Charles Krauthammer
The Washington Post
3/29/2012
“On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this can be solved, but it’s important for him [Vladimir Putin] to give me space. . . . This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.”
— Barack Obama to Dmitry Medvedev, open mike, March 26
You don’t often hear an American president secretly (he thinks) assuring foreign leaders that concessions are coming their way, but they must wait because he’s seeking reelection and he dares not tell his own people…
…the problem is not that the issue is too complicated but that if people knew Obama’s intentions of flexibly caving on missile defense, they might think twice about giving him a second term.
After all, what is Obama doing negotiating on missile defense in the first place? We have no obligation to do so. The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a relic of the Cold War, died in 2002.
We have an unmatched technological lead in this area. It’s a priceless strategic advantage that for three decades Russia has been trying to get us to yield. Why give any of it away?…
…On which of “all these issues” — Syria, Iran, Eastern Europe, Georgia, human rights — is Obama ready to offer Putin yet more flexibility as soon as he gets past his last election? Where else will he show U.S. adversaries more flexibility? Yet more aid to North Korea? More weakening of tough Senate sanctions against Iran?
Can you imagine the kind of pressure a reelected Obama will put on Israel, the kind of anxiety he will induce from Georgia to the Persian Gulf, the nervousness among our most loyal East European friends who, having been left out on a limb by Obama once before, are now wondering what new flexibility Obama will show Putin — the man who famously proclaimed that the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century was Russia’s loss of its Soviet empire?…
Read the entire article at The Washington Post.
Related:
“Operation Hot Mic” by American Crossroads on YouTube
H/T Hyscience and American Power
Also, at GatewayPundit, John Bolton blasted the administration for intentionally leaking information on Israel’s secret military alliance with Azerbaijan.
Netanyahu should tell us to @#$% off the next time we need intelligence.
Update: Obama’s knife in the back? by Melanie Phillips
Is the Obama administration using either leaks or black propaganda to sabotage Israel’s defence against the threat of genocide? America’s former ambassador to the UN John Bolton certainly thinks so – and he is not a man given to rash speculation…
