“… this Administration … has substantially … improved the tranquility of the global community.”

Q: Broader question on foreign policy — this Wall Street Journal story that sort of puts together all of the crises that are going on — Iranian talks in addition to the violence in Gaza you’ve been asked about today, the ongoing civil war in Syria. Obviously, nobody can say that these are all the President’s fault, but he is dealing with all of them, and the story basically says right at the top that U.S. global power seems increasingly tenuous to deal with all of these challenges. So my question is, how does the White House react to the notion that the President is a bystander to all these crises?

MR. EARNEST: I think that there have been a number of situations in which you’ve seen this administration intervene in a meaningful way that has substantially furthered American interests and substantially improved the tranquility of the global community.

You saw the United States intervene in support — or with the support of our allies and partners to rid Syria of their declared chemical weapons stockpile. For a long time, for decades, the Assad regime denied that they even had chemical weapons. Again, working with our partners and allies, he declared that they had these weapons, they worked with the international community to remove these weapons, and they’re currently being destroyed aboard a U.S. ship out at sea.

Over the weekend, you saw Secretary Kerry travel to Afghanistan and mediate an agreement between the two presidential candidates in Afghanistan, keeping that process alive and, in fact, advancing that process. Reaching an agreement to audit every single ballot in a presidential election in which 8 million ballots across the country were cast is a substantial, meaningful agreement and puts in sight a resolution of what had been a pretty dangerous disagreement.

And just last week you saw the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of State meeting in China with their counterparts to work through the robust but complex relationship that the United States has with China. Those were serious negotiations, and there was a serious effort underway to advance American interests in the Asia Pacific.

So these are just three examples that I thought of off the top of my head that demonstrate that there are — that even in the midst of what is a very complicated and dangerous world that the Obama administration thinks that this President’s leadership is succeeding in advancing American interests around the globe.

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