Washington: US Republicans clamored to paint North Korea's surprise nuclear test as yet another failure of Barack Obama's foreign policy Wednesday, rounding on the outgoing president as he faced a stern new overseas challenge.
"Our enemies around the world are taking advantage of Obama's weakness," White House contender Senator Marco Rubio said, blasting the 44th president for standing "idly by" as a "lunatic" leader in Pyongyang threatens international peace.
Republicans vying to replace Obama in 2017 have accused him, and his former secretary of state Hillary Clinton -- the Democratic presidential frontrunner -- of lacking resolve.
They say Obama's overly cautious foreign policy has created a void that the Islamic State group, Russia, China, Iran and now North Korea have stepped into.
It comes after North Korea said it had carried out a "successful" miniaturized hydrogen bomb test -- though experts are skeptical of the claim.
Senator Ted Cruz, another Republican White House candidate, said North Korea's test "underscores the gravity of the threats we are facing right now and also the sheer folly of the Obama-Clinton foreign policy."
"When we look at North Korea, it's like looking at a crystal ball. This is where Iran ends up if we continue on this same misguided path."
Obama came to office in 2009 vowing to extricate the United States from costly foreign wars, while signaling Washington would no longer rush headlong into every global crisis.
He has also engaged with US foes Iran and Cuba, popular bogeymen for Republicans on the campaign trail.
White House aides say Obama's policy is borne from a more steely eyed approach to the US national interest.
But they also admit that policy toward North Korea, which has seen three nuclear tests during Obama's presidency, has been less than a total success.
Obama's broad aim was to get reclusive Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear program, stop destabilizing the region and come back to the negotiating table.
"It is true that we have not achieved our goal," conceded White House spokesman Josh Earnest.
"But we have succeeded in making North Korea more isolated than ever before and the international community more united than ever before."
AFP
