Lost among the Washington’s fixation on the U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts is the puncturing of one of the last remaining myths of the Obama presidency—that he would somehow be able to rally and unite the world by pursuing a more humble, less aggressive foreign policy.

But in a major embarrassment for the United States, as we undertake a surge of our forces to defeat the Taliban, Japan is pulling naval forces out of Afghanistan. ABC News reports that Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama opposed the mission, and rebuffed U.S. entreaties that his nation stay in the Afghan war effort.

Remember George W. Bush? In the media’s telling, he supposedly pursued an arrogant, cowboy, unilateral diplomacy. Yet Bush persuaded the Japanese to deploy military forces beyond its own borders for the first time since the end of World War II. This was highly controversial within Japan, given the post-World War II pacifist constitution that stipulated that Japan could only use its military only for self-defense. Bush’s personal diplomacy resulted in then-prime minister Junichiro Koizumi deploying Japanese ground troops in Iraq and naval vessels in the Indian Ocean to assist with the war in Afghanistan.

Now the Japanese deployment is ending at a moment of great import in Afghanistan. Despite a global apology tour, a Nobel Peace prize (which even he admitted he did not deserve), and repeated attempts to “engage” Iran and other sworn enemies of the United States, Obama has now failed to persuade the Japanese—one of our best allies in the world—to remain committed with military forces to the war in Afghanistan.
The conceit of Obama’s presidential candidacy and now his presidency, which was that through his charismatic personality and the healing balm of his eloquence he would persuade the world to cooperate with the U.S. The opposite is now unfolding. Weakness, vacillation, and a lack of moral clarity in the prosecution of the war on terrorism that is causing us to lose the commitment of current and potential allies.