Recently, the U.S. has rolled over for Russia and China as President Barack Obama negotiates with an ex-KGB president in Moscow and a smug Xi Jinping in smoggy Beijing. In the past couple of months, however, Russia's and China’s economies have been tanking, resulting in lower gas and oil prices and putting Obama in a position of power.
With Obama in New York City for the United Nations summit discussing cyber-security with China’s President Xi and the crisis in Syria with Russian President Putin, for once we have the upper-hand to demand that our conditions are met.
If I were Obama, those would be:
1. Russia, share your intelligence and actually help us defeat ISIS.
2. China, shut down your cyber-espionage team against the U.S.
3. Both of you, stop back channeling with Iran and then maybe we’ll consider dropping the economic sanctions and start helping you with your economic fallouts.
With Putin set to speak at #UNGA, here's a look at why Russia won't let Syria go http://t.co/ILcNv1Sa7p pic.twitter.com/M1xnGfjbTZ
— NBC News (@NBCNews) September 28, 2015
The U.S. has something to gain rather than give away as a bargaining chip; so far Obama has yet to make a noticeable move, already meeting with Xi on Sept. 24 and Putin Sept. 28.
This is a prime opportunity, Mr. President. Diplomacy isn’t your best option — you have to play hard ball with these bullies.
I understand Obama isn’t Republican, but former president Ronald Reagan understood when to negotiate and when to straight up demand something because he knew when he was in a position of power. That's where some might find a trend: Jimmy Carter couldn’t get the Iran hostages out, but Reagan did. If Obama can’t do the obvious and assert our dominance, then I wonder which of the potential GOP candidates could. I'm sure Hillary Clinton couldn’t.
Related Links:
Back to basics with foreign policy
U.S. hypocrisy in face of Ukraine crisis
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