives.
They are no different from you.
Yes, they are! They're brown, ugly and stupid. I'm White, attractive and intelligent! Brown horde "people" are more like monkeys than human beings. Screech for me, monkey!
I think James Monroe deserves an honorable mention. How young of a nation we were at the time, it took a lot of balls to tell larger, colony hungry, European countries to stay off the Western Hemisphere.
TJ, best president.
Scott Young, the British Scholar, is such a poser.
He was asked to pick the best, and he replied with that mamby pamby typical UK Ivory Tower I am soooo much better than you tripe. (I know the type, I used to live about 20 miles from Cambridge)
He is obviously enamored enough with the US to study it and make it his profession.... Maybe he just can't get over the fact that the torch has been passed from GB to the US.
I am sure that it just torques his nuts that the BEST of England's Foreign Policy PMs in the last 150 years was half American.
In my life time I have to pick Franklin D. Roosevelt. He brought this country out of the depression. He commanded our military and won WW2. He did all this after becoming a victim of Polio at a younger age. The only President that comes close to Roosevelt was John F. Kennedy. I am sure if Kennedy was not assassinated this world would be at peace. Bless both of these men and may they rest in Peace forever.
Washington – with is avoid foreign entqanglements
Wilson – Visionary of an ordered peaceful world
Truman – The Marshall Plan
Nixon – Probably the best foreign policy president of the 20th Century, Reagan reaped everything Nixon set the stage for.
Let's not forget Truman frying all those yellow monkeys! He's my favorite president!
Nixon – agreed. Shocked to not see him listed. But then again, this is CNN a half-witted news agency (at best)
I think Richard Nixon was a excellent foreign policy president. Besides opening relations with China, think about the SALT treaties with the then Soviet Union!
What a jaded article. The author clearly is an indifferent politician and amoral. Bush, Reagan? And what were the costs of their admired leadership?
Obama's an incompetent nigra. He also has "that nigra odor." Michelle Obama is a filthy she-ape. She too has "that nigra odor." Imagine those two stinking apes copulating in the White House!
a bit racist... but none the less true in many respect
Obama should not even been in the White House. He is not an American citizen. He was born in Kenya. A brave USA citizen is now investigating this outrage. The USA right-wing neo-Nazi.."Neo-Con" crypto-fascist press media lost any sense of investigative journalism ethics,/morals
Obama is an interloper thrust on the USA from foreign powers. (Britain).
Obama cannot speak correct English without constantly pausing. Its like hes being coached in everything he utters
Obama mysteriously has long deep scar wounds on his face & head in many official photos,..in other photos the scars are vanished.
Does this mean we have TWO Obama's? A person with a facial transplant? One for photo ops another for conducting CIA policies?
Big brave words on his election day speech,..inauguration speech.
Now he is a clone of the Israeli lobbyists...
Instead of helping the poor in the first few months of taking office & Oath....he grovels (like all before him) to the Jews at their planned parties (aka..lets put the President on the spot to support us 1st ...or else!!!! )
Spoken like a true genetic recessive albino mutant with an inferiority complex. Dr. Frances Cress Welsing and Michael Bradley warned us about you.
@ maru-Chan
look for yourself...
mysterious scars... on other photos they have vanished
http://rense.com/general93/obbrain.htm
Dat rite, maru-chan, he beez racis 'n sheeit! He a craka. He talk he crakbabble! He beez albino 'n sheeit.
I can't believe Obamuslim didn't make the cut! He apologized to everyone, bowed to every raghead he met, hired the best lesbian he could find as Sec. of State. Damn what's a socialist gotta do?
Indeed Chuck well said ! However there does not seem to be much of a choice this time round – Ron Paul would have been a good choice for the Republicans – his policies were the best of the lot in this race
Too bad there isn't some way to get assinine comments like this deleted from what should be an intelligent conversation.
P.I. has Obama monkeylove fantasies.
FDR?!! Yes, if one's for. pol. goal includes war. As we now see reading the details and footnotes of years prior to our involvement to WWII, he (and arguably influenced by American Jews) deliberately led us to war. Many a time, he tried to encourage German attack on our ships, presented patently false info to Americans. For what? To eventually ally ourselves with GB and soviets? Real smart, post war we then fought a costly global cold war with ally soviets for the next 45 yrs. Thankfully truth is rising to the top and people will be shocked to discover what we considered the good side was actually not.
FDR #1 for Best Foreign Policy, really? Uh, these 'professional historians' should be ashamed. FDR ignored Churchill, and British Intelligence and warnings concerning Stalin and his ruthlessness which was very unwise and essentially resulted in a polarized post war Europe which spread throughout the planet. His policy to ignore the problem led to 46 years of the cold war which affected and is still affecting the whole planet negatively. This single failure to acknowledge the seriousness of communism and Stalin's atrocities which was quite obvious to Churchill and the British Intelligence, is alone enough to lower his foreign policy ranking to mediocre at best....
To give Ronald Reagan credit for anything, including foreign policy success, is nonsense. After the assassination attempt, do you remember the press conference where Alexander Haig said, "I am in charge here." He was not kidding, and not just because of the confusion after the assassination attempt. Ronald Reagan was basically a figure head; the country was run by his cabinet with Haig the leader. So Mr Reagan should be given no credit for the collapse of the Soviet Union; he just happened to be in the Oval Office at the time it happened. But FDR as Best Foreign Policy president? i disagree there, too. Actually there is a very good arguement pinning the blame for the war on him. I'd have to vote for Richard Nixon; despite the horrible way he and Johnson handled VietNam, the fact that he opened negotiations with China was a major accomplishment and he deserves credit for it.
P.I. swallows hot loads.
Ahh, Jim, such intelligent comments are staggering! And to think we let people with such "intelligence" vote!
Don't beg the question, P.I. You DO swallow hot loads, don't you? That's what I thought.
jimmy farter was one dumb peanut farmer.
I think that FDR had the best foreign policy. What went on in the world back then he took care of rather it was WWII or the Great Depression. Even though it took a while, he was the man.
Carter might be a wonderful human being, but he was a horrible president. Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Iran, Western Europe...
Reagan gets credit for ending the Cold War
GWBush should get credit for ending the Islamic jihad/terrorist acts on US soil. It is American liberals who seem to show a lack of understanding for reality
I read somewhere that guys like HW Bush and his friends created CIA. So. obviously he would know the limits of U.S power.
Not true about GHW Bush creating the CIA. But he was the Director of CIA at one point in his career. GHW Bush was one of the great ones. It's a shame he only had a single term. He was robbed. But his son, "W" is a moron who proved that sometimes the apple falls very far from the tree.
You read something "somewhere" and you believe what your read "somewhere"?
I'll go for Thomas Jefferson. "The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it." -Thomas Jefferson. Or.. Power is not alluring to pure minds.-Thomas Jefferson. Or.. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
Ronald Reagan
Roosevelt is definitely the one. He was the greatest leader of the free world. What he gave us and the world has been the gift that keeps on giving. He helped to redesign civilization. But in the modern era I like GHW Bush. I think he was the best foreign policy president in my lifetime. Much be tter than Reagan. Reagan gets more credit than he deserves. Unlike his great father, the fool, George W. Bush,is the worst foreign policy president. He made us look bad to the whole world.
My winner: Ronald Reagan. He knew the USSR's weaknesses and stuck it to them. He said he was putting missiles into Europe (just getting them there was a tremendous feat as Gorby got a million Greens in the streets to protest) because after they were there Gorby and he could negotiate to get them out. That's what happened. He scared the hell out of the USSR with Star Wars which was univerally scorned. That worked, also. The Wall did come down. RR moved his chess pieces and checkmated the USSR. It was so successful that only 100 people died as Communism died. Who would have ever predicted such a peaceful transistion? No one.
Both George H W Bush and Jimmy boy both are duds, also. Although they tried they ultimately failed. Sure Egypt signed a cold pact but it didn't do much to ensure Israel's final saftey as we are seeing now. No, you don't get points for really, really , really trying
Thus, its Ronald Reagan, That big dummy. He had the mature vision and wisdom and then used tactics and strategy to actually get results. I never voted for the guy but he was brilliant.
FDR didn't do much except stuff his own government rule of the private sector to get our munitions industry perking. But the big reason he's really a villian not a hero is that he let 6M Jews and 6M others get murdered and he never, never even diverted one bomber to save these people. He can take his cigarette holder and put it in a dark spot. Worshiping this guy is a travesty to humanity.
Ronald Reagan did not bring down the USSR. The USSR was bankrupted by the war in Afghanistan, and was no longer in a position where it could compete with the US because they no longer had the resources to do so. If we aren't careful, we may well go down a similar path. We need to end our involvement in Afghanistan now. They don't call the place the 'Graveyard of Empires' for nothing.
Bush Jr was the worst president of all time.
The key is 'what is the definition of effective foreign policy'
Some see it as a country giving altrusitically to mankind/the world w/o regard to giving up a countrie's own edge.
To me its about manipulating and positioning your country to maximize its power and influence.
Danielle Pletka is a real piece of work. She puts Obama in the worst foreign policy list for economic reasons, while she puts Reagan in the best foreign policy list while ignoring economic failure. Trickle-down didn't work.
Spending less on defense is a good thing, especially if you have made gains on efficiency. These decisions were made when Defense Secretary Gates was in charge, and he is a conservative Republican.
Ja.... FDR, good president, very weak on foreign relations, until the second world war of course. The rest??? How can war time presidents be good at foreign relations? Is not war the definition of a failed relation? I think it is. And presidents who have managed to upset our closest neighbors,Mexico, Canada, Central America, etc., rather than helped the worldwide working class that carries on its shoulders the demands of united states consumers, is not a good foreign relations president.
Two immediately come to mind.
pre-1945: John Adams. When our country was in its infancy and in danger of being reconquered by Britain, he arranged alliances with 2 of the other great European powers of the day, the Netherlands and France. And considering that there was no treasury for a brand new country and there was an entire nation to build, he secured loans from both of those countries to begin building our great nation. As for relations with Britain, he managed diplomatically very well with them at a time when many, including Jefferson were openly hostile.
post-1945: George HW Bush, for all the reasons stated in the article. To smiithly handle the reunification of Germany and the disintegration of the USSR and then to hold together an alliance of Arabs and Israelis, against Sadam Hussein was brilliant. Obviously his weakness was in domestic policy. The race riots on the streets of Los Angeles and his lack of any response to that tragedy caused me to vote for Clinton in 1992, despite my admiration for his foreign policy prowess.
The Republicans pick republicans.. The Dems pick Dems..
GO FIGURE!
and shias pick shias, and sunni pick sunni...
Eisenhower.
Carter? You've got to be kidding me!
Little surpised they didn't mention Nixon for opening up CHina/
None of the above.
My vote goes to Jimmy Carter. He looked beyond American boundaries sincerely demonstrated his good intentions for the wider world. Probably, people did not understand him while voting for the second term. I am wondering no one talks about the American and global mess created y George Bush Jr.
Really? you should come out of your cave every once in a while.
The best foreign policy president was Dwight Eisenhower who did his greatest work before he became president in dealing with Montgomery, Patton, Churchill, FDR, Stalin, and De Gaulle. His calm and intelligent manner held the allies together to defeat the Nazis. Never has a leader or a President faced more pressure from more powerful people than Ike did in leading the Allied forces in Africa, Sicily and finally, D-Day.
The statement "Carter reflected that on his watch, not one American service person had died abroad" I guess he forgot that failed hostage rescue in Iran. I also agree with everyone who stated that this list is to modern. I was looking for Teddy, Monroe, Polk, Lincoln not Carter, Bush.
President Polk, though Politically Incorrect by today's standards, was the best foreign policy president. Though he didn't ask the 'Oregon Question', he sucessfully answered it to America's advantage against the British Empire, getting us Oregon and Washington State. He also settled the exact placement of the Canada-U.S. border to everyone's satisfaction. He then acquired the American Southwest (today's West Coast Blue states) through warfare (Imperialism was the thing to do for EVERYONE back in those days), but then gave back to Mexico the land he conquered (he only wanted the land above the Rio Grande, and nothing else), and paid Mexico back for every acre (at market value) he took and kept after the American conquest. No other victorious leader or country in the history of the world ever did that. Polk made our nation a bi-coastal nation through his shrewd foreign policy, enabling us to no longer be squashed on the Eastern Seaboard. Also, setting an example today's politicians should follow more, he kept his promise of serving for only one term if elected, though he easily would have won a second one; he's the only president on record to follow through with every campaign promise he made.
Jimmy Carter? Seriously?
FDR of all presidents had the most impact his administration set the post world war 2 world and established the USA as the dominant world power controlling two thirds of the worlds wealth and occupying the American continent,the atlantic and pacific oceans and both sides of both oceans bringing the USA to its zenith.Following US presidents have resided over American decline, with US lowest point reached by the Bush jr. admin.
JImmy Carter???? LOL WOW... the PEE WEE HERMAN of Presidents...like Obumbles.
I find it hilarious that George H.W. Bush somehow made this list.
Or anybody else other than Jefferson and JFK.
Really? I agree that JFK is the biggest miss, however, how can you possibly say that Reagan was not the best in this category? He was tough as nails but brought down communism in the USSR and Eastern Europe freeing many nations from the dictatorship of the USSR. Who else in history can claim a bigger credit? Unless you are a socialist or communist that regrets the loss of the USSR, there is. No denying on who had the biggest impact. In my opinion, second best was JFK.
CNN did a reasonable job with the list. Except for the obvious miss: the best Democratic president ever – JFK and including the most pathetic and incompetent Democratic president on foreign affairs in american history – Jim Carter. Other than that. The list is great and unbiased.
George W. screwed it up with the Iraq war big time, but Obama helped it further by being a "leading from behind" wimp. Anti terro he was OK but as international policy, very wimpy. Iran will get the bomb, he did nothing for peace with israel and Palestians, the Islamic world feels the USA has no power and so does Rusia an China. While everyone hated W, everybody ignores Obama. Not sure what is worst, I guess being disrespect is.
It doesn't matter because whatever name you put up there, the class will just erupt in some emotionally charged diatribe and label him/her a "fool", an "idiot, a "loser", or a "joke"....
So just don't say anything, quieter that way.
Attributing the collapse of the Soviet Union to Ronald Reagan is so ludicrous as to be believed! How? He go "Boo!" and they fell apart? He built up the U.S. Military spending...and they (stupidily) tried to keep up – couldnt, then collapsed? HA! Give me a break people. I know you love the guy – want all pets in the U.S. What a revisionist history farce that is! The Soviet Union "collapsed" because of its own internal problems – which were far too many. It was an inept system of governance that its people slowly but surely got rid of. To attribute those happenings to Ronald Reagan is to live a fantasy.
Premier al-Halqi: Crisis in final Phase… Economy Secure
Prime Minister, Wael al-Halqi, stressed that the crisis in Syria is in its final stage thanks to the Syrian people's unity and the precious sacrifice being offered by the Syrian army in confronting terrorism.
He pointed out the signs of an international political shift towards a peaceful solution to the crisis in Syria and calls for dialogue and a national reconciliation.
During his meeting with Chairman and members of the Executive Office of the General Sports Federation on Sunday, Premier al-Halqi said "The Syrian economy is secure, and we have enough food, medicine and oil derivatives available in all Syrian provinces."
The meeting also dealt with topics related to rehabilitating sport clubs and utilities in addition to providing supplies for arranging sport events.
They inspected the situation of some utilities and the projects invested by the Federation and means of upgrading them, as Premier al-Halqi stressed the government's interest in sport.
For their part, Federation Chairman and members underlined that sportsmen will always be their homeland's ambassadors to the whole world.
The Armed Forces destroyed a Toyota 4WD car and a motorcycle in al-Shayahat town in al-Qseir Countryside and killed 4 terrorists who were using them.
SANA reporter quoted a source at the province as saying that a unit of the army destroyed a Mortar cannon and a platform used by the armed terrorist groups to launch rockets on the citizens' houses and law-enforcement posts in Tal Siqirja town in al-Qseir countryside.
The source added that the army clashed with an armed terrorist group riding in a pickup truck on al-Haydaryeh- al-Ghassanyeh road and killed all the 10 terrorists who were in it.
Earlier, the Armed Forces destroyed a platform used by terrorists to launch rocket attacks in al-Ghanto town in al-Rastan countryside.
Army Clears al-Nqeira Town in Homs from Terrorists
The army cleared the town of al-Nqeira in Homs countryside from the terrorists who were attacking the citizens and passing cars.
A source at the province told SANA reporter that the army killed scores of terrorists and wounded others.
The source added that the army pursued an armed terrorist group in al-Sultanyeh town in Homs countryside and killed 12 terrorists and wounded 34.
The source said that terrorists Khaled al-Risha, Mohammad al-Riz, Ibrahim Nasser al-Riz, Abboud al-Ahmad in addition to their leader Mohammad Shinno were identified among the dead.
Army Units Kill Large Number of Terrorists in Aleppo
The armed forces on Sunday cleared the area of Qasr al-Wali restaurant in al-Sayyid Ali in the city of Aleppo form the mercenary terrorists.
SANA reporter learned that the terrorists had been using the restaurant as a center for carrying out their terrorist operations.
A unit of the armed forces targeted terrorists' gatherings near Orwa al-Barki Mosque in Hanano area, and others near al-Isharat area in Bustan al-Basha in Aleppo, inflicting heavy losses upon them. In Aleppo countryside, the armed forces carried out a qualitative operation killing a large number of terrorists who attacked army units in al-Atareb area.
Sniper Yousef Deya was killed while trying to escape from al-Arkoub area and two DShK-equipped cars were destroyed in al-Khazzan area in Aleppo.
The Armed Forces conducted a qualitative operation in Suleiman al-Halabi area in Aleppo, killing large numbers of terrorists.
The armed forces targeted a gathering of terrorists near the 5th Industrial School in al-Marjeh neighborhood in Aleppo, eliminating scores of terrorists.
A unit of the armed forces targeted gatherings for terrorists in Daret Azzeh in the countryside of Aleppo, killling many of them.
Also, a unit of the armed forces targeted terrorists' gatherings near Qubtan al-Jabal, Bayanoun and Kfar Naha in Aleppo countryside, inflicting heavy losses on them.
Army Kills Terrorists, Destroys DShK-Equipped Car in Homs
A unit of the armed forces on Sunday destroyed a car equipped with a DShK machinegun near al-Qantara bridge in the countryside of al-Qseir in Homs.
SANA reporter said all the terrorists inside the car were killed.
IED Goes off on Old Fairgrounds Road in Damascus, 1 Citizen Martyred...Army Units Kill Large Number of Terrorists in Aleppo
An improvised explosive device, planted by an armed terrorist group, went off on the pedestrian bridge on the old fairgrounds road in Damascus. One citizen who was passing by the place was martyred.
An official source told SANA that the device, which weighed 1 kg, also caused material damage in the area.
Way to go, OBAMINATION. A chance to meet with the Israeli delegation, but takes invite to, "The View" instead. That should get you some foreign policy points.
I hear a lot of bad dope about Obama. I am an American living in another country. When Clinton was president, I could mention that i was an american and hear hurrahs and warm compliments about how great America must be. When Bush Jr ran the show, I was scorned and chastised for a foreign policy I had nothing to do and disagreed with. Now that Obama is president, he has ended the war in Iraq, which should never have been fought in the first place, and he has successfully if modestly fought the war on terrorism. Bush was seen by the international community as an egotistical fool, and the term "cowboy" became an insult, synonomous with "redneck", wheras before it was a term that brought images of honesty and determination. The damage that Bush Jr did to the American image abroad seemed irrepairible for at least a generation. Obama, who showed strength and determination, while not being overbearing on the international community, while working in the spirit of cooperation, and by showing statesmanship and avoiding embarrassing gaffes, has restored much of the creed to the American image that the previous cowboy threw away. If you want to judge how Obama has fared on foreign policy, talk to the Americans who live abroad. Quit bashing the president, and let him do his job!! HE IS DOING A GREAT JOB IN FOREIGN POLICY!
I am NOT an american and not in america but I think President Obama has the highest marks in foriegn policy
because he had achieved alot more than any president in the history of the USA and in the worse timeever:
•Obama has overhauled the food safety system
•Advanced women's rights in the work place
•Ended Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) in our military
•Stopped defending DOMA in court.
•Passed the Hate Crimes bill.
•Appointed two pro-choice women to the Supreme Court.
•Expanded access to medical care and provided subsidies for people who can't afford it.
•Expanded the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP)
•Fixed the preexisting conditions travesty [and rescissions] in health insurance.
•Invested in clean energy.
•Overhauled the credit card industry, making it much more consumer-friendly.
•While Dodd-Frank bill was weak in many respects, it was still an extremely worthwhile start at re-regulating the financial sector.
•He created a Elizabeth Warren's dream agency: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
•He's done a lot for veterans
•He got help for people whose health was injured during the clean-up after the 9/11 attacks.
•He's killed Osama Bin Laden
•Eliminated several other Al-Qaeda leaders
•Ended the War in Iraq
•Begun the drawdown of forces from Afghanistan
•End-run Republican obstructionism by recess-appointing Richard Cordray to run the Consumer Financial Protection Board.
American are being racist that why Obama didn't get all the credits he deserves from americans.
Thank you for putting it so well, I agree
I am a massive obama fan but i think calling him the president ever is a bit of an overstatement, there have been more sucessful presidents, Abe Lincoln, George Washington, Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, John F Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton
Since there is none to talk about – I would rather ask the question – which presidents have the worse foreign policies?
Answer – ALL OF THEM !
Ok, maybe Pres Obama can be forgiven for a few not so savvy foreign policies- towards China – but its not such a big boo since Presidential Election is in November. And President has to please many Americans addiction to 'love-to-hate China'.
China appears to be a nice punching bag that do not usually hit back hard, unlike Al Qaeda which surprisingly Mitt Gaffey Romney seldom mention in all of his war mongering speeches..
Since there is none to talk about – I would rather ask the question – which presidents have
the worse foreign policies?
Answer – ALL OF THEM !
Ok, maybe Pres Obama can be forgiven for a few not so savvy foreign policies- towards China –
but its not such a big boo since Presidential Election is in November. And President has
to please many Americans addiction to 'love-to-hate China'.
China appears to be a nice punching bag that do not usually hit back hard, unlike Al Qaeda
which surprisingly Mitt Gaffey Romney seldom mention from this monger.
pls ignore my second post @ September 25, 2012 at 12:10 am
Jimmy Carter was a little "too good" at foreign policy. Took in tens of thousand Cubans, along with all their released prisoners. I guess one good thing came from it: the movie Scarface.
I am not a Rght winger, but Mr Reagan anaged to break the Soviet grip on the world. We won the war without a shot being fired.
I was very pleased when Mr Reagan and Mr Gobachev worked together, to close out the Soviet Union.
But, there are two things Mr Reagan receives credit for, that were already being worked.
The first is the Iran hostage affair that Mr Carter had worked out, so that Iran would not seem weak by Mr Carter receiving the credit. Most people know, you can not work out that large a transaction in a couple of days in office.
The second is the fall of the USSR. It took from 1945 through 1989, many proxy wars, a devasting arms race, many nations working together, and many many business manipulations to bankrupt the Soviet Union. At times, it was thought the US might go bankrupt first. But, we came out ahead. Mr Reagen was in office, and handled it superbly, but, he was the last chapter in a very long book.
ALL of the effort came from Gorbachev, not Reagan.
As with Iran, Reagan "took credit" for the breakup of the Soviet Union, but it was Gorbachev who reached out and did the legwork.
cnn is a zineOist mouthpiece.
the whole world hates israel
The fact that Israel's attack d*g has more time on U.S telly than Jimmy Carter, says it all. The Jewhadis control America
The fact that Israel's attack d*g Dershowitz has more time on U.S telly than Jimmy Carter, says it all. The Jewhadis control America
President took National Security issue very serious and successful!
I do believe that safety of our people and security of USA is always our No1 priority.
So USA as a world leader, must be there were action is: Iran, South China Sea, Syria , North-East Africa, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia...
1.President kept his pledge to the nation to end the war in Iraq in responsible way…
2. Navy Seal mission to kill OBL …
3.I agree that in 2014, the transition will be complete in Afghanistan ( my opinion: after that special operation troops should stay there, unofficial, under CIA)…
4. ALL US Embassies and Diplomats in “hot” countries, must be protected by US Marines and Special Forces… “Arab Spring” and “Arab Fall” are to me US Intelligence failure.
5. Because of cyber treat, 2 Oceans and Continent, does NOT mean that USA is safe…
6. Obama’s administration has done more for the security of the state of Israel than any previous administration… Bipartisan support in Congress to Israel , already show traditional unbreakable bonds between this two countries, as a friends and Alleys.
My question: (Q) What USA Gov. will do when China, Russia, Iran… start to use there drones unilaterally, in the future ???
Reagan was the best hands down
Thanks to Reagan Pakistan has nukes now.
Hmmmm???
I am only old enough to have been aware, of what presidents have been doing, sinch Einsenhauer, so, my choices are from then till now.
For foreign policy (as much as I don't like him), I have to pick Nixon. He opened up talks with China, brought us into the world market (on a solid footing, even though we had been going that way since the end of WW II), he put our military in an "equal" stance against the USSR, kept out international image strong with the space program, and instilled fear into out adversaries around the world. There have been more charismatic administrations, but, his worked well for foreign policy.
Hands down Richard Nixon! Both Domestic and Foreign policy. He opened several countries diplomatically and outlined a policy that could have ended apartheid earlier. What overshadows his political abilities was a ridiculous level of support for staff that ruined him.
What was Bush's legal justification for invading freaking Panama??
Invading Lebanon and Grenada were not smooth for Reagan, less we forget Iran Contra and the attempt to overthrow a democratically elected Sandinista government.
"Only Nixon could go to China"
No doubt Millard Fillmore
George W. Bush:
He stopped the Libyan nuclear weapons program cold.
He took out Saddam Hussein, a sworn enemy of the United States, and ensured that he could not sponsor terror against us or pursue the development of WMDs.
He disrupted Al Queda and put them on the run.
He put together an international coalition to fight terrorism militarily and financially.
He pushed the extremist Taliban out of power in Afghanistan.
He used judgement and restraint after 9/11 which was an event that could rightly have led to World War 3.
He was unequivocal in his efforts against Iranian nuclear development and North Korea. They got the message that we were not weak.
He supported freedom movements in the Middle East without undermining key U.S. allies.
He prevented additional terror attacks in the U.S. and gave jihadists the opportunity to blow themselves up in their own region of the world.
Someday, historians will give him his due.
And he cared for his country enough to exchange his enormous popularity at the beginning of his term for hugely unpopular, but vital for our country forceful and military actions. Clinton, for example, would have sold his country + his mother for popularity.
Bush forced our enemies to fear us. This is the only thing which works in Foreign Policy. Love doesn't work there.
And he also punished two our former allies (Taliban and Iraq) for betrayal. Yes, wars over there took their toll, but now other countries and other leaders will think twice before betraying us.
where's John F Kennedy? You know, the man who prevented nuclear war
My choice was not even a president, but rather Benjamin Franklin and his work as our ambassador to France during the Revolutionary War. Regardless of anything else he did or didn't do over there, it took quite a bit of work to sway the French opinion and support. Without the French support, especially the blockade, Cornwallace and the brits might've been able to hold out longer or even reinforce themselves to fight back.
Why among 193 countries, Israel is the most beloved?
Both of these clowns sounded like they were running for president of Israel. I guess we know who pulls their strings. What a couple of bootlickers. When will a real leader step forward in this country? Where are the men who put the U.S. first instead of Israel?
The Debate was interesting... President Obama has lot of ideas and showed clear speech of how his ideals will work in the real world. But the fact of US politics is that no matter what your ideals are you can never convince a divided house.. I applaud Senator Romney's effort to win a presidential election but the Senator has to think outside the box sometimes. One is talking from a business prospective and the other is addressing the commons mans concerns. Both have good plans and policies but what do we really need is what every voter should think.
Lets analyze this – Senator Romney says he is gonna cut tax for big businesses which in turn can provide more jobs. The President says we have to levy more taxes on wealthy and give tax breaks for small businesses so they can create more jobs and grow the economy. Both have the same effect in my opinion .. its just how you analyze it.... Say the big businesses have a tax break of 10%...well next thing what they would do is to try to take more advantage of that break and get more jobs out of US to further maximize their gains ... the 10% tax cut will be invested outside to earn more bank for their buck ..simple as that... its business standpoint that the Senator says... lets analyze The Presidents plan.. need to grow small businesses .. a very nice plan.. but when economy is not so doing good what will happen... what are the measures put in place to have a cushion for small businesses? That's what Mr. President should tell out in these debates...
Energy policy - doesn't matter with both candidate...the rich oil companies will still make money ...
War on Terror – The President Wins- His Gutsy calls and his straight message
well there is a growing fear inside US... how r we gonna address the terror that's breeding inside our nation. More number of people get killed in cities like Detroit than in Afghanistan... how r we gonna address it... thats what the Next President should talk about.... Increasing the funding for law in order in such states... Providing growth opportunties for those cities... changing the culture....
Both candidates are focussing on a very high level ... rather than trying to work with state goverments to develop those states that need the ulplift which in turn will help grow the economy....
On the campaign trail a few months ago, Mitt Romney called Russia "our main geopolitical foe" and he reiterate that position again at last night's debate. Well get a load of this...one hour ago, a Russian spacecraft blasted off from Baikonur, Kazakhstan enroute to the International Space Station with a three man crew that include two Russian and one American astronauts. Geopolitical foe? Hey Mitt Romney, you're not Presidential material. Please go back to Bain Capital.
Your kidding? Carter? Its been proven again and again how much of a flop that was. His administration was brought to a crushing standstill in crisis after crisis.
I understand that you were simply trying to get one recent democrat president in this mix, but Carter is definitely not by anyones definition a good term on foreign policy.
Bush was the worst thing that ever happened to the US foreign policy, yet he is in the list. There is no place in the world where US is not hated and there is not place in the world where you will be looked down upon because you live in the US after G.W.Bush .
This is coming from a person who travels out of the use 2+ times a year to different countries.
Where is Harry Truman? Under his leadership and administration the U.S. created the post-war world of free trade, NATO, rebuilt Europe through the Marshall Plan, stopped communist aggression in Europe. He did this while being opposed by Republican isolationists such as Robert Taft. More than any other President he put in place the global structure that led to economic growth around the world and ultimately the triumph of democracy over autocracy.
Carter was (and is) a clown. Kissinger made that Middle East play, not him.
Franklin Roosevelt surrendered this country to organized crime. We feel it even today.
Nixon, although a crook, was the greatest Foreign Policy president. He pitted this country's worst two enemies, Russia and China, against each other. Ever since they do not provide real threat to us, although at that time each could have possibly destroy us. And what politician isn't a crook?
If I were an Iranian, I would be furious with the US and Britain. Most people do not understand the history of Iran. The CIA overthrew the Iranian government in 1951, solely because of OIL interests, as Iran rightly wanted to nationalize its oil fields from British control (I would have done the same)...
How would America feel if its own government was overthrown by some other country so that a foreign company could control its oil, how would Britain feel about that???
I am totally in support of Iran today, I totally understand their total hatred towards UK and US. They deserve it!