Despite his boasts that the US has turned a page, Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech underlined that we can expect talk rather than change when it comes to foreign policy challenges such as those in Syria. In his years in office, Mr Obama has failed to make good even on his campaign promises: remember the pledge to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp? Think back to the “new beginning” he promised the Muslim world in Cairo in 2009. Consider the parlous state of the non-peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. In foreign policy terms then, almost the only real achievement of the Obama administration is the thawing of more than half-a-century of cold war frost with Cuba.
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