US President Barack Obama used the New Year’s Eve festivities as a cover for making serious concessions in foreign policy, according to a prominent American journalist.


"If you're going to engage in a foreign policy capitulation, might as well do it when everyone is getting tanked and otherwise occupied. Say, New Year's Eve," Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charles Krauthammer wrote in a piece for the Daily Telegraph.


In October 2015, Iran launched a ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear payload, thus violating a UN Security Council resolution, yet Obama did nothing. A month later Iran carried out another missile launch, but the US administration only "makes a few gestures at the UN", the journalist remarks.
And on December 30, the White House announced the implementation of several sanctions that are "weak, aimed mostly at individuals and designed essentially for show," according to Krauthammer.


Yet on the evening of the same day, the US government relents and cancels these sanctions while Tehran decides to expedite its missile program. These actions merely fan the anti-American sentiment in Iran while at the same time Saudi Arabia may consider it a betrayal, the newspaper adds.
"For years, Iran has been supporting anti-regime agitation among Saudi Arabia's minority Shiites. The Persian Gulf is Iran's ultimate prize. The fall of the House of Saud would make Iran the undisputed regional hegemon and an emerging global power," Krauthammer writes.


But Barack Obama appears willing to ignore this possibility just as he ignores China’s attempts to expand its influence in the South China Sea, the journalist adds.

Furthermore, despite previously declaring his intention to ‘isolate’ Russia following the country’s reunification with Crimea in 2014, Obama now meets openly with Russian President Vladimir Putin on several occasions.

According to Krauthammer, Obama’s actions effectively undermine Pax Americana. "Our enemies know it. Our allies see it – and sense they're on their own, and may not survive," the journalist claims.
By Sputnik