The American Spectator

We know that Barack Obama is the most political of the supremely political creatures inside the Beltway. We believe that prior stories of his suggesting to Israel that they not do anything regarding Iran until after the US election are credible. And we understand from Obama’s own words that he disapproves of the US being the world’s only super-power; he is eager to apologize for us while taking us down a peg.

So, what is more surprising about this morning’s news is not that Obama said what he seems to have said, but that a compliant and complicit “mainstream” media actually reported it.

ABC News is reporting that President Obama asked Russian President Dmitri Medvedev to “give me space” regarding missile defense negotiations because, as Obama put it, “This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.”

What is troubling is not that Obama’s analysis of his flexibility is wrong. It’s that it is so easy to believe that the flexibility he is looking for is the flexibility to weaken the US and imperil our erstwhile allies — just as he did to Poland and the Czech Republic in 2009.

Beyond the questions raised of Obama’s intentions, there is the fact that Obama has yet again, and in a most concrete way, projected exactly the sort of weakness which emboldens our enemies and strategic competitors, whether Iran, Russia, or China. Imagine the glee of the ayatollahs in Tehran thinking to themselves “we’re safe, at least from the US — and therefore from everyone but Israel — for another year. Keep on enriching that uranium, boys!”

Barack Obama poses a threat not just to the United States’ long-term strategic position, and not just to the existence of Israel, but to the safety and security of many other nations who once thought that we were a reliable ally for aspiring democracies and a reliable foe of tyrannical and aggressively expansionist regimes.