Krauthammer: Obama Has Made America ‘Irrelevant’ in the Middle East

By Noel Sheppard | August 21, 2013 | 19:07

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer had some harsh words for the White House Wednesday.

Appearing on Fox News’s Special Report, Krauthammer said President Obama has made America “irrelevant” in the Middle East.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Had we early in the civil war put our efforts on behalf of the rebels, before the jihadists flooded in from Iraq and from Afghanistan and elsewhere, and when the bulk of the rebellion was spontaneous, secular nationals from every segment of the population, we would have had a decisive influence and Assad would be gone. Right now we’re in a situation where the jihadists are in, where there are more than two sides and any aid would be problematic. I think [chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin] Dempsey is right.

The irony is, second irony, that in Egypt where there are only two sides, there's only the Brotherhood and there’s only the military, with wide popular support, we're not choosing either, and I think in fact the Obama administration's incoherence on policy is astounding. The tape you showed of Obama speaking about the intervention in Libya and using a humanitarian explanation and justification shows how completely incoherent the policy is.

The only constant in all of this is Obama as a candidate, as a Senator, decided we should be out of these wars, we should be out of the Middle East, the tide of war is receding, he repeats it over and over again and pretends it’s true. And that is the constant. We're not in Iraq, we’re not in Syria, we’re not in Libya - we're getting killed in Libya as we did - we're not in Egypt. We are doing nothing. All the other actors are in play – the jihadists, the Russians, the Iranians, Hezbollah, but not the United States. We are irrelevant.