Tag Archives: President Obama

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where are the fact-checkers? team obama isn’t telling the truth about their iran record

Who is going to fact-check team Obama? Their statements on Iran aren’t true.

The simple fact is that team Obama has passed ONE UN resolution on Iran. They got only 12 votes of support in that ONE resolution (12/15 votes for a failure rate of 20% on Iran votes at the Security Council). The Bush team got FIVE resolutions on Iran (THREE with Sanctions). In those FIVE resolutions, team Bush lost just 2 total votes (73/75 votes for a failure rate of 2.6% on Iran votes at the Security Council). Additionally, team Obama hasn’t produced a UN resolution on Iran since June 9, 2010 (almost 2 years ago).

One only needs to look at the growing list of countries that have said they will ignore our request to stop buying Iranian oil to understand that Obama’s diplomatic requests are being ignored. I see India, Russia, China, South Africa and many European countries publicly saying they will buy Iranian oil and ignore the U.S. requests. While team Obama thinks the world is united, the world is enjoying the comfort of a weaker U.S. government that no longer pressures them to take action.

It is disheartening but the world is less united since Obama has been in office.

Team Obama says: “Iran is weaker and more isolated today precisely because of actions that President Obama has taken. Through sustained diplomacy, the president forged unprecedented international consensus to pressure Iran — far greater consensus and pressure than the previous Republican administration achieved through its go-it-alone, my-way-or-the highway approach. President Obama secured the toughest unilateral and multilateral sanctions on Iran to date, and they’re having a devastating impact on its economy. The Iranian nuclear program has been slowed, and Iran’s leaders have signaled their willingness to resume talks, in which the United States will seek to ensure Iran lives up to its international obligations. At the same time, the president has firmly and consistently said that all options are on the table, including military action, to prevent the Iranian regime from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”

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bring home u.s. ambassador to syria robert ford

This week, United States Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford participated in a tour sponsored by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government in the Northwest province of Idlib.  The propaganda tour was organized to show the devastation caused by what government officials described as “foreign outlaws” and “radical Islamists”.  The excursion included Syrian officials who explained to Ford that Islamic extremists were responsible for the more than 1,500 deaths that have occurred since anti-government protests began on March 15.  Government officials also told Ford that there have been no peaceful freedom marches, as has been reported by the international media, only foreign radicals looking to destabilize Syria.  Ambassador Ford dutifully attended the government’s tour but has since failed to respond or react.

Ford’s silence dramatically contrasts with his tough talk during his confirmation hearing in March 2010 when he told Senators, “Unfiltered straight talk with the Syrian government will be my mission priority.”  We can only hope Ford’s public silence means he has been giving it to Assad privately.  But unfortunately there are press reports
indicating that Ford hasn’t been able to schedule a private meeting with any senior government officials.  So the U.S. Ambassador to Syria just sits and waits.

Ford’s stiff upper lip seems exactly what President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton want.  While they cling to the idea that Assad may still yet be a reformer, the
Obama team misses the opportunity to topple the Syrian dictator and blunt Iran’s influence in the region.  A review of Ford’s Embassy website shows a similar silence from Ford on the Syrian crackdown of the last three months.  With foreign journalists not allowed inside Syria, you might think the U.S. Embassy staff would be working overtime to tell the world and specifically the U.S. taxpayer just what is happening inside Assad’s world.  Shouldn’t Ford be calling attention to and showing the violence coming from Assad’s government?  How about demanding that the IAEA come in to inspect the Israeli-bombed suspected nuclear site Al Kibar?  Now seems like a good time to take advantage of a distracted dictator.  But our U.S. Embassy’s website is embarrassingly outdated and irrelevant.  On the home page there is a link to the text of Obama’s speech Wednesday on Afghanistan, a June 17th news summary from Washington’s Information Bureau quoting an unidentified official on Syria and an op/ed from Secretary Clinton dated June 17.  A closer look and you can find links to statements dated June 8th, June 4th and May 31 on HIV/AIDS and the internet.  There are also stories on Iraq, Hurricane Katrina and former astronaut Marsha Ivins.  But there is nothing from Ford on his reaction to the Syrian propaganda tour or the violent government crackdowns.

It’s time to end this charade and show Assad what the American government thinks of his phony excuses of “64,000 outlaws” and a “revolution by the Muslim Brotherhood who are agents of America and the West”.  Surely Ford must know Assad is not telling the truth and that Americans are not responsible for Assad’s troubles.  With 10,500 Syrians having fled into Turkey, Assad’s problem has become an issue of international peace
and security.  If U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice can’t show regional instability and thus an urgency for UN action then it’s time the U.S. act in other ways.  With more promises of reforms, new committees and conspiracy charges from Assad’s Damascus University speech on Monday, the time to do more is now.  Opposition forces need to know that the U.S. stands with them.  It’s also a chance to show the Iranian people what is possible.  Ford and Clinton look foolish doing nothing.  While some may say that the U.S. has little it can do outside of military action, Obama can still squeeze the Assad regime and isolate it further with these actions:

1. Order Ford home immediately, and shut down the Embassy.

2. Publicly call upon Assad to resign and ask other countries to do the same.

3. Call upon the Europeans and others to pull their Ambassadors from Damascus too.

4. Restrict the movement of the Syrian Ambassador to Washington and the Syrian Ambassador to the UN to a small radius around their offices.

5. Ask European capitals to restrict the movement of Syrian Ambassadors in their countries too.

6. Force the UN resolution on Syria to a vote and dare the Russians to veto it.

7. Move USAid employees into southern Turkey to care for the Syrian refugees arriving daily.

8. Schedule an Al Jazeera TV interview with President Obama to explain our actions and why Assad must go.

9. Demand the IAEA inspect Al Kibar and offer an immediate UN resolution authorizing it.

One sure way to ruin American credibility in the Arab world is to sit silently in Damascus and look like your part of the Assad show.

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pj crowley’s firing shows white house concern over inconsistent messages

It’s ironic that PJ Crowley went to MIT to talk about the power of new media on foreign policy issues only to find that a blog posting of his remarks ended his career as America’s top foreign policy spokesman.  It’s also ironic that although Crowley’s comments were immediately reported via twitter, Facebook and several foreign policy blogs, his boss, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton didn’t immediately mind.  It was only when the new White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley learned about Crowley’s comments that the trouble began. 

State Department insiders say Crowley’s MIT comments and his tweets comparing the “Middle East tsunami” over the last several weeks with Japan’s earthquake and tsunami were emailed around Foggy Bottom and the subject of many water-cooler conversations.  “Nobody thought he would be fired over this,” one State Department official told me.  But when ABC News’ Jake Tapper asked President Obama about Crowley’s comments during the President’s press availability on Friday, Obama said, “(I) asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards…(they) assure me that they are. I can’t go into details about some of their concerns, but some of this has to do with Private Manning’s safety as well.”  President Obama was being asked about inconsistent messages coming from his team and Daley was not happy about it.   Daley was upset that while the Pentagon was saying that Manning was being treated fairly in response to claims from the liberal left, State’s chief spokesman was questioning DoD’s truthfulness.

The conflicting and ambiguous messaging from the White House and its’ agency heads has up until now been part of the Obama Administration’s playbook.  The President has time after time used contradictory statements to at once please his democratic base and the far-left progressives that are growing increasingly disenchanted with Obama’s rhetoric.  Just last week, Hollywood actor Matt Damon spoke out about his frustration with Obama’s hope and change message saying, “I’m disappointed in the health care plan and in the troop build-up in Afghanistan.”  And Damon is certainly not alone in his irritation with the President’s action-deficit.  The left is filled with frustration for the President because he has turned out to be nothing like they hoped.  Barbara Streisand, Jane Lynch, Jon Stewart and MoveOn.org are all let down.  Obama has consistently been inconsistent on healthcare reform, taxes, the budget and most recently on the military’s Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell policy, the Egyptian President’s future, support for the opposition in Libya, a Libyan no fly zone, off-shore oil drilling, Israel, jobs, the UN and even on being President of the United States (see “it would be easier to be President of China”).

But now comes new White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley who is in-charge of making progress.  And getting anything done in Washington means getting comfortable with disappointing someone.  Daley wants to stop the Obama Administrations’ conflicting messages, empty rhetoric and personal opinion giving from staff members.  Crowley, a career foreign service officer who served President Bill Clinton at the NSC, has been allowed to give his own opinions without repercussions from his boss, Secretary Hillary Clinton, since he started as State Department spokesman at the beginning of the Obama Administration.  He was shocked to learn that there were new rules this week.  Crowley serves as an example of the new kind of White House we are getting with Daley in charge. 

At the same MIT discussion where Crowley’s “stupid” comment got him fired, he also said, “But the most important thing I do every day is read the New York Times – it’s the national paper of record.”  It’s no wonder Crowley thinks punishing the Wikileaker was “stupid”.  The most important part of his day has been spent reading New York Times stories on leaked cables and where Julian Assange is considered a hero.  But thanks to Bill Daley, Crowley will now have lots of important things to do.

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