Demoralized Obama natsec team grumbles: He’s too weak and passive towards Putin
posted at 11:21 am on October 13, 2015 by Allahpundit
Maybe so, but what about his bold, assertive leadership in standing up to America’s real enemy, climate change?
Even this guy’s own deputies won’t defend him anymore.
Current and former Obama officials say the president’s reluctance to respond more assertively against Putin is signaling U.S. weakness and indecision. “We’re just so reactive,” said one senior administration official. “There’s just this tendency to wait” and see what steps other actors take…
Sources familiar with administration deliberations said that Obama’s West Wing inner circle serves as a brick wall against dissenting views. The president’s most senior advisers — including National Security Adviser Susan Rice and White House chief of staff Denis McDonough — reflect the president’s wariness of escalated U.S. action related to Syria or Russia and, officials fear, fail to push Obama to question his own deeply rooted assumptions…
A former Cold War nuclear deterrence expert, Defense Secretary Ash Carter has fretted that the U.S. isn’t standing up firmly to Putin’s provocations. And CIA Director John Brennan has complained that Putin is bombing Syrian rebel fighters covertly backed by his agency with seeming impunity.
“The optics are that we’re backing off,” said a former Obama official who handled foreign policy issues. “It’s not like we can’t exert pressure on these guys, but we act like we’re totally impotent.”
The big loser in the piece turns out to be Kerry, who’s a putz twice over — once for wanting a no-fly zone in Syria, a nutty escalation with Russia now that their planes are already in the air there, and twice for believing that Obama’s nuclear deal/fiasco with Iran might make Tehran more open to negotiating over Syria. In reality, Iran was plotting to rescue Assad by bringing Russia into the war on his side even before the agreement with the U.S. had been signed. As noted last week, the head of the Quds Force landed in Moscow to make his pitch to Putin for a Russian intervention just 10 days after the deal had finally been sealed. That’s U.S. incompetence in a nutshell. The chief value of the nuclear deal to both sides wasn’t that it would disarm Iran but that it would disarm the United States, making military action against Iran politically impossible so long as it didn’t commit any (obvious) violations of the terms. Obama and Kerry thought that olive branch might encourage Iran to come to the table on other matters, starting with Syria; Iran, evidently, saw the olive branch instead as a reason to stay away from the table and double down on military solutions, secure in the belief that Obama wouldn’t dare counter them with force now. They were right. Obama’s “indecision” in Syria is due not only to his passivity vis-a-vis more aggressive players but to his naivete in thinking that rapprochement with the U.S. was worth more to Iran (and Russia) than protecting their regional interests.
Via Newsbusters, here’s a clip from “Morning Joe” this a.m. of Willie Geist and David Ignatius commenting on something from Obama’s interview with “60 Minutes” that hasn’t gotten as much attention as it should, namely, Obama defending the failure of his program to train a Syrian rebel army by saying he was skeptical of it from the start. Says Ignatius of O’s comment, “he spoke almost like a man vindicated when a policy of his own administration had collapsed in failure. And he was, he took the line almost of, see, I told you so.” But that’s Obama all over, no? His failures aren’t his failures, they’re your failures because you stupid people were griping at him to do something to help the rebels. The One is unerring, having known all along that the policy would end dismally … even as he was approving it. He’s an incisive foreign policy mind and blameless in his own administration’s failures, even as Syria turns into even more of a hash than it already is right in front of him. That’s some neat trick.
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It’s no act. President Limp D!ck isn’t playing at being the spineless fool.
NotCoach on October 13, 2015 at 11:23 AM
Allah,
Do you accept post requests?
(Batchelder)
mjbrooks3 on October 13, 2015 at 11:23 AM
But…….leadership! /moonbat
NoFanofLibs on October 13, 2015 at 11:26 AM
I’m surprised they hate each other. They both have to same goal towards the US.
Oil Can on October 13, 2015 at 11:27 AM
To call Obama weak is to slander weak people.
ConstantineXI on October 13, 2015 at 11:27 AM
He doesn’t work for us. He works for the people and countries that funded his campaign.
rhombus on October 13, 2015 at 11:27 AM
That’s giving Iran a little too much credit for something which Russia was inclined to do regardless. You can only sow so much chaos before, from his perspective, Putin had to step in.
Fenris on October 13, 2015 at 11:27 AM
I don’t think Putin hates the United States as much as Obama does.
ConstantineXI on October 13, 2015 at 11:28 AM
“I won”
-Gumby
antipc on October 13, 2015 at 11:28 AM
At worst Dear Liar is a sell out traitor, at best he’s simply delusional, not understanding why facts on the ground aren’t matching up to his ivory tower theory of phlogiston.
rbj on October 13, 2015 at 11:28 AM
There is this pic..
My dad emailed me..
Of baby Obama..
sucking his lower lip as he…
Squeezes Putin’s biceps..
On Daddy Putin’s lap…
Electrongod on October 13, 2015 at 11:30 AM
Obama is simply being “flexible.”
mydh12 on October 13, 2015 at 11:30 AM
He’s both.
ConstantineXI on October 13, 2015 at 11:30 AM
America…
Rome….
Electrongod on October 13, 2015 at 11:31 AM
You act like it?
Rich Lowry of NRO can help you.
Schadenfreude on October 13, 2015 at 11:32 AM
Obama doesn’t lose one wink of sleep over this either.
docflash on October 13, 2015 at 11:33 AM
Quit assuming the wrong premise.
obama has done to the West and America exactly what he wanted.
Blame the fools who brung and kept him, from both sides.
All of you should just choke.
Schadenfreude on October 13, 2015 at 11:34 AM
The only people stupider than Obama are the millions of idiots who voted to make him president, twice.
AZCoyote on October 13, 2015 at 11:34 AM
Who would have thought the Washington Intelligentsia would come out in favor of aiding terrorists in Syria?
Apparently, having the CIA arm Syrian rebels with U.S. TOW missiles isn’t enough for these people.
moebius22 on October 13, 2015 at 11:35 AM
Spot on Allah
Excellent
cmsinaz on October 13, 2015 at 11:37 AM
National Security…………non existent
Lee Jan on October 13, 2015 at 11:39 AM
Lsm would rather focus on Trump tweeting during the dem debate tonight
Now that’s news
/
cmsinaz on October 13, 2015 at 11:39 AM
That’s reality. He decides things by committee never accepting the blame for things that go wrong, all the while avoiding the hard decisive choices that need to be made on natsec issues.
This president has set back natsec and international relations decades.
Patriot Vet on October 13, 2015 at 11:40 AM
That comes in handy when you’re being bent over.
Occams Stubble on October 13, 2015 at 11:42 AM
He’s your boy. You whiny bitches defend his sorry dumb a$$ and voted for him twice. Quit your f*cking cryin and STFU.
msupertas on October 13, 2015 at 11:42 AM
Obama wears “mom” jeans, Moochelle has more testosterone than he does. Is anyone surprised?
TulsAmerican on October 13, 2015 at 11:45 AM
My dad emailed it to me too.
Mark Boabaca on October 13, 2015 at 11:45 AM
Well, you can’t blame them. :)
Ed and AllahP are churning out stories by the hour that rate low compared to this:
Busted ! CNN Uses Jeb Bush Staffer Planted In Audience To Frame Donald Trump Narrative/Hit Job….
I still have my clock running on when it will appear on either the Headlines thread or as a front page post.
So the media can focus on pretty much anything they want even if their audience disagrees. :)
TheRightMan on October 13, 2015 at 11:45 AM
He’s likely busy composing about the Sandra Fluke of this season.
Schadenfreude on October 13, 2015 at 11:46 AM
Putin has no opposition in Russia. He can do whatever he wants.
We don’t want that in America.
weedisgood on October 13, 2015 at 11:47 AM
They sure can TRM
cmsinaz on October 13, 2015 at 11:48 AM
He’s your boy. You voted for him twice while telling us how great he was all schoolgirl giggle like. Suck it up and STFU.
msupertas on October 13, 2015 at 11:48 AM
Didn’t stop his golf from per-empting another wedding either.
ConstantineXI on October 13, 2015 at 11:49 AM
Not gonna happen. What do you think you have here, a conservative blog?
Rix on October 13, 2015 at 11:50 AM
It’s all about Obama’s ideology. He never has thought of America as a great country. He’s allowed this once great nation to fall behind he doesn’t believe in America or us. He’s not even an American.
BetseyRoss on October 13, 2015 at 11:50 AM
So sad, the damaging echoes of GWB’s decisions are still ringing today.
President Obama is extremely busy repairing our nation’s mistakes, but he is only human.
Fortunately, under President Obama’s bold leadership, most of the ME has now stabilized. Obama has almost singlehandedly repaired GWB’s damage in Libya, Egypt, Iran and Iraq, and soon Syria will join the long list of President Obama’s achievements.
Frank Lib on October 13, 2015 at 11:51 AM
Can we all agree now that our radical leftist preznit is also a delusional psychopath?
TarheelBen on October 13, 2015 at 11:52 AM
I’m in Broken Arrow…what up bro?
msupertas on October 13, 2015 at 11:52 AM
That’s not true. Putin doesn’t hate the US, we’re just a useful scapegoat for his failed economic policies. Obama hates this country with every fiber of his Marxist, pro-Islamic heart.
Rix on October 13, 2015 at 11:52 AM
natsec: nutsac that’s been deflated
faraway on October 13, 2015 at 11:53 AM
OT
Onto you, creeps
Schadenfreude on October 13, 2015 at 11:54 AM
Let’s not start WW3 over Syria. Any candidate that wants to shoot down Russian planes for bombing ISIS is insane. That includes:
Ted Cruz
Marco Rubio
Carly Fiorina
Jeb Bush
and all the other neocon hacks.
TBSchemer on October 13, 2015 at 11:54 AM
Would you expect anything else from a spineless, lying metrosexual? Have to wait for real change until January 20, 2017. Hopefully it is a good change and the 8 year nightmare will be over. It could well continue and the Republic will be laid to rest…
Krupnikas on October 13, 2015 at 11:55 AM
Nothing weong with waiting and seeing as an approach. The problem is that Obama is using that as an excuse to cover “have no idea what to do and no approach at all”
Longsen on October 13, 2015 at 11:56 AM
Drudge and Breitbart are the Trumps of journalism
faraway on October 13, 2015 at 11:56 AM
From now on Oloser’s natsec team should be referred to as his gnat sack team.
VegasRick on October 13, 2015 at 11:57 AM
Remember how mad he got with the Bush “Stuff Happens” quote?
(((And I apologize for going off topic, kind of)))
mjbrooks3 on October 13, 2015 at 11:57 AM
King Barack has only one way to deal with a crisis; it’s only a “crisis” if you acknowledge it.
Ignore it, and the “crisis” ceases to exist.
This POS excels at doing NOTHING.
GarandFan on October 13, 2015 at 11:57 AM
Nice…
Smoke some more…
Obama thumper..
Electrongod on October 13, 2015 at 11:59 AM
All you nutjob rightwingers may not be happy but Valarie is – that’s all that’s important. /
johnnybgood on October 13, 2015 at 12:01 PM
Thread winner.
bobthm3 on October 13, 2015 at 12:02 PM
You’re such a blind chicken.
Schadenfreude on October 13, 2015 at 12:03 PM
AP’s a uniter :)
Schadenfreude on October 13, 2015 at 12:04 PM
Schadenfreude on October 13, 2015 at 12:09 PM
What a bunch of, um, REACTIONARIES!!!
Bishbop on October 13, 2015 at 12:11 PM
In other words he is a pussy…many of us could of told you that.
crosshugger on October 13, 2015 at 12:12 PM
His goal is to weaken America.
Obama strongly takes actions to meet his goal, always being careful to smoke and mirrors everything so as to avoid being labeled a traitor. There is no weakness in his actions; everything is deliberately done for America to fail.
albill on October 13, 2015 at 12:12 PM
Too bad Obama doesn’t share your enthusiasm for democracy. By his own words he plans to subvert the people’s will with executive actions.
What sucks is that he completely lacks anything resembling leadership skills so pretty much everything he wants to impose through these unconstitutional executive actions is wrong and doomed to fail.
Jimmy Carter is jealous of the terrible job Obama is doing….
Hank_Scorpio on October 13, 2015 at 12:14 PM
lolz, but, but, but Putin is only 5’4″ and was probably bullied in school so he’s irrelevant and we have nothing whatsoever to worry about what he might do…or something!!!
Bishbop on October 13, 2015 at 12:15 PM
Really? Does that mean you’re going to start opposing all of Obama’s unilateral changes to laws and refusals to enforce laws?
Athanasius on October 13, 2015 at 12:15 PM
Meh.
Ho Chi Minh was 4’11.
Stalin was 5’4.
Lenin was 5’5.
Hitler was 5’9.
Pol Pot was 5’9.
Mao was 5’11.
Between them, they killed more than 100 million people, but thanks for assuring us that we have nothing to worry about from short dudes.
Bishbop on October 13, 2015 at 12:18 PM
Captain “Present!” strikes again.
jnelchef on October 13, 2015 at 12:19 PM
Wasn’t Ted Cruz advocating exactly what Putin is now doing?
TBSchemer on October 13, 2015 at 12:21 PM
Of course he doesn’t have any formidable opposition at the moment, he either kills them or throws them in jail on trumped up charges. It’s called a dictator.
But he does have people against him.
Patriot Vet on October 13, 2015 at 12:25 PM
What?!!
Years of community organizing and affirmative action hirings doesn’t prepare One for Geo-political maneuverings?!!
Who knew?
Cleombrotus on October 13, 2015 at 12:26 PM
Gratis.
CurtZHP on October 13, 2015 at 12:29 PM
History records another delusional leader who led his nation to destruction. He considered himself smarter than his generals, surrounded himself with sycophants and believed that Divine Providence (ne Arc of History) was on his side. In the end, he even dithered . . .
BLOC on October 13, 2015 at 12:34 PM
weed confused the diff. with his willy.
Schadenfreude on October 13, 2015 at 12:38 PM
Link
Schadenfreude on October 13, 2015 at 12:38 PM
weed confused the diff. with his willy.
Curious, but attempting to strike the 4, and replacing it with 7 does not work. The strike doesn’t take. Programming has its quirks.
Schadenfreude on October 13, 2015 at 12:43 PM
That’s some funny chit. I guess what stonedisbad is saying is that anyone who has a Napoleon complex should just be ignored as they commit wholesale slaughter lest we make them feel like big men by responding to their actions.
NotCoach on October 13, 2015 at 12:44 PM
SHOCK POLL: CLINTON LOSES TO ANY REPUBLICAN
Bishbop on October 13, 2015 at 12:44 PM
Oh please- now these people come out and complain about weakness? They were all part of the grand, adolescent experiment that every grown-up knew would end badly.
Now these snakes see the days of their cult leader fading and suddenly have an epiphany. That way they can try to reinvent themselves and serve in the next cult leader’s administration.
I have never seen people more naive, destructive, dangerous, two-faced, unpatriotic, self-righteous, self-absorbed and slimy than liberal Democrats. I also can’t wait for the worm to turn on their reign over the people of our country.
Marcus Traianus on October 13, 2015 at 12:48 PM
If you do not think that something will work and put no effort into making it work, then you were right.
Techster64 on October 13, 2015 at 12:52 PM
The implosion continues.
Ward Cleaver on October 13, 2015 at 12:53 PM
Not much, just surfing my normal sites before going to work. TulsAmerican was the last B-24 Liberator built at the Tulsa Douglas plant. I love warbirds and especially the Liberator.
TulsAmerican on October 13, 2015 at 1:12 PM
he; is not too weak and passive. he is OBEDIENT.
reliapundit on October 13, 2015 at 1:19 PM
“Naivete” doesn’t begin to cover the delusional idiocy of this “thinking”.
I use “delusional” advisedly. When Obama looks at the world, he sees what he wants to see, not the reality. I seriously doubt any event, no matter how disastrously it proves he is wrong, can shake his belief in his delusions.
novaculus on October 13, 2015 at 2:02 PM
Obama’s concept of ‘pushback’ against Putin is to shift his hips to the rear while…well, you get the idea.
orangemtl on October 13, 2015 at 2:38 PM
Hey, HEY: Global warming has failed to worsen over the past 7 years, and the coasts have not been inundated. No drowning polar bears in the Arctic lately, either.
…and I suppose that just ‘happened’ because Climate Change is some sort of ‘crazy cult’?
Nonsense—Dear Leader has singlehandedly achieved this, as he so selflessly noted on 60 Minutes.
orangemtl on October 13, 2015 at 2:50 PM
Spoken like a true Iranian. We look at it like logical Americans, completely opposite of you apparently.
Zooid on October 13, 2015 at 3:03 PM
In Obama’s mind, it already has. The Nobel Prize committee will be calling any day now…
Marcola on October 13, 2015 at 3:18 PM
I had similar thoughts. He could be doing this by design, and it does seem to go along with some of his past philosophical statements. In that case the voters are getting what they voted for.
Or it could be he is so fearful of making an error that he is paralyzed from making any decisive action. Better to be considered impotent than to be considered mistaken.
Or maybe he’s so busy thinking about how to cut carbon emissions that he can’t be bothered to spend sufficient time planning some diplomatic or military action to keep people alive who aren’t even able to cast a vote for the next Democrat nominee.
s1im on October 13, 2015 at 3:39 PM
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more compelling argument for better mental health care in the USA.
s1im on October 13, 2015 at 3:51 PM
We have to remind ourselves why Syria is so important to the US. It poses so many strategic and direct interests to what we’re doing. Such as….um….oil? Do they have oil? Maybe nuclear weapons. Did they build any of those? If anybody can help me out here, I’d love to know what our exact interests in Syria are.
ConservOvrGOP on October 13, 2015 at 3:53 PM
Great post Allah. The Democrats realized it far too late, their vote on the Defense bill giving the GOP a veto proof majority, may be nothing but a last gasp for this party for the rest of this decade. As bad as this looks, the silver lining in this is history has not stopped, and a nation must act to protect it self. Politically, the Democratic party will pay for this. As a nation, we will too. I can only hope the price is not too high.
flackcatcher on October 13, 2015 at 5:11 PM
limbaugh theorum. he’s been describing this for years. this aint the first time he pretends he doesnt run the place. of course he really doesnt. and thats even scarier.
t8stlikchkn on October 13, 2015 at 5:11 PM
s1im on October 13, 2015 at 3:51 PM
(Shakes head. Sighs..) Dude, you been played by one of the two ‘great fishermen’ on Hot Air….
flackcatcher on October 13, 2015 at 5:14 PM
AP: well-done article, good analysis, we will see if your conclusions bear out.
I note that the responses are all over the map again: stupid, traitor, naive, delusional, obedient (to Iran), whiner, quitter — looks like we can still take him up on that campaign statement about being a blank canvas and project him to be anything we want.
None of the projection is positive now though, not even from his own sycophants.
I suspect more than one of the adjectives will fit, once we know more of the inside information — nothing stays hidden forever these days, so long as someone wants to find it (I think the Obama transcripts are going to come out eventually, when it will do no good, and someone comes up with a higher bid than whatever is keeping them buried now).
One of your best, FL.
AesopFan on October 13, 2015 at 6:20 PM
The article was funny about how Batchelder is doing damage control AFTER she was busted.
I hope they never get smart enough to scrub their media accounts before the hit job.
Or start using “moles” without a record.
Maroons.
AesopFan on October 13, 2015 at 6:22 PM
Indeed.
Wrong attitude: it doesn’t suck that he fails (and he succeeds far too often).
AesopFan on October 13, 2015 at 6:24 PM
So sad to have a Chief Executive with a weak, drooping NetSac. Or, NatSec. Or, whatever.
orangemtl on October 13, 2015 at 7:38 PM