The FPI Forum: "Engagement Is Toast"
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With the eyes of the world focused on President Obama’s handshakes at the UN, that crafty, secretive cabal of neocons gathered in Washington in a dark basement at the W Hotel, where the Foreign Policy Initiative held its 2009 forum on “Advancing and Defending Democracy.”
You can check out the blow-by-blow at FPI’s Twitter page. Here are some highlights:
Sen. John McCain on Obama’s hesitance to approve Gen. McChrystal’s request for additional troops: The senator has “never seen a disconnect like this” between the military and administration on an issue.” He also noted, “Every day that goes by if you are not pursuing a strategy for success and implementing it as quickly as possible it puts young Americans lives in more danger.”
Gov. Mitt Romney on the same: “This is not the time for Hamlet in the White House. . . How in the world can he at this stage be saying what he is saying?”
And on American decline: “I do not subscribe to the idea that America is in decline, or has to be in decline . . . The chattering class has proclaimed [America’s decline], but the American people have said, ‘no bleeping way.’”
Reuel Marc Gerecht on Obama’s Iran policy: “Engagement is toast.”
Former Obama State Department advisor (and former engagement advocate), Ray Takeyh: There was a “perceptible deflation of hope’ within the administration after the “cataclysmic moment” of Iran’s June 12 election.
Sen. Jon Kyl on missile defense and Central and Eastern Europe : “We did everything wrong if we wanted to send a signal that they shouldn’t even think about extending influence over our NATO allies… We blew it!”
Michael O’Hanlon defended Obama on Afghanistan “at least for a few weeks of deliberation and indecision. If he is still in November where he is today, I will not be defending him. But I think where he is at this moment is understandable.”
A panel discussion moderated by Jeff Gedmin of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty with dissidents Ali Afshari of Iran and Saad Eddin Ibrahim of Egypt.
The wizardly indoctrination powers of FPI might have actually worked. Carnegie’s Karim Sadjadpour, a one-time engagement proponent, said recent events in Iran “have turned all of us into neocons.”
