Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., lambasted the foreign policy strategy the Obama administration has employed over the past seven years on Sunday.
“Under this administration, we’ve been on a holiday from American leadership. Too often, President Obama has adopted a cheap fatalism about America’s role in the world,” McCain said in the weekly Republican address released Saturday.
“No matter the challenge, we’re told that there are no good options, that our influence is limited, that we will not succeed overnight, that there is no military solution, and that we can’t solve every problem,” McCain said. “These are truisms, but none of them absolve us of our responsibility to make the situation better where we can. And the results of our failure to do so are clear to see.”
The Senate Armed Services chairman and Vietnam veteran, who critics argue sees war as a solution for many international problems, has issued similar attacks throughout Obama’s presidency. McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, lost to Obama in the general election.
The senator Russia’s military adventurism in Ukraine and Syria, cyberattacks and economic espionage by the Chinese government and steady unrest in the Middle East as the consequences to America’s scaling back its involvement in foreign affairs. Obama argues the United States lacks power to control events in those places.
McCain did not offer a bill as a solution to his argument, as is the case in most weekly addresses by GOP lawmakers. The sentor urged Obama and national leaders to take a more active role in finding a solution to these and other issues.
