Bush bashes Obama over Middle East
FORMER US PRESIDENT SAYS SUCCESSOR PLACING US IN ‘RETREAT’ WORLDWIDE
In a closed-door meeting with Jewish donors on Saturday night, former President George W. Bush delivered his harshest public criticisms to date against his successor on foreign policy, saying that President Barack Obama is being naive about Iran and the pending nuclear deal and losing the war against the Daesh.
One attendee at the Republican Jewish Coalition session, held at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas with owner Sheldon Adelson in attendance, transcribed large portions of Bush’s remarks.
The former president, who rarely ever criticises Obama in public, at first remarked that the idea of re-entering the political arena was something he didn’t want to do.
He then proceeded to explain why Obama, in his view, was placing the US in “retreat” around the world. He also said Obama was misreading Iran’s intentions while relaxing sanctions on Tehran too easily.
According to the attendee’s transcription, Bush noted that Iran has a new president, Hassan Rouhani. “He’s smooth,” Bush said. “And you’ve got to ask yourself, is there a new policy or did they just change the spokesman?”
Bush said that Obama’s plan to lift sanctions on Iran with a promise that they could snap back in place at any time was not plausible. He also said the deal would be bad for American national security in the long term: “You think the Middle East is chaotic now? Imagine what it looks like for our grandchildren. That’s how Americans should view the deal.”
Bush then went into a detailed criticism of Obama’s policies in fighting Daesh (the self-styled Isil) and dealing with the chaos in Iraq. He called Obama’s decision to withdraw all US troops in Iraq at the end of 2011 a “strategic blunder.”
Bush signed an agreement with the Iraqi government to withdraw those troops, but the idea had been to negotiate a new status of forces agreement to keep US forces there past 2011. The Obama administration tried and failed to negotiate such an agreement.
Bush said he views the rise of the Daesh as Al Qaida’s “second act” and that they may have changed the name but that murdering innocents is still the favoured tactic.
He defended his own administration’s handling of terrorism, noting that the militant Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, who confessed to killing Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, was captured on his watch: “Just remember the guy who slit Danny Pearl’s throat is in Gitmo, and now they’re doing it on TV.”
Bush said Obama’s plan to lift sanctions on Iran with a promise that they could snap back in place at any time was not plausible. He also said the deal would be bad for American national security.