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U.S. President Barack Obama has baffled observers for appearing to sit on his hands in the face of major foreign policy crises in the Middle East and elsewhere.
With the Islamic State (IS) overrunning vast swaths of territory in northern Iraq, many are astounded that the U.S. president, instead of taking the lead against the militants, has for months kept the problem on the backburner despite ominous warnings that the terrorists could target the United States..
While Obama has ordered airstrikes, experts say bombing alone will not do the job. After admitting there's still no strategy, Obama has yet to clarify his plans.
The situation mirrors many other global issues whereby critics charge the White House with a failure to provide leadership in hotspots ranging from Syria to Ukraine.
The contention is that the administration's foreign policy has amounted to a confused hodgepodge of ad hoc decisions without any guiding principles.
The administration's supporters say the White House is being nimble and flexible, but opponents counter that the approach confuses allies and provides no clear red line for enemies.
Former secretary of state and the likely 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton echoed that sentiment, saying this is not appropriate for a country like the United States. "Great nations need organizing principles, and 'Don't do stupid stuff' is not an organizing principle," she said last month in an interview in The Atlantic.
Former commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet James A. Lyons also mirrored those thoughts, opining last month in the Washington Times that Obama's foreign policy lacks "coherence and direction."
Experts say a great foreign policy president is an acute observer of how current trends could impact tomorrow, but Obama's foreign policy team -- which Lyons lambasted as the weakest since World War II -- has failed to look ahead to anticipate what's next.
Indeed, after U.S. forces in 2011 killed terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden -- a major foreign policy win -- the administration failed to follow up, acting as if the terror threat was over.
After ISIS conquered Fallujah, Iraq, Obama simply dismissed the group as amateurs in a New Yorker interview last January. Now, ISIS has proven itself to be a deadly foe.
More fundamentally, critics fret that Obama believes simply not antagonizing groups like ISIS will keep the U.S. safe. But terrorists perceive this as weakness, and experts say ISIS may eventually want to prove its viability by launching a major attack against the world's superpower.
Currently, there are more than an estimated 100 U.S. citizens believed to be fighting with ISIS, and it only takes one of these militants to slip into the U.S. undetected and carry out a terror attack.
Lanhee Chen, the former policy director and chief policy advisor for the Mitt Romney for President Campaign, told Xinhua Obama has been caught flat-footed on ISIS. Chen, now the David and Diane Steffy Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, added the president has not recognized the U.S. is still at war with jihadists.
Even members of the president's own party have blasted him, with top Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein recently commenting Obama has perhaps been "too cautious" with ISIS.
After months of seeming to ignore the problem, Obama finally appears to be taking it seriously, with the president last week saying ISIS must be "dismantled" after earlier statements downplaying the militants' strength. But it remains unknown whether the White House has a workable strategy.
On Wednesday, Obama is slated to provide details of how he will deal with ISIS. The West and U.S. allies in the Mid East will be watching closely.
