President Barack Obama was caught on a live mic Monday morning asking Russian President Dmitri Medvedev to delay talks on a NATO missile defense program until after the November election.
The bit of realpolitik was caught by reporters who came in at the end of a private discussion for a photo op with the two presidents.
“This is my last election,” Obama is heard telling Medvedev. “After my election I have more flexibility.”
“I understand,” Medvedev responded. “I will transmit this information to Vladimir.”
The discussion concerned longstanding plans to build a missile defense program in central Europe, which the U.S. claims is meant to protect against aggression from Iran. Russia has strongly demounced the program, which they say is so close to them as to threaten their national sovereignty.
In a statement, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said that both sides have agreed to table talks over the defense proposal, as Medvedev is set to hand the presidency back to Vladimir Putin soon, and Obama is going through reelection himself. “Since 2012 is an election year in both countries, with an election and leadership transition in Russia and an election in the United States, it is clearly not a year in which we are going to achieve a breakthrough,” read Rhodes’ statement. Both sides have instructed their technical experts to continue work on the proposal.
Obama’s statement, which CBS called a “very candid political assessment” of the situation, will no doubt be used by political opponents, who claim Obama is playing politics with national defense and is intent on weakening the United States, though to what purpose remains unclear. (In fact, opponents have already started. Yay Twitter!)
More likely, Obama was referring to the fact that nothing is possible on the issue before the general election in November, before which he will have to maintain a hard line on every issue of national defense. In other words, Obama was probably trying to take politics out of the situation by punting it until after the election. But as we learned from Etch-A-Sketch gate last week, just because it’s true doesn’t mean you should say it aloud.
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