Weakness and Confusion from Biden in Munich

Conn Carroll / February 09, 2009

This past Saturday, Vice President Joe Biden gave a troubling speech at the 45th Munich Security Conference. Heritage Director for Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom calls the speech “one of the weakest projections of U.S. leadership on foreign soil in recent memory. The message was confused, apologetic, over-conciliatory, and remarkably lacking in substance and detail.” Gardiner details:

Iran
In essence, Biden offered a quid pro quo deal with Iran–the kind the European Union has offered for several years with absolutely nothing to show for it except spectacular failure.
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There was no appeal to European Union countries such as Germany to tighten their own sanctions on Tehran or calls for Russia and China to strengthen U.N. Security Council sanctions.

Russia
Aside from a refusal to recognize the breakaway Georgian provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, there was little evidence in Biden’s speech that the Obama Administration. Significantly, Biden made no mention of U.S. support for Georgian and Ukrainian membership in the NATO Membership Action Plan or Russia’s brutal invasion of Georgia last summer. (more…)