He may be correct. Gorbachev dismantled the Soviet Union, and it certainly seems that Obama wants to do the same thing to the United States.
President Barack Obama has gone abroad and gored an ox—the deeply held belief that the United States does not make mistakes in dealings with either friends or foes.I'm not really sure what to make of this statement. He seems to be saying Obama has made mistakes both with allies and enemies during his recent trips abroad. He is correct, but I'm not sure that was his point.
And in the process, he's taking a huge gamble both at home and abroad, for a payoff that could be a long time coming, if ever.Unfortunately, Axelrod may be correct. The seeds of 9/11 were sown by Clinton, convincing Bin Laden and Al Qaida that the US was weak and would not forcefully respond to attacks upon US interests. Or even attacks on US soil.
By way of explanation, senior adviser David Axelrod describes the president's tactics this way:
"You plant, you cultivate, you harvest. Over time, the seeds that were planted here are going to be very, very valuable."
While historic analogies are never perfect, Obama's stark efforts to change the U.S. image abroad are reminiscent of the stunning realignments sought by former Soviet leader Michael Gorbachev. During his short—by Soviet standards—tenure, he scrambled incessantly to shed the ideological entanglements that were leading the communist empire toward ruin.The point here that must be made is that the "ideological entanglements" ruining the Soviet Union were communism and despotism. In his attempt to save the Soviet Union, Gorbachev allowed more freedom and moved his economy more towards a free-market capitalism. Exactly the opposite of what Obama has pledged to do.
And apparently, all Obama's subservience and apologizing is now known as the "Obama Doctrine." Great.
And finally, at "his news conference Obama said he didn't think he did much damage to U.S. security or interests by shaking the hand of Chavez, whose country has a defense budget about one-six hundredth the size of the United States, and depends upon it's oil reserves for solvency."
This is the same line Obama used in the Democratic primaries when talking about Iran. Again, he exhibits and extreme naivete when it comes to foreign policy. Al Qaida's "defense budget" is miniscule compared to ours yet, they managed to kill over 3000 people and bring down the World Trade Center towers.
But Obama brushes all criticism aside:
"One of the benefits of my campaign and how I've been trying to operate as president is I don't worry about the politics—I try to figure out what's right in terms of American interests, and on this one I think I'm right."Hmmm. Sounds rather "arrogant" and "cowboy" like. No?
