Here is a quick current events quiz: Who are Susan Rice, Lisa Monaco, and Samantha Power? If you guessed something other than President Barack Obama’s foreign policy team you are wrong.

Susan Rice, 50, who famously stonewalled Congress and the media about what really happened in 2012 in Benghazi, Libya, when the U.S. Ambassador was assassinated, is the United States National Security Advisor. She was born and raised in Washington, D.C. and graduated from Stanford University and Oxford University.

Lisa Monaco, 47, is the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism. She replaced John Brennan in 2013 when he became Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Lisa served as the Assistant Attorney General and her chief responsibility at the U.S. Department of Justice was keeping an eye on the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Samantha Power, 45, is the United States Ambassador to the United Nations. She is a journalist by profession and a Pulitzer Prize winning author/and documentarian, and she was a professor at Harvard University. Her strong suit is human rights policy and human trafficking.

This is the trio that told Obama that the ISIS threat was the “JV team” compared to al Qaeda.

If you wonder why President Obama did not participate in the Unity Rally Against Terrorism in Paris last weekend, these are the people you need to ask. They made the decision to forego any acknowledgement from the White House about this event that included the heads of state of over

40 nations.

To save face, President Obama and his foreign policy team acknowledged the day after the Paris Unity Rally that they made a big mistake in failing to send a top U.S. official to the event. The damage had already been done and the Obama Administration was forced to chalk up another diplomatic failure that has surely weakened even further the United States’ posture around the world.

The diplomatic and political inexperience and ignorance of Susan Rice, Lisa Monaco and Samantha Power has eroded the confidence of our allies. The proof of their inability to do their jobs is becoming legendary.

Benghazi and the deceit behind our failure to protect our citizens abroad was just the beginning.

Remember Obama’s threat to Syria not to “cross the line?” When Syria then crossed the line, none other but Russian President Vladimir Putin had to step up and save Obama and the U.S. by negotiating personally with Syrian President Assad on Obama’s behalf. Just when we thought Putin was becoming our ally, the Russians invade Ukraine and take over the Crimean Peninsula!

Putin knows the foreign policy team at the White House cannot match his skillful manipulation of the United States. Obama’s recent embrace of Cuba, without lifting the trade embargo, is yet another trophy for President Putin, and another big loss for the White House JV foreign policy team.

Obama needs to sack his JV foreign policy team and bring back the professionals.

 

A native of Niles, Jack Strayer moved back home in 2009 after living and working in Washington DC since 1976. Strayer has served as a congressional staffer, state legislative press secretary, federal registered lobbyist and Vice President of the National Center for Policy Analysis. He is a nationally recognized expert on federal health policy reform and led the fight for the enactment of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs).