Regarding James Rubin’s “Obama’s Foreign Policy Success” (op-ed, June 14): What world does Mr. Rubin live in? He says, the Obama administration “has restored strained alliances and friendships around the world.” Really? Which strained alliances has this president restored and at what price?

President Obama certainly has ratcheted down rhetoric with Russia but after capitulating on missile defense and getting a Russian vote on Iran sanctions that is devoid of any meaning. Yet Russians can still continue selling Iran both air-defense missiles and nuclear technology for “peaceful” purposes.

This administration has conceded a whole range of issues important to China, without getting any economic, military or diplomatic return. The president’s “engagement” with Iran has only emboldened the mullahs and their surrogates. Turkey is more anti-Western and anti-American than ever, and all without any consequences to its interests. Brazil is giving support to every left-wing despot in South America and beyond. Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez is consolidating his hold on power and his region.

Relations with key allies like Britain, Germany, France and Japan have been indifferent at best, and Africa has largely been ignored and left to the Chinese.

Universally, among friends and foes alike, Mr. Obama is perceived as a weak president who will not take any position that will create waves with any of our adversaries.

David Anton

New York

One only has to look at the photo on page 15 of the same Journal issue to see President Lula da Silva of Brazil grasping Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with two hands, or remember the triumphant pose both of these men took with the president of Turkey a few weeks ago. This is Mr. Rubin’s idea of “weakening the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad” through President Obama’s policies?

Also, I didn’t see any comments from Mr. Rubin regarding the Democratic Congress’s stall on free-trade agreements with two of our supposed strongest allies, Colombia and South Korea, where ironically we base U.S. troops but can’t get the deal done. Don’t forget the retraction of the missile shield for our allies in Eastern Europe, the insult to our British friends when Mr. Obama returned the bust of Winston Churchill, and the lack of unanimity on the vote for sanctions on Iran. On Israel, is Mr. Rubin actually saying that the Gaza flotilla wasn’t a planned provocation, that Israel doesn’t have a right to enforce the well-known blockade, or to eliminate terrorists that organized previous attacks on Israeli soil?

Jeffrey Felman

Cleveland

Our European allies may have disagreed with our invasion of Iraq, but they never doubted our resolve or our strength as they do now.

Zackary D. Barron

Boston

President Bush did not appease and apologize for defending America’s interest. This may have caused the media of France, Spain, Portugal and other liberal European economies to write unfavorably about America and to influence their citizens. They may not have liked us, but I believe they respected us, as did those Eastern European countries which look to America as the defender of their freedom. For the first time I can remember, we have alienated Israel and Britain, been rebuffed repeatedly by North Korea, China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Turkey and Brazil, despite our appeasement, apologizing and kowtowing to these repressive regimes.

John J. Fusco

Scarsdale, N.Y.

Mr. Rubin is mistaken. President Obama is not looking after the finances of the U.S. in any way which promotes our strength abroad. His financial policies may damage our ability to conduct any foreign or domestic policy for decades to come. President Obama is raising our national debt more than any other president.

Further, no issue enraged the international community or voters more than Guantanamo, and no campaign promise remains more of an open sore than this. No mention of this by Mr. Rubin but after all, he is only speaking of victories, not colossal failures. Here I should add there is no national climate-change policy or international climate treaty to speak of, and none in sight. This may turn out to be the singular most important foreign policy achievement—his failure—when all is said and done.

Dave Blide

Hawthorne, N.Y.