Publication time: 5 August 2011, 13:59
Former US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton in an interview with Fox News said that the recent actions by Russia and Putin personally against the US clearly indicate that the policy of “reset” by Obama had completely failed.
Replying to the question of a TV channel in connection with recent attacks by Putin, who called the United States” an international parasite”, Bolton said:
“Well, I think this shows what Prime Minister Putin really thinks about the United States. He thinks we’re in decline. He’s deriding our economy and our administration. And it’s a real indication of his basic attitude.
It’s also an indication of the failure of President Obama’s reset policy because we have in Putin, probably president again, somebody who’s utterly unimpressed with the multiple concessions that President Obama has made to him. It has gotten us nothing back from Russia, not even respect”.
Fox presenter replied that “We are indebted to Russia, and so he has jumped on us for this, and that is very troubling. And he’s not alone. China has also been critical of us. And they are, of course, our — they — we owe them a whole lot of money, even more than Russia. If oil and natural gas prices globally fell, their economy would collapse. They have an aging, sick, declining population.”
Bolton continued: “What they do have, because of high oil prices, is a rapidly increasing military capability, rebuilding, upgrading their ballistic missiles and their nuclear weapons, all while the United States declines under the Obama administration’s policies in all of our strategic weapons areas”.
Asked about the so-called “reset”, the former US Ambassador to the UN said:
“Russia today is acting as an international troublemaker. Vladimir Putin said a few years ago when he was still president, the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century was the collapse of the Soviet Union. Now, most of us think that was actually a pretty good way to end the 20th century, but it’s an indication Putin wants to re-expand Russia hegemony in the space of the former Soviet Union.
He’s actively working to do it. He’s pressuring Eastern and Central Europe, using the oil and natural gas weapon. He has actively intervened to frustrate American efforts to try to bring peace and security in the Middle East. Russia has flown political air cover for Iran and North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. And now President Obama actually invited Russia to try and mediate between the NATO alliance and the — and Gadhafi in Libya.
So all of these steps I think that Russia has taken show that they’re not really interested in cooperating with us at all. They will pocket every concession that this administration makes, but in reciprocity, we got nothing.”
In conclusion, Ambassador John Bolton said on a possibility of his candidacy for the next US president.
“Well, I’m going to try and make up my mind by Labor Day. And I’ve done a lot of due diligence over the past many months, and now I just need to focus and try and make the decision. I think there’s enormous vulnerability in President Obama. I think he deserves to be beaten. I don’t think he’s competent to be president. Two-and-a-half years of on- the-job training haven’t improved things. So I think the opportunity is there”.
Department of Monitoring
Kavkaz Center
http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2011/08/05/14899.shtml
