The Conservative Political Action Committee is holding their annual conference right now and one of the guest speakers was former United Nations ambassador John Bolton. He was very critical of Obama's foreign policies and began with this:
"If we get our act together, he is a one-termer."
Bolton thinks foreign policy is not one of the Obama administration's priorities, this notwithstanding the fact that his mere election has placed the United States on its way to international image rebuilding. He believes Obama does not understand how nations like Russia and North Korea will be keen to exploit his naivete and the country is therefore at "dire risk" under this new Democratic leadership.
"The fact is on foreign policy I don't think President Obama thinks it's a priority," said Bolton. "He said during the campaign he thought Iran was a tiny threat. Tiny, tiny depending on how many nuclear weapons they are ultimately able to deliver on target. Its, uh, its tiny compared to the Soviet Union, but is the loss of one American city" – here Bolton shrugged his shoulders impishly – "pick one at random – Chicago – is that a tiny threat?"
Any well-intentioned, clear-thinking individual would likely take offense in such a remark. But not at the CPAC conference:
Bolton wasn't the only one who thought this was funny. The room erupted in laughter and applause.
Maybe I'm just being thin-skinned, I don't know. I wouldn't think that's funny even if I didn't support Obama. I don't want people bombing Waco to send a message to Bush.
But simply put, Obama as president weakens our defense. This coming from a man who once said, when reports surfaced that the Bush administration was beginning to draw up plans for a possible pre-emptive attack on Iran:
I think this is a case where the use of military force against a training camp to show the Iranians we’re not going to tolerate this is really the most prudent thing to do. Then the ball would be in Iran’s court to draw the appropriate lesson to stop harming our troops.
Then again, this is the same man who believed (believes) the "mullahs" of Iran wanted a Democrat as president so that they can continue building their nuclear bombs.
In any case, he wasn't done. He went on to call Obama the "most radical president we ever elected in this country" who is too much of a sissy to go up against the nasty terrorist leaders of other nations and will cause the country to become weaker and unsafe. And what is it with Republicans now praising "giant baddie" Vladimir Putin now that Obama is president? Here's an excerpt from the Mother Jones article I'm quoting:
One man that Bolton feels has plenty of backbone is the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, who Bolton believes can sense Obama's weakness and is already finding ways to test it. In Bolton's view, the problem isn't merely that Obama isn't man enough to take on Putin; it's that Obama desires the United States to become a second-class nation. "The administration wants to return to an arms control relation with Russia that will put us in a greatly weakened position," Bolton maintained.
Of course, the world is full of dangers and Russia isn't the only problem. North Korea may even test the Country by attacking Alaska or Obama's childhood state, Hawaii, and then move on to the continental states
With "further development," he added, that missile could someday be used to attack the continental United States. And North Korea is small potatoes compared to Iran. "We have lost the race with Iran on the nuclear front," said Bolton. "They now have complete mastery over the nuclear fuel cycle. And while in the long-term, the preferred outcome would be to change the regime in Tehran and get rid of the Islamic revolution of 1979, we don't have time to do that before they get nuclear weapons capability."
Bolton was one of the people in the Bush administration who fully wanted to attack Iran and was disappointed that the 43rd administration. In any case, he also gave conservatives some warning with regards to certain stances that Obama has yet to elaborate on, which actually have been causes of concern for some people here at dKos:
Bolton said that conservatives should not be comforted by the fact that Obama has backed off some of his campaign rhetoric on issues such as Gitmo, NAFTA, and CIA black sites. "Being inconsistent and deceptive is not the same as being moderate," he said.
I can't find a complete transcript of his actual speech but here are bits of what he said on certain subjects with regards to the Obama administration from an article in The American Spectator:
China
Hillary Clinton's decision to essentially take human rights off the table in her trip to China was a mistake. He explained that China is expanding its naval fleet, and will be in a position to challenge America in the western Pacific. An important test will come next month when it's the 50th anniversary of the Dali Lama's flight to Tibet -- Bolton said to watch for whether Obama has the backbone to meet with him in the White House.
He also noted the North Korea's nuclear program would never be abandoned unless the U.S. puts more pressure on China.
Iran
On Iran, he said that Obama is naive to believe that the issue can be resolved through negotiation. It has already mastered the nuclear fuel cycle, he said, and the only question is whether or not Israel will launch a military strike. That could present Obama with a major foreign policy crisis in the next 6 to 9 months.
Bolton concluded his speech by saying that "It's clear that our national security is at risk in this administration" for which he received a standing ovation.
My apologies for the sensationalist title (that's how it caught my attention actually). Oh, and I haven't found a larger text/transcript/report of Bolton's speech, hence the cut-paste job. The dearth of reporting about his CPAC appearance shows me how inconsequential he really is in the grand scheme of things.
But it also begs me to ask myself why did I even bother giving credence to this man's opinions by writing a diary about it in the first place ... I haven't written one in a while, I guess.