Foreign Policy Analyst Tells Stigall President Obama 'Does Not Pay Attention To History Because It's Too Hard'
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Foreign policy analyst Ed Turzanski spoke with Chris Stigall Monday on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, and he took a very critical approach to President Obama's handling of the political crisis in Ukraine.
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Ed Turzanski
Turzanski, the John Templeton Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and Political Science Professor at LaSalle University, said, "This President does not pay attention to history, because it's too hard, quite frankly. It stands in the face of his worldview, which is largely ethnocentric; it's provincial, and it's driven by the belief that the United Nations and multi-national organizations are the vehicle by which we will do things. Vladimir Putin has shown time and time again that cold hearted, historically-rooted geopolitics is how the world works. I think the Russians, the Iranians, the Syrians, the Egyptians, the Chinese --you can keep on going -- they've all taken a measure of the President, and they've said he's found wanting. He doesn't understand how the world works."
Turzanski believes Russian President Vladimir Putin thinks President Obama will extract no consequences for moving troops into the Crimean Peninsula of the Ukraine.
"If you look at Barack Obama's views of U.S. foreign policy before he arrived, most of the world's problems, in his conception, had occurred because the United States ended up sticking its nose in places it didn't belong. And his view was, if we give in on issues that really aren't important, for instance in the arms negotiations he had with the Russians, he's given away our tactical advantage…Putin picked up on this very early. He said, 'This man will give things away without quid pro quo, and that means I can take whatever I want,' and he's been taking ever since," Turzanksi explained.
President Obama, Turzanski stated, has lost credibility among the international community, and that is making it very difficult to solve the dilemma of Russian aggression.
"The President's problem is he talks too much without the support of action…People are paying attention that action and consequence are disconnected in terms of the President's rhetoric and action. He says things, but he really doesn't mean them or follow through on them."
