Obama tried to highlight
his so-called foreign policy achievements in his final State of the Union (SOTU), when in
reality the conflicts around the globe had risen sharply and two states, Russia
and China posed a direct challenge to the US and Putin, in particular,
challenged the global order with Moscow’s continued intervention in Ukraine and
Syria. The SOTU came at a time when ten US Navy servicemen were seized by Iran
in the Persian Gulf and when the majority of Americans were probably re-living
the horrors of the Iran Hostage Crisis under another Democrat, Jimmy Carter.
The Chief Executive instead of addressing the issue of the sailors in Iranian
custody patted himself for the flawed Iran deal and how he had averted a war in
the Gulf. Arizona Sen. John McCain, once Obama's GOP challenger for the
presidency, blasted the speech for not including any reference to the incident
in the Persian Gulf.
"Ten American
sailors have been taken into custody in Iran," he said in a statement.
"But President Obama completely omitted this latest example of Iran's
provocative behavior so as not to interfere with his delusional talking points
about his dangerous nuclear deal with Iran.
House Majority Leader
Kevin McCarthy also slammed the omission.
"I was very
concerned that he's missing where the challenge of the world is with security
-- he sits and talks positively about Iran when they just took 10 of our Navy
sailors," he said after the speech.
Never in the history of
the US was a president more delusional than this man; he has had very little
understanding of international affairs and US foreign policy – to give an
example, in 2014 in an interview to David Remnick (New Yorker) he referred to
the IS as a jv squad – “I think the analogy we use around here sometimes,
and I think is accurate, is if a JV team puts on Lakers uniforms,
that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant. I think there is a distinction
between the capacity and reach of a bin Laden and a network that is actively
planning major terrorist plots against the homeland versus jihadists who are
engaged in various local power struggles and disputes, often sectarian.”
Recent polls show that about half of Americans disapprove of Obama’s handling
of world affairs, largely thanks to fear over worldwide terrorist attacks by
the Islamic State and al Qaeda. But although Obama spoke at length about the
terrorist threat to the U.S., he mostly downplayed it, warning against
“over-the-top claims that this is World War III.”
In his SOTU he did not
even make a reference to the Israeli-Palestinian issue and his own tense
relations with the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Obama made only a passing
reference to Afghanistan, a year after he boasted moments into his 2015 State
of the Union address that “for the first time since 9/11, our combat mission in
Afghanistan is over.” That remains officially true, but 15 Americans have died
in the country since October as the U.S. takes on a growing combat role to
support a struggling Afghan army against a resurgent Taliban. And he dedicated
just one line to Syria’s brutal civil war, saying only that the U.S. is
“partnering with local forces and leading international efforts to help that
broken society pursue a lasting peace.” The country is on the verge of breaking
up as a result of a four year civil war and the US president who saw Iraq in
Syria and dithered hopes for an enduring peace. This is height of his delusion.
