Mort Zuckerman: Obama Seen as 'Incompetent'

President Obama appears “uncomfortable” as a leader of other nations and is being viewed increasingly as incompetent by the rest of the world when it comes to foreign policy, billionaire publisher Mort Zuckerman declares.

“The reviews of Obama’s performance have been disappointing,” Zuckerman, publisher of the New York Daily News, writes in U.S. News & World Report, which he owns.

“He talks the talk but doesn’t know how to walk the walk.”

Zuckerman points to what he sees as failed policies regarding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran’s nuclear weapons program, relations with Cuba and the Arab world, and the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian struggle.

He also notes that the British press — and public — see an end to the country’s “special relationship” with the United States, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has openly criticized Obama’s nuclear weapons policy, Russia’s Vladimir Putin has “publicly scorned a number of Obama’s visions,” and China “treated him disdainfully” during his visit there.

“The end result is that a critical mass of influential people in world affairs who once held high hopes for the president have begun to wonder whether they misjudged the man,” Zuckerman writes.

“They are no longer dazzled by his rock star personality and there is a sense that there is something amateurish and even incompetent about how Obama is managing U.S. power.

“For example, Obama has asserted that America is not at war with the Muslim world. The problem is that parts of the Muslim world are at war with America and the West.”

Zuckerman also states: “America right now appears to be unreliable to traditional friends, compliant to rivals, and weak to enemies.”