Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer ripped into President Barack Obama’s attempt to reassure Saudi Arabia and their fellow gulf nations during his remarks at Camp David Thursday evening.
In his comments at Camp David, Obama said that the U.S. stands “ready to work” with the gulf nations to “determine what actions may be appropriate” if the nations come under the “threat of such aggression” from the Iranians.
Krauthammer told “Special Report” guest host Chris Wallace that Obama’s remarks were “absolutely pathetic,” adding that he’s “never seen a statement with more caveats in it.”
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: This was absolutely pathetic. If this was meant to reassure the gulf states, I’m sure their hair is still standing on end. Let’s go over this, there are a few ellipsis here. In the event of such aggression, the United States stands ready (that’s a weasel word number one) to work with, (weasel word number two) our partners to urgently determine (boy, that’s rough, that’s weasel phase number three) what actions (well, he doesn’t say what actions, just any actions) that’s the fourth. And now, the kicker, may be appropriate.
I mean, I have never seen a statement with more caveats in in it, which would give less can confidence to any ally. And Obama, if you noticed, was reading that. That wasn’t a bad ad lib. That wasn’t a Jeb answering the wrong question. That was a prepared statement for a summit that is meant to reassure the gulf Arabs that we are not selling them out. That was a sell out announcement.
CHRIS WALLACE: I was going to follow up with that. The whole point of the summit was to try to reassure the Sunni, the gulf states, the six nations around the Persian Gulf led by Saudi Arabia that we aren’t going to sell them out with Iran and that they can be sure of their security. Should they be reassured?
KRAUTHAMMER: They should be terrified. In fact, in one with of the other answers he was answering the objection that we’re going to be unleashing billions of dollars into the Iranian treasury, which they will obviously use for the mischief, the destabilization that they are doing in the region, including Yemen, Syria, etc., threatening the gulf Arabs. His answer was, among other things not to worry, is that Iran has a lot of economic needs and they have made a commitment to their people to invest in infrastructure. So, they are not going to spend it, I assume, on Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and all the others. That is preposterous and any gulf Arab who hears that would be triply terrified.