Will Voters Give Obama the Flexibility to Surrender?

 

IBDEditorials.com

National Security: The president tells his Russian counterpart to give him space until November when, if re-elected, he'll be able to give away missile defense and the rest of the store without political consequences.

It seems President Obama has a space program after all, one in which the Russians cool it on the dismantling of U.S. missile defenses until the least transparent administration in history can razzle-dazzle, smoke-and-mirror and divide-and-conquer its way into a second term.

One of the subtexts of the 2012 campaign has been the fear of what a second-term Obama will do unfettered by the need to get re-elected. ObamaCare, the shredding of the Constitution, spending the U.S. into bankruptcy, halting domestic energy production and gutting national and missile defense might be only a foretaste of what candidate Obama really meant when he promised to "fundamentally transform" America.

An open microphone at a photo-op between Obama and outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev after a 90-minute meeting Monday in Seoul, South Korea, at the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit gives an alarming clue to the American president's thoughts and real intentions.

ABC's Jake Tapper reports that as reporters were being let into the room, Obama said to Medvedev: "On all these issues, particularly missile defense, this can be solved, but it's important for him (past and future Russian President Vladimir Putin) to give me space."

Medvedev said he would communicate this to Putin after Obama added, "This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility."

Flexibility to do what? Tell the American people, sir, not the Russians, what your real plans are? On what other issues and to which other leaders have you asked for "space" just to get re-elected? Just what national interests are you willing to sacrifice?

Deputy national security adviser for strategic communications Ben Rhodes told ABC News that the president's remarks were only an acknowledgment of how difficult it is to resolve difficult issues in a year in which both nations have elections.

Or is it an acknowledgment that if the truth came out, the voters would send the president packing to Chicago?

If the past is prologue, we know Obama's plans for missile defense won't be in the national interest. He has betrayed allies Poland and the Czech Republic, abandoning plans for ground-based interceptors and missile defense radars needed to defend against Iranian missile launches. He did so after the Russians objected. If re-elected, will he cave and also cancel the scaled-down plan B that includes a new missile still largely on the drawing board?

The Russians have threatened to pull out of New START, the treaty that they say prohibits any enhancement or expansion of U.S. missile defense.

Even before his draconian defense cuts and acquiescing to mandated sequestration of defense funds after a congressional supercommittee failure to otherwise cut spending, Obama curtailed additional ground-based interceptor deployment on U.S. soil and canceled programs such as the Air Force's Airborne Laser program.

Obama has kicked many cans down the road past the election, from full implementation of ObamaCare to the true fate of the Keystone XL pipeline. He has tried to restrain the Israelis from derailing through a pre-emptive strike Iranian plans for a second and nuclear Holocaust — at least until after November.

It is sad and more than a bit alarming that the Russians know something more about Obama's second term than the American people he asks to re-elect him.