September 1, 2010 – Amb. Yoram Ettinger & Jim Hanson

Today on Secure Freedom Radio, Ambassador Ettinger joins Frank to discuss today’s Israeli/Palestinian peace talks. Then Jim Hanson of Blackfive.net  weighs in on the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the President’s speech. All this and more on Secure Freedom Radio.

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I want to give you a couple thoughts of my own about the speech. It was partly a well deserved tribute to our troops. I think the president presumably was heartfelt in expressing his appreciation for their sacrifice and the sacrifice of their families. Well deserved, much needed I am sure. It was made somewhat less persuasive by virtue of the fact that he seemed so unclear about whether their sacrifice was going to be made in vain, whether as a result of the steps he was taking to disengage from Iraq, namely our combat forces most immediately, but he seems quite clear about everybody come the end of next year. The troops are in fact appreciated as I think he hoped they would. That was probably made further true by the fact that the President resisted any number of appeals to go beyond acknowledging George Bush’s patriotism, but recognizing the single contribution he had made against the advice of Barack Obama to surge troops to ensure that we actually maintain a level of control and of security for the folks in Iraq, that some of the things Obama points to today as to justifying our withdrawal possible.

 The President’s speech was also calling on Iraqis to step up to the plate to do what they now need to do to determine their own destiny. I think again, it failed to acknowledge that it has made vast more difficult by the uncertainties that our departure, the vacuum of power that we are creating is conveying to the people of Iraq and as to how that vacuum is being filled. That vacuum, by those Al Qaeda elements, the Baathists elements, and certainly Iran, are all very troubling stuff and again an argument against the plans of steps that the President was taking with such great fanfare

 A third of the speech was devoted to the domestic agenda. The President reflexive appeal to the American people to come home, to spend money, to spend time on the President’s priorities on the domestic political equation, gives rise to my major take away from this all and my real concern. I fear that we are on the cusp of repeating past mistakes, mistakes among other things that has caused us to be obliged to wage wars in Afghanistan and in my view Iraq. We created conditions through cutting defense spending reallocating priorities presidential or otherwise to domestic programs. We engaged in a strategic retreat from the world. We did so in the interest of pandering to domestic political elements and considerations. We fail to understand the nature of the enemy. Let alone to articulate and act effectively on a correct understanding that it wasn’t just Al Qaeda we were up against, that it was in fact those who practice and seek to impose on the rest of us with the authorities of Islam called Sharia. The President still has not got it right anymore than his predecessors did, and I believe this gives rise to the Obama doctrine, much evidence in this speech, much of the evidence in the decisions he has taken that he spoke last night.

 He is in fact emboldening our enemies and undermining our allies, by disengaging by withdrawing, by creating a vacuum in Iraq, not just in the immediate context with Iraq, but I am afraid more generally. I think our allies are looking at this and saying “is the United States a reliable friend? Should we take risks to be on its side, can we count on it in a pinch to help defend us as it has promised to do?” All of these are questions we don’t want our allies to be thinking or for that matter our enemies to benefit from.

All in all there is the third part of the Obama doctrine that I think is much in evidence in last nights speech. Diminishing our country, by signaling a lack of reliability, by signaling an impatience, by signaling that we are indeed now going to come home   America. We are, I am afraid, reducing American standing in the world, and the confidence that both friends and allies have that we will be a force for good. What history teaches us, what the past hard experience with these mistakes has taught us, I think, is that that does not conduce to security either for the  American people or freedom loving folks more generally. To the contrary, it breeds conflict it breeds calamity, we can not afford that. We need your help folks in turning it around.