President of the United States Barack Obama continues to show off his immature and ineffective grasp of foreign policy and a true understanding of how the world really works.
The president was asked by ABC’s Jonathan Karl if he thought “Mitt Romney had a point” when he said in 2012 that Russia was America’s “number one” geopolitical foe. At the time the president answered with “the 80’s called and wants it’s foreign policy back.” Because Reagan’s policies were so ineffective (insert eye roll here) and Jimmy Carter’s were so effective. There you go again.
President Obama was apparently expecting such a question, probably screened ahead of time. Karl continued, “Are you concerned that America’s influence in the world, your influence in the world, is on the decline?” And, he added, in light of recent developments, have you rethought your critiques of Romney?
The president’s response was very telling:
The truth of the matter is that America has got a whole lot of challenges. Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors — not out of strength, but out of weakness. …
We have considerable influence on neighbors. We generally don’t need to invade them in order to have a strong cooperative relationship with them. The fact that Russia felt the need to go in militarily and lay bare these violations of international law indicates less influence, not more.
My response [to Romney] then continues to be what I believe today, which is: Russia’s actions are a problem. They don’t pose the number one national security threat to the United States.
Wait just a minute. Russia is a regional power!
Mr. Obama is not taking Vladimir Putin seriously is the understatement of the year. Bear in mind, that Russia is on the move in more places than just the Ukraine. There are reports of Russia working in Latin America and Cuba, as well as Putin shutting down Obama on Iran and Syria.
Mr. Putin is strengthening Russia’s position in the world despite it’s weakness. Mr Putin has his eye on the glory days of Russia as a superpower. Meanwhile, Mr. Obama would prefer that America no longer be a superpower. Ironically, both men may see their dreams realized.
President Obama said, his main concern was “the prospect of a nuclear weapon going off in Manhattan,” bringing the conversation back to the security summit that he was in The Netherlands to attend. He then started to play games with the other world leaders.
David Cameron joined Barack Obama, Angela Merkel and Xi Jinping and other world leaders to play a “nukes on the loose” war game to see how they would cope with a terrorist nuclear attack.
The German chancellor grumbled at being asked to play games and take tests with the Prime Minister, US and Chinese presidents around a table with dozens of heads of state at a nuclear summit in The Hague.
Her complaints were overruled because Mr Obama was keen on the idea and in on the surprise.
In the war game, played out by actors in a series of short films, a terrorist attack with an atomic “dirty bomb” takes place in the financial heart of an unnamed but Western metropolis. “It could be the City of London, or Wall Street, Milan or anywhere”, summit leaders were told.
As the scenario unfolded, it emerged that the terrorists are from an unidentified global terror network and they have stolen nuclear material from an unidentified country that had poorly secured its radiological and nuclear stockpiles.
