In the meantime, it will come as a comfort to America’s enemies to know what they’ll be getting in a second Obama term.
One is a cabinet without a single hawk or even semi-hawk, whereas only a year ago there were three: Leon Panetta, David Petraeus and even Hillary Clinton. Another is a secretary of defense with an unsteady grasp of a department that may, within a month, be facing a historic and blunt reduction in its budgets. A third is a vice president who has just agreed to yet another round of negotiations with Tehran. And finally there’s a president whose second inaugural address was entirely devoted to calling America home for the collective tasks he believes lie ahead.
Ask yourself how Vladimir Putin, Ali Khamenei and Bashar Assad are likely to feel about all of that. Shouldn’t America have at least one officer of cabinet rank who scares the daylights out of these people? (Wall Street Journal op-ed, Posted 5 Feb 13)
