Obama defends foreign policy by touting American leadership

In his final State of the Union speech Tuesday night, U.S. President Barack Obama defended his foreign policy record by touting so-called "American leadership" based on the wise use of military power and the mobilisation of a wide coalition to deal with global challenges.

Amid increasing criticism in the past seven years for being weak and hesitant in using military means to deal with security challenges, Obama said solutions to pressing global issues need to be "more than tough talk or calls to carpet bomb civilians."

"That may work as a TV sound bite, but it doesn't pass muster on the world age," he added.

Obama was apparently responding to criticism from Republican presidential candidates that he continuously shies away from calls to send troops abroad to fight Islamic State (IS) militants in the Middle East or remove Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power to end the prolonged Syrian civil war.

Republican critics have also accused Obama of refusing to intensify U.S. airstrike operations against IS in Syria and northern Iraq, thus enabling the terror group to continue to pose a grave threat to the security of the West, including the U.S.

"We also can't try to take over and rebuild every country that falls into crisis. That's not leadership; that's a recipe for quagmire, spilling American blood and treasure that ultimately weakens us," Obama said, citing the lessons of the U.S. wars in Vietnam and Iraq.

Obama has made pulling all U.S. troops out of Iraq at the end of 2011 a major foreign policy goal. But some critics blamed the U.S. pullout for leaving a vacuum for IS to take over large swaths of northern Iraq.

"Fortunately, there's a smarter approach, a patient and disciplined strategy that uses every element of our national power," Obama said.

The president stressed that on global concerns the U.S. "will mobilize the world to work with us, and make sure other countries pull their own weight."

Obama said that is the strategy he used in dealing with the conflict in Syria and securing a historic deal on Iran's controversial nuclear program, which helped prevent a possible military conflict in the volatile Middle East.

Obama also mentioned the historic deal on fighting global warming reached at the United Nations climate change conference in Paris late last year, the containment of the spread of Ebola epidemic in West Africa, and the conclusion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

"American leadership in the 21st century is not a choice between ignoring the rest of the world ...or occupying and rebuilding whatever society is unraveling," he said.

Leadership means "a wise application of military power, and rallying the world behind causes that are right," Obama said, adding that the strength of American leadership depends on the power of example. Endi