« Terror Analyst: US State Dept to Blame for PC Airline Security, They ‘Don’t Want to Offend’ | Home | Northwest Airlines Passenger Describes How He Subdued the Airline Terrorist »
Charles Krauthammer Gives His Year End Analysis of How Obama Has Been Handling ‘America’s Global Challenges’
By PoliJAM | December 26, 2009
In Fox News’ Special Report Christmas day special, the panel took a look at how President Barack Obama has handled some of the biggest international challenges that his administration had faced in the past year.
The video below contains all the clips from the Special Report episode featuring syndicated columnist Dr. Charles Krauthammer, with as expected, the political commentator gives a rather less than glowing analysis of President Obama’s performance on the world stage thus far.
Afghanistan:
“I worry about the uncertain trumpet in the president’s speech on the policy because as the general tells us, ‘war depends on will,’ and that’s what the enemy will be looking at.”
Iraq:
“It is the most important country in that region – strategically – and it wants a strategic alliance over time with the United States. What I worry about is Obama doesn’t appreciate how important that kind of alliance is, how it would perpetuate our presence in the area, our influence in the area, which is a very important area, and how that is the hard won victory. It’s not, you know, raising a flag in Iwo Jima. But it is a success, and for that you have to retain troops in the area. Training, cooperation, we’re not going to be obviously active in combat. But a total withdrawal, which appears to be what Obama wants, would be a way of undoing all of the success that we had at extremely high cost in treasure and in blood.”
Iran:
“The real scandal here is that there was a chance to do something important in Iran. There’s a revolution happening in the streets today. And it would suit our moral purposes in supporting them and strategic cause the only way to stop a nuke is to have a change in regime. And we stood back. I think that is the scandal of the year, that is a policy we will regret, and to have allowed this opportunity to pass and to not stand up and support the dissidents the way that Reagan did in Eastern Europe in the ’80s I think is something we will regret for a long time.”
Russia and Eastern Europe:
“This has not been a good year with U.S. relations with Russia. The naivety of the administration and its dealings — the reset is a way of saying ‘We are not the Bush administration.’ But it also means we’re living in a new world of cooperation, it’s not zero sum, rivalries are abandoned – that’s absurd. … What we did is we canceled an agreement that we had with the Poles and the Czechs on a nuclear defense shield as a way to appease the Russians in the hope, I suppose, of achieving Russian support on sanctions with Iran. We have gotten absolutely nothing as a result, and as a result east Europeans are wondering whether they really are independent as a result of the end of the Cold War or whether Russia retains a veto over their strategic decisions. And the answer looks as if it is, their position in the world really is intermediate and not independence. A kind of an abandonment with again nothing in return.
“And what we are seeing also in the negotiations over nukes, this is something, a continuation of the strategic arms reduction agreement, something that the Russians are seeking because their nukes are old and decaying and obsolete, gaining an advantage over us again in a pursuit I think on the American side of a treaty which is not necessary, which will only help the Russians and it makes us look as if we are desperate for any agreement regardless of whether it achieves our national interest. The Russians understand that and they are using our weakness to their advantage.”
On the thought by many that President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize speech showed an evolving world view:
Share This“I was less impressed by the dawn of this new realism. What the president stood up and said was, ‘There’s evil in the world and Gandhi would not have done well against Hitler. Well, for most of us you dispose of those issues in the first week in the freshman dorm in college after a couple of late night discussions. And to elevate it as a great philosophical achievement for him to say that is quite astonishing, it’s emperor’s new clothes, it’s obvious. The fact that we were all impressed is to tell you how unrealistic, idealistic, and naive were all the previous speeches.”
Topics: Politics | No Comments »