Obama needs a foreign policy GPS

SINCE running for office in 2008, US President Barack Obama has insisted that he would bring to an end the American military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan and re-focus his time and energy on "nation building" at home while leading "from behind" in responding to international developments.

His views seem to be in line with the sentiments of the American people, who by large majorities have told pollsters that they were opposed to being drawn into the conflicts in the Middle East and in Ukraine or over the ownership of islands in the South and East China Seas.

But now as the White House is facing a series of major crises abroad - fighting between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip; downing of a Malaysia Airlines plane by Russian separatists in Ukraine; continuing disintegration of Iraq and Syria; nuclear negotiations with Iran; the flow of Central American child migrants into the United States - President Obama's response seems to be uncertain and muddled. That in turn weakens American public support for the president and doesn't inspire confidence in American leadership around the world.