"Tom Cotton: Media, Democrats ‘Astonished’ Federal Government Still Working" (Breitbart, February 11, 2017):
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) this week ripped into critics of President Donald Trump who predicted a world of “chaos” under the new administration, and defended his muscular foreign policy stance.
“Some people, especially in the media and the Democratic Party, are astonished that we’re 18 days into the Trump administration, yet the federal government is still functioning,” he said in a wide-ranging speech on foreign policy at the American Enterprise Institute.
“World War III hasn’t broken out. America is still standing,” he said. “Perhaps our Constitution is more resilient than some believe, our people built of sturdier stuff than sugar candy, to borrow from Churchill. So resilient and sturdy, in fact, that our system can withstand the shock of a Republican presidency—even if the media can’t.”
Cotton cited one senator as saying Trump’s penchant for tweeting is “going to lead to chaos in our international relations.”
“I hate to break this to you: The world already is in chaos. The world already is unsettled. And I have more bad news: Barack Obama was the president for the last eight years, and it’s his actions that unsettled the world and spread chaos, not Donald Trump’s words,” he said.
Cotton, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was a vocal critic of the Obama administration’s foreign policy, particularly in the middle east, where he served as a soldier in Iraq.
He listed a litany of what he characterized as Obama’s missteps:Barack Obama quit Iraq, sacrificing the gains we’d fought so hard for and leaving that country to fend for itself against Iran and the Islamic State.“I would challenge you to name one country where America enjoys a stronger position than we did eight years ago—or one country that’s better off because of American policy. President Obama’s legacy is a legacy of ashes from the smoking ruins of a world ablaze,” he said.
Barack Obama conciliated with Iran from the first days of his presidency, ignoring the Green Movement and tolerating Iran’s imperial aggression across the Middle East, all in pursuit of a fatally flawed nuclear deal.
Barack Obama reset relations with Russia and promised more flexibility after his reelection. In return, Russia invaded Ukraine, destroyed Aleppo, harbored Edward Snowden, teamed up with Iran in the Middle East, and shot a civilian airliner out of the sky .
Barack Obama said al Qaeda was on the run, handcuffed our military and intelligence officers, and refused to call the jihadist enemy by its name, resulting in more and more complex terror threats than anything our nation has ever faced.
Even when he used force, he did so half-heartedly. He surged troops into Afghanistan—but not as many as his commanders requested and only with an explicit withdrawal date. He toppled the Qaddaffi regime in Libya with neither a plan nor any interest to stabilize the country.
