When a country is run by children

In the now infamous open mic moment at the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit, President Obama told Russian President Dimitry Medvedev, “This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.” President Medvedev responded, “I understand, I [will] transmit this information to Vladimir.”  

Hmmm… One wonders if the current situation in Crimea, Ukraine, is both the execution, and consequence, of Mr. Obama’s “flexibility.”  One wonders as well if it includes the re-absorption, by force, abdication, or acquiescence, of the former Soviet republics. Or, could it be the blind pursuit of a deal, any deal, with Iran that drives U.S. impotence in the Crimea and beyond?

The answer is probably a combination. However, this is what happens when foreign policy, and the government as a whole, is managed by adolescents. After all, who, but an adolescent, would have sent a has-been folksinger to Paris to sing “You’ve Got a Friend” as an appropriate response to a terrorist attack that resulted in the deaths of 14 innocent people? I wither in embarrassment.  

Combine this feckless and chaotic foreign policy with the systematic dismantling of U.S. military capabilities, and you get the global collapse of U.S. diplomatic and military stature and a drastically more unstable and dangerous world. 

Sadly, the left, embodied by this administration, is incapable of understanding that diplomacy and military might are inextricably intertwined. If they are mismanaged, as they are now, disaster soon follows.    

All this is happening on President Obama’s watch. Is he to blame? No. Not entirely. After all, We the People elected him… twice. 

Maybe Jonathan Gruber was right. —Chris Amyes, Kalispell