The Weekly Standard has transcripts from two separate interviews, one from CBS's 60 Minutes with Obama and one from Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a Washington Post interview.
Obama
STEVE KROFT: "You’re saying, you don't feel any pressure from Prime Minister Netanyahu in the middle of a campaign to try and get you to change your policy and draw a line in the sand? You don’t feel any pressure?"[WATCH]
PRESIDENT OBAMA: "When it comes to our national security decisions—any pressure that I feel is simply to do what's right for the American people. And I am going to block out—any noise that's out there. Now I feel an obligation, not pressure but obligation, to make sure that we're in close consultation with the Israelis—on these issues. Because it affects them deeply. They're one of our closest allies in the region. And we’ve got an Iranian regime that has said horrible things that directly threaten Israel’s existence."
Ahmadinejad
IGNATIUS: “I want to ask as my first question the one every citizen of the world would like to ask today: What is the chance of a war in Iran that would result from an Israeli attack on your nuclear facilities?”AHMADINEJAD: “I have spoken about this topic at length, previously. We generally speaking do not take very seriously the issue of the Zionists and the possible dangers emanating from them. Of course they would love to find a way for their own salvation by making a lot of noise and to raise stakes in order to save themselves. But I do not believe they will succeed. Iran is also a very well recognized country and her defensive powers are very clear.”
Mitt Romney's Press Secretary, Andrea Saul, responds for the Romney campaign in a statement:
“Tonight on 60 Minutes, President Obama called Israel’s legitimate concern about the impact of an Iran armed with nuclear weapons ‘noise’ and referred to Israel as merely ‘one of our closest allies in the region.’
This is just the latest evidence of his chronic disregard for the security of our closest ally in the Middle East. Governor Romney's views stand in sharp contrast to the President's. Governor Romney strongly believes that Israel is our most important ally in the Middle East and that support for Israel is essential to extending freedom, peace and democracy throughout the region. As president, Governor Romney will restore and protect the close alliance between our nation and the state of Israel.”
TWS has the video of Obama's interview comments.
Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air addresses the "one of our closest allies in the region" remark from Obama:
Israel isn’t “one of our closest allies in the region”; it’s our closest ally in the region, and it’s not even a matter of subjective debate. Who would be closer? Egypt? Oh, wait, Obama wouldn’t even commit to the idea of Egypt being an ally at all. The Saudis? We do a lot of business with the Saudis, but they’ve hardly been the kind of ally Israel has been — and if Obama wants to talk about democratization as the basic qualifier (which I’ll address later), then the Saudis don’t qualify at all. It’s certainly not the Iranians, nor the Libyans, especially in the eastern part of the country.
Barack Obama's foreign policy decisions are atrocious, he insults our allies and refuses to stand with them, he appeases our enemies, condemns American's free speech rights because some of that free speech may hurt Muslim extremist's feelings, and now he mimics Ahmadinejad.
Our embassies are being attacked worldwide, our diplomats have been murdered and Barack Obama has stood with those very same terrorists that killed U.S. Ambassador Stevens in condemning a 14 minute film made and published by an American and he plans to do it yet again in his United Nations speech.
They know there will be no ramifications from their actions because Obama has no spine. He bows in submission to Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, so is it any wonder no foreign entity respects him?
The house of cards that Obama's whole narrative was built on, has fallen apart and now his administration finally has admitted the film was a guise to hide a preplanned, organized terrorist attack against America in Libya that resulted in four deaths on 9/11.Yet Obama is still attacking a silly film instead of retaliating against those that attacked us.
Obama's refusal to stand with Israel, our closest ally, is simply another example of why our allies feel they cannot depend on us and our enemies feel they can.
Obama built that.
[Update] Awesome tweet and Twitterpicbelow:
With friends like Obama who needs enemies?? twitter.com/hankishtwit/st…
— HCS (@hankishtwit) September 21, 2012