failure i think this is going to look pretty irresponsible and silly right now to say this is all because of a trailer for a video. i was at that speech in cairo in 2009 and i m struck how much has changed and how much it almost looks some of those comments sound i don t know if naive but quaint given everything that happened with the arab spring and things and certainly not really relevant. i think there is time for a reset of that reset and we haven t heard the president talk about his policy a lot since then. chris: and that brings up a fair question, brit, which is the arab spring. obviously things were going to be more complicated after the arab spring. you couldn t just call up hosni mubarak and say stop the protesters. you have democracies instead of dictators, islamic groups now free to express themselves and, yes, to protest. how could the president have better managed what was always going to be a messy transition?
says he would be shaping events rather than letting events shape his policy but he does not say what that means. is he saying he would not withdraw from iraq? he would rather we still be there? the consequences of what he is imlying are not policies that would be popular with americans right now. so, it makes it hard, he has the sweeping language how he wanted to project strength but he will not say what that means. strength can be military force or spending more on foreign aid, it is not clear what the actions would be. chris: even if romney s timing was wrong, there is a legitimate debate to have over the president s foreign policy and we had some of i today with ambassador rice and congressman rogers. yet i talked to top officials in the romney campaign who have no plans for major foreign policy speech in the next few weeks before the debates. the question is, why not?
protests directed at the united states at large or at u.s. policy. this is in response to a video that is offensive. chris: you don t really believe that? chris, absolutely i believe that. in fact, it is the case. we have had the evolution of the arab spring over the last many months but what sparked the recent violence was the airing on the internet of a very hateful very offensive video that has offended many people around the world. now, our strong view is that there is no excuse for violence. it is absolutely reprehensible and never justified but in fact there have been those in various parts of the world who have reacted with violence. their governments have increasingly and effectively responded and protected our facilities and condemned the violence and this outrageous response to what is an offensive video. there is no question as we is
is going to look pretty irresponsible and silly right new to say this is all because of the trailer for a video. i was at the speech in cairo in june of 2009 and i am struck by how much has changed and how much it looks almost, some of the comments sound, i don t know if naive is the word, but.quaint, given everything that has happened with the arab spring. it is not, really, irrelevant. there is time for a reset of that reset. we have not heard the president talk about his policy since then. chris: that brings up a fair question, the air spring. obviously it will be more complicated after the arab spring. you could not just call up mubarak and say, stop the protesters. you have democracies rather than dictators and islamic groups free to protest and express themselves. how could the president have better managed what was always going to be a messy transition? couple of things.
economic and religious problems and cultural differences and tribal differences in libya. all of those things are simmering and we have had at least what appears to the folks in the middle east, and they can say what they want, i travel there frequently, the middle east believes the countries in the middle east believe that there is a disengagement policy by the united states and that lack of leadership there or at least clarity on what our position is is causing problems. if we all decide to rally around the video as the problem we are going to make a serious mistake and we are going to make i think diplomatic mistakes as we move forward if we think that is the only reason people are showing up at our embassy and trying to conduct acts of violence. chris: let me ask you a political question. not an intelligence question. do you think the administration is putting it all on the video