Krauthammer: Obama presiding over foreign policy of 'retreat'

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Charles Krauthammer on Obama's foreign policy

Krauthammer: When America retreats, the bad guys fill the vacuum

Charles Krauthammer, at the close of the first year of President Obama’s second term, said it's clear the president is presiding over a foreign policy of “retreat.”

In an appearance on “Special Report with Bret Baier” the syndicated columnist and Fox News contributor, said, “everybody in the Middle East is asking where is the United States and all of this is the result of a policy, a deliberate policy of retreat. When America retreats, the bad guys fill the vacuum. That's exactly what's happened.”

Krauthammer said that in Egypt, “we have managed to make everybody hate us, the (Muslim) Brotherhood, the religious, the secular army and the secularist opposition. That's quite a feat.”

Then, he added, “You've got Iraq, which is now a client state of Iran, and Obama boasted in his year end press conference about our success in Iraq, ending the war in Iraq.

“He abandoned Iraq. It was a won war, the level of violence was historically low, the civil war was over and Al Qaeda wasn't only defeated, it was humiliated.

“The Muslim, the Sunni Muslims of Anbar joined with the infidels in defeating Al Qaeda, and now it's revived, it controls large swaths of Iraq, and Syria, and for the first time it is active and dominant in the heart of the Middle East.”

Krauthammer added that the tentative nuclear deal with Iran has both the Gulf Arab states and Israel feeling similarly cast aside.

“The Gulf Arabs feel abandoned,” he said. “At least the Israelis have the ability to defend themselves.”