Matt Continetti continues to embarrass himself as a flack for Palin:

Palin noted that the president spent hardly any time on foreign policy during his annual report to Congress–indeed, she spent more time on our Israeli and Japanese allies, our Iranian and jihadist adversaries, and our strategic competitors than he did.

This is pretty weak praise. She “spent more time” on these things? All right, yes, she did mention Japan and Israel in passing, but what did she actually have to say about any of these things? According to one transcript, these were her remarks:

Our president spent a year reaching out to hostile regimes, writing personal letters to dangerous dictators and apologizing for America, and what do we have to show for that? Here’s what we have to show. North Korea tested nuclear weapons and longer-range ballistic missiles. Israel, a friend and critical ally, now questions the strength of our support. Plans for a missile defense system in Europe, they’ve been scrapped. Relations with China and Russia are no better. and relations with Japan, that key Asian ally, they are in the worst shape in years.

In fact, the first North Korean nuclear weapons test occurred on Bush’s watch in 2006. That isn’t Bush’s fault. For most of his second term, Bush pursued a diplomatic track in concert with China and our regional allies, but North Korea’s nuclear test is not proof that this was the wrong way to handle a difficult regime. North Korea has been unresponsive, and it is intent on acquiring a nuclear weapon. There are not many things that our government or anyone else can do about this. The second nuclear test occurred four months into Obama’s tenure. You have to be rather silly to assume that this was a result of the new administration’s policies. She mentions the missile defense decision, but has nothing to say about it one way or the other. Presumably she thinks the decision was wrong, but she can’t even muster the boilerplate outrage over the imagined “betrayal” of Poland and the Czech Republic that seems to be mandatory these days on much of the right.

If Israel questions the strength of U.S. support, it is difficult to see why this would be the case. Since Palin’s remarks are just a litany of content-free complaints, it is hard to know what she believes the administration did or didn’t do that she would have done differently. As for U.S.-Japanese relations, it is a gross exaggeration to say that they are in the “worst shape in years.” There are tensions over the Futenma basing agreement, and the administration would have preferred that the DPJ government had not followed through on its campaign pledge to allow the mandate for its Afghanistan-related refueling operation to expire, but these are manageable disagreements. Is Palin saying that she thinks Obama should be more conciliatory to the DPJ government on the basing of U.S. troops? Of course not. She would inevitably want a more assertive, arrogant approach that would offend and alienate Tokyo even more. She would be even more irritated with the DPJ government over the end of Japanese refueling operations. Supposing McCain and she had won the election, these points of contention could very well have turned into diplomatic crises rather than ongoing irritants.

Palin says that relations with China and Russia are no better. Perhaps not, but until very recently relations with both have not grown any worse. As far as Russia is concerned, the fact that Washington has stopped making things worse for a short time is a small accomplishment in itself. Why have relations with China soured recently? In short order, Taiwan arms sales, public haranguing over Iran sanctions, criticism of Internet censorship and agreeing to meet with the Dalai Lama were responsible. I doubt very much that Palin thinks Obama should have refused to make the arms sale to Taiwan. She is interested in building coalitions to confront Iran and North Korea, or so she says, so how would she have cajoled the Chinese differently on this point? She wants sanctions on Iran, which is also what the administration wants and has been working to impose. Since she is so insistent that Obama speak out more on behalf of oppressed and unfree peoples, she can’t possibly disagree with the administration criticisms of Chinese Internet censorship that began the recent spate of public arguments between our governments. Obviously, given her professed enthusiasm for political dissidents, meeting with the Dalai Lama is not something she would oppose. If relations with China are no better today, how much worse might they be if she and McCain were following her recommendations?

The point is not that the administration has necessarily done the right things when it has been handling relations with China recently. Especially as it relates to Iran, the administration has gone horribly wrong here. The point is that Palin demands on the one hand that the administration do even more of the obnoxious, confrontational things that worsen relations with other major players while also complaining that relations with other states are getting worse. Her foreign policy remarks are frankly a joke. She could spend all day talking about these things, and it wouldn’t make what she said any more worthwhile. Whenver you are tempted to think that Republicans might have something to say about foreign policy, just remember that this is the person the Republican Party was ready to make Vice President, and this is the person many of them would still want to have as President.

P.S. Palin also repeats the completely ignorant claim that democracies don’t go to war with each other. I understand that she is just repeating propaganda claims, but it’s still pathetic.