President Barack Obama has always preferred dabbling in domestic policy. It is apparent he doesn’t understand much about foreign relations. His philosophy on diplomacy can be summed up as strong leadership – if that’s all right with everyone else.

Now, a global vortex of foreign policy challenges is threatening to overwhelm Obama, and test the U.S. tradition of standing up for other free countries when they are under attack.

Consider:

Vicious Islamic rebels are poised to take over Iraq.

Obama’s history involving Israel has been to support Palestinian militants while criticizing the Jewish state. That emboldened Hamas in the Gaza Strip to launch a missile offensive against Israel. Since July 8, Hamas has fired about 1,600 rockets at Israeli targets.

Now, a combined air-ground assault by Israel is aimed at declawing Hamas. Obama has said little.

Obama’s failure to do anything substantive about Ukrainian rebels backed by Russia has emboldened them, too. The president’s reaction to the shooting down of a Malaysian airliner, killing nearly 300 people, has been a strong move to prove the obvious – that Ukrainian rebels brought the aircraft down.

Illegal immigration is a combination issue, with some domestic and some foreign policy ramifications. Any questions about how well Obama has handled that?

U.S. foreign relations are a disaster. The question now is whether anything can be done about it.