“Well this is it, America. The last time I’ll have the opportunity to come before a joint session of Congress, and address the nation, in prime time. And I’ve decided to do something different. I’m going to turn off my teleprompter, and not read that speech that my crack staff and pollsters and wordsmiths have been working on the last few months. They had put together a legacy list of my accomplishments over the last seven years, and a laundry list of things I’d propose doing over the upcoming year, knowing full well that this stuff had no chance of getting through Congress.
Instead of that, I’m going to do something completely different. Something I honestly haven’t done in a long time – I’m going to level with you. I’m going to tell you the complete truth, with the hope that maybe I can salvage what’s left of my presidency, that offered so much hope and change when it began.
Okay, here goes. It is truly a dangerous world out there. I really didn’t believe that when I took over. I thought most of the world’s problems were that we, the United States, just threw our weight around too much. That if we’d just talk more to the so-called ‘bad guys’ around the world, not isolate them, I could reason with them. The leaders in Iran, Cuba, Russia, and North Korea for example acted the way they did because of the way we treated them. I don’t want to simplify this too much, but basically if we were nicer to them, they would be nicer to us.
Boy did I miss the boat on that one. The truth is, we treated them the way we did, because of the long term actions of their leaders. They were pariah because they treated their neighbors, and their own people, so poorly. And I’ve come to realize that if the United States doesn’t lead, no one else will. My so-called ‘leading from behind’ strategy, just didn’t work. I never liked that label, but it was accurate. I wish I’d followed the example of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan on this, but I didn’t. And I’m sorry.
Let me give you one specific example of how I’m going to change. We’ve got this nut-case leader of North Korea, Kim Jung Un, and his father and grandfather before him, who’ve been provoking us, and the rest of the world, for far too long. His latest stunt is to set off another nuclear device that he claims was a hydrogen bomb. And he has missiles which could probably reach the United States. Now short of sending American troops, and getting a lot of them killed, the only real way of exerting pressure on Kim is through China. China provides most of North Korea’s food and fuel. But China refuses to really do anything to get North Korea to back off. All we get is lip service from China.
So I’m announcing this evening that I am sending my Secretary of State to both Japan and South Korea, to enter into immediate negotiations. The purpose of these talks will be to discuss the feasibility, and potential timeframe, of each of these countries developing defensive nuclear weapons programs themselves. Now I know China will strenuously object to this proposal, as will obviously North Korea. But it is the only thing which has any chance of motivating China to pressure North Korea to abandon its nuclear program. And North Korea must abandon that program, for the security of the United States, and the rest of the world. I am firm in my commitment to this new initiative.
Okay, a few other foreign affairs issues. With respect to Iran, I was way too optimistic about them. I really wanted to stop their nuclear weapons program. So I pushed for a deal with them. And even though Congress and the American people were against it, I signed it anyway. Now they’re already testing missile systems which prove to me that they have no intention of complying with the agreement. So I’m going to declare that they are in violation of the agreement, and ask Congress to work with me to impose even stronger sanctions. I should have worked with Congress in the first place, rather than circumvented them. After all, they are the elected representatives of the American people.
Now with respect to Russia, I should have learned from my predecessor’s mistake. George Bush famously looked into Vladimir Putin’s eyes and said he could see into his soul. He thought he was somebody he could work with. Then Putin invaded the independent country of Georgia, seizing the Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Rather than being wary of Putin, I sent my first Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, to push her famous ‘reset’ button with Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov. Then I canceled our defensive missile programs in Poland and the Czech Republic, so as not to offend Russia. Unfortunately, not only did we make ourselves and our allies more vulnerable to Iranian incoming missiles, and make our allies like Poland and the Czech Republic question the wisdom of relying on our commitment, but it sent a clear message to Putin early in my presidency that we could be pushed around. I’m afraid that resulted in Putin’s brazenly invading Ukraine, annexing Crimea, and propping up Assad in Syria. Unfortunately, with only a year left in my presidency, I don’t know what to do to truly reset our current relationship with Russia. I guess I’ll have to leave that to Trump. Oops, sorry. Don’t read anything into that. I guess I should have said Hillary. After all, even though I’m trying to be honest here, I’m still a Democrat.
And with respect to ISIS, I have to take responsibility for its very existence. Many brave Americans, and Iraqis who fought beside us, had given their lives to prevail in Iraq. A fairly stable situation had been attained after the success of the so-called surge. Virtually all my military advisors had strongly recommended that after the war in Iraq had been won, a small contingency force of 10,000 to 20,000 troops be kept in Iraq to secure the peace. Of course we’d done this in Europe following WWII and in Korea following that conflict. But I’d made a campaign promise that I’d pull our troops out of Iraq, and that was more important to me at the time than the security of our nation. I made a terrible mistake. It resulted in a power vacuum that was filled by the likes of ISIS.
So this evening, I’m announcing that rather than continue with the token military action I’ve ordered thus far, with limited air strikes, we’re going to destroy ISIS. After all, their poisonous ideology is spreading over the Internet to terrorists around the world – from Paris, to San Bernardino, to Philadelphia just this past weekend. We’ve got to stop this cancer. And it begins now.
Now as to changes in my domestic policies…”
(Unfortunately, due to the fact that President Obama’s speech went on for an hour, and I strive to take no more than a few minutes of my faithful blog readers’ precious time each week, I had to cut the President off there. See you next week.)
