Barack Obama’s foreign policy boast unravels after election

What a lot of things President Obama seems to have been holding back until after his re-election. Each day brings something new.

There has been the news of an attack by Iran on a US drone in the Persian Gulf. Then there is the Petraeus affair – known about for months, but only leading to the CIA chief’s resignation immediately after Obama’s re-election. The Benghazi hearings are yet to come.

And now another surprise. It transpires that the Iraqi government, a body which is only in power because of the sacrifice of thousands of American, British and other allied troops, is releasing from custody a senior Hezbollah terrorist who was in detention for killing American troops.

In 2007 the Lebanese terrorist Ali Musa Daqduq organised an ambush in Karbala in which five US soldiers were killed. Captured by UK forces he was handed over to American personnel. President Obama refused to allow Daqduq to be deported to face trial in Guantanamo and, of course, wanted American troops out of Iraq in time for the recent US election. Daqduq was handed over to the Iraqis. The Iraqi courts have since failed to convict this high-ranking Hezbollah terrorist, who has the blood of American soldiers on his hands, and have ordered him to be released.

On the campaign trail Obama was boastful about having withdrawn American forces from Iraq. Perhaps if the case of Daqduq had been discussed in the New York Times and elsewhere before, rather than after, the election, the American people might have had more opportunity to reflect on what the point was of boasting of withdrawal when it does not come with victory?