Barack Obama has spent the first six months of his presidency pursuing a fundamental and deadly change in American foreign policy, Jeffrey Kuhner wrote in the Washington Times July 25. Kuhner called it the Obama doctrine, and said that “if it continues to be pursued, it will mark the decline and fall of the United States as the world’s superpower.” In fact, he wrote,

[I]ts very objective is to undercut America’s preeminent global role, reducing its great-power status to that of a multilateral partner equal to Russia, China or the European Union. At its core, the Obama doctrine maintains that all societies and cultures are morally equal. More important, promoting democracy and human rights has been abandoned in favor of “improving America’s standing in the world.”

Ever since the presidency of Jimmy Carter, a key function of U.S. foreign policy has been to promote democratization and human rights, argued Kuhner. Although this policy was not without its pitfalls, the quest to ensure political freedom in distant lands strengthened American national interests.

“This tradition has been ruptured by Mr. Obama,” wrote Kuhner. “As a result, freedom is in retreat. Our enemies have become emboldened. America is weaker.”

Mr. Obama’s approach to China and Russia provides two pertinent examples. Kuhner detailed:

On China, Mr. Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton have deliberately put human rights and Tibet on the back burner, refusing to raise these issues for fear of angering Beijing. Instead, Mrs. Clinton insists that the “global financial crisis,” the supposed “climate-change crisis” and the “security crisis” are more important. Hence, China’s democrats and persecuted religious minorities no longer look to Washington for support.The same applies to Russia. Mr. Obama has publicly praised Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. This is done despite Moscow’s war of aggression against the Republic of Georgia and its attempt to bully Ukraine.

But the clearest example, Kuhner said, is Obama’s course of action on Iran. “The recent street protests against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s sham ‘reelection’ presented a golden opportunity for the Obama administration to trigger regime change,” Kuhner wrote. But rather than defending Iran’s persecuted, Mr. Obama sat on the fence, lending support and legitimacy to Ahmadinejad and his militiamen.

There was a time when America would rise to defend its moral and political principles. That era is now over, said Kuhner; the president is a “transnational leftist who believes American power must be restrained, not enhanced. More important, he is a cultural relativist. He is convinced the United States is not a singular force for good in the world, but an imperial, jingoistic nation that must be chastened—and humbled—on the world stage.”

Regarding the implications of a weakened superpower, Joel Hilliker wrote on theTrumpet.com last year:

The idea that the comfortable era of Western (particularly American) dominance we are leaving behind will be replaced by a comfortable era of harmony among numerous great powers ignores the seemingly hardwired human tendency, in the absence of a strong outside authority, to compete for supremacy. … And that competition, history shows, invariably turns violent.The signs are already there. Today as the United States declines in strength, three significant power blocs have emerged: a radical Islamic resurgence led by Iran, a united Europe, and an integrating Asia. Efforts to dethrone the U.S. are visible in all three. …This world is hurtling toward a time when American influence will be not only countered by these three power blocs, but also eliminated from global politics.

As Kuhner wrote, with an administration that aspires for a “one-world multicultural love fest,” America’s future will be full of “disgrace, defeat and ruin.”

This is the short-term outcome prophesied in the Bible for the United States—with a broken national will being a large factor in that decline (Leviticus 26:19). For more on what’s ahead for the waning U.S. superpower, read our article, “The End of the Free World.”