Obama's Weak Hacking Response

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

... from the opinion pages of Wall Street Journal ... this is ... for an edition ... now from our studios in New York ... Bret Stephens and Mary Kissel ... well welcome back to four in addition we took a little holiday ... I'm in an undisclosed but warm location in an undisclosed but but I daresay tropical location varies as to ... get away this time of the year but I'm back ... um we're back ... the world is about to turn ... the calendar year ... on ... twenty sixteen which I think Franks is a ... pretty wild Year Mary fatigue ... dramatic the year of surprises very few people would have anticipated ... twelve months ago ... breaking up round understatement ... that description twenty sixteen might be classes that way ... in looking forward to twenty seventeen because I as they think they're a lot of opportunities ... in the foreign arena and a lot of potential pitfalls for the Trump administration well you know what we were to talk about other things but since well since we started this whale ... what are they the top of I I think we have to start with one or two ... I and ... that rapidly think he's starting to set ... for Donald Trump he saw just in these recent days present Obama ... reacts finally ... to Russian tacking ... on buying and taking some measures expelling Russian ... diplomats on the high ... kicking the Russians out of two ... facilities that they have here ... is copyright their plea so we must've known for a long time the Russia maintained ... to ... secret intelligence facilities one in New York and one in the state of Maryland somewhere ... to let them sit there and okay I mean I'd get the spy games there's sometimes a value once you know when ... you control it and ... perhaps although I ... kind of guy that we have similar arrangements in Russia all that much more ... clothes societal the big open a can of ... who it is permitted this to happen I mean that that seems to me that ... there's a story waiting to be explored right there ... that ... we we close these things down I mean how do we permit them to begin with while many were tracking them hopefully and falling them to wherever they're going in scenes that are meaningless ... in intercepting communications me I mean that's the best case ... scenario of a situation like you describe well so we ... we ... expel thirty five guys ... presumably most of them ... car have some kind of intelligence background that's not a surprise we know the C I a ... stations people with ... political or diplomatic aliases in U S embassies all over the world it's kind of standard diplomatic procedure ... and ... we are sanctioning the FSB the successor organization to the KGB and the grew ... a Russian military intelligence the ... I would call the problem of RTI a sub group tends to have more of an operational side ... I believe or are ... it may be missing woman leaving the core section who was now ... one most powerful man in Russia and moved your You background of going back to the nineteen eighties the Soviet Union ... so with the sanction these instances analysts and Heidi sanction intelligence agency what what what you do you say ... you can comment or country ... if you belong to the mall and they can get secret papers ... anyway and it seems weird ... then it may be the most useful thing we're doing ... is we are releasing some of the technical data ... on Russian fishing cacti in ... cyber operations against ... network so that we can better defend ... against the private sector can better defend canceled again raises the question of why we knew done that ... he immediately when we hung up and the administration spent months debating what exactly to deal and ... you know we talked about this early on Opinion Journal Mary but all of these are on ... all of these are signal and signaling exercise we are very very upset ... we caught you ... you know you have been a very naughty boy ... but none of these ... actually exact any kind of punishment ... on ... wouldn't you know the president in his statement ... the White House's official statement ... said that these operations were conducted at the highest levels of the Russian government which must mean ... Mr Putin ... the head of the FSB really the the the the the top people ... so um if that's the case should we be exacting ... a price on ... those individuals ... it ... so that they think ... you know it's probably not worth our time to release trumpet test is ... can the e mails to usually unsigned because ... we're going to have arm ... bank accounts ... exposed in a panel of papers the the scandal ... connect is the most Auckland's second law firm and Panama going back to April ... it's a very interesting details about the financial wealth of ... who is all this friend a cellist in St Peter's for ... um ... surely we must know more about him recently said that the bread we cannot be surprised by this because it's par for the course for this president didn't think what happened ... after the Sony hack that North Korea purportedly ... engineering executed ... a very very weak response to North Korea so effect in effect the White House said the other ... hacking nations will go right ahead because ... you don't have to worry about any sort of ... serious retaliation from the United States but ... you can't double for the larger point here per unit ... did not respond in kind he mocked President Obama and in a FactSet what a week until the Trump administration takes on so this is what ... ok now we can start entering some of our audience ... this is what really freaks me out okay so ... Donald Trump ... responses this is an attempt ... to meddle with the US election it involves the theft of confidential data ... the embarrassment of ... officials ... in the United States ... and Trump from the beginning has been dismissive of this ... in part perhaps because he doesn't want any suggestion that some of the election was thrown to him rather than ... him winning it and I don't think anyone believes that the Russian meddling really ... Rubio actionable the people said oh you know now that I know what a jerk top destinations for whatever ... or Debbie Wasserman Schultz wrote in a vote ... of for Trump ... but ... he keeps down the plane gets in a way that strikes me ... as odd and King Kong wrote with ... traditional American view ... that Vladimir Putin ... a former KGB man ... is a serious adversary of the United States ... and I don't understand what trumps calculation here is ... he clearly wants his own reset with live near Putin's ... if memory serves more and ... more Republicans mocking Obama three step plan to put someone is trying replicating ... precisely the same pattern of accommodation its behavior ... which has brought us to this place to begin with ... well I think you're correct in saying that he wants his own ... reset as the past two presidents of both parties ... have also tried ... to do when perhaps he ... he wants to dispel any kind of potential criticism that he was angling for a conflict with Colton ... and and and that's the that's the initial approach that he's going to take meaning ... you know our door is open anywhere a new administration ... he'll let sit down and see if we can come to some agreement ... the problem of course with that approach and Garry Kasparov has talked about this ... um on our ... Fox nation of the Journal it oral report is that ... just the act of sitting down with prudence suggests that there's something to can simply ... is a victory for prudent trumps its down at the same table and says let's make ... a deal because ... there is no deal to be me ... I and in that venue that to me is the biggest worry in and the biggest problem with that approach and that's why I say that the beginning of the Senate ... I think going is setting the trap for Trump and I'm not sure the Trump received for what it is when this goes to the part of his books concede that he is the world's greatest dealmaker ... means let me or putting is a guy ... who won't hesitate to pick your pockets twice and thrice ... Ray ... and so he will and Russia by the way has a long tradition of operating this way going back ... to the Soviet leader of the Soviet Union Andre Robeco ... create problems so that you can then offer to solve them in exchange for ... some kind of a concession that the old Soviet ... attack that ... but you know what is Econa due he's going have a deal with with or look for deal with ... the ... United States with with the trumpet ministrations wheel well do XYZ in Syria ... in exchange for you if saying this or that sanctions over ... Ukraine where you de facto recognizing Russia's annexation of Crimea ... or equaled Federated solution to the Ukrainian crisis which effectively amounts to ... recognizing ... Russia's ... ill gotten ... military conquest ... and not to mention the shooting down of a civilian airliner did it in twenty fourteen ... and when to say ok we're gonna go along with that ... and then Russia will create some other set of problems on some other said if the tax ... and we will make other concessions in order for him to solve those problems and on that goes along Russia's analysts ... or nearly endless ... frontier ... the sky stuff is is is is particularly keen trips because and this is this is what I'm scared ... the Russian method is to find what they call Corporal Ma ... compromising material ... on potential of the six ... Russia according to German intelligence hacks ... the email accounts of every member in the Buddhist ... let's imagine there is a German member of the bluest of who is having ... an extramarital affair or something that ... would be embarrassing if were to come to light ... he that a member of the Buddhist The cost to now take into account the possibility that if any of this ... is disclose his personally noodles ... that the Russians might know about ... this to say the Russians to be in a position to leak it ... to a German newspaper to wiki weeks for the youthful conduit by which they be embarrassing information ... now all the vote comes before the German Bundesbank about how um extending sanctions on Russia for its invasion ... of ... Ukraine or whatever it's ... that member of Parliament will have to think very carefully ... and very privately about why ... he should vote to extend ... extend those ... sanctions ... we know that Russia or we suspect that Russia may have had something to do ... with Bulgaria's extraordinary decision a few years back ... to ban fracking why did Bulgaria ban fracking well interesting Lee Bulgaria overwhelmingly depends on Russian imports ... of ... imports of Russian gas ... so there's a Russian national interest in making sure that Bulgaria doesn't develop ... domestic supplies of gas that would give it some independence ... from its Russian ... providers hwy know that the prime minister if ... I think the president of Bulgaria ... claimed ... last year the Russia ... attempted to come back ... the electoral Commission of Bulgaria a direct assault of Bulgaria democracy we know from British intelligence ... that they tried to do the same with every ... government department in Westminster and in English ... so this is an assault on the very foundations of Western democracy with its Bulgaria ... Germany Britain or the United States ... and if we're going to be the leader of the free world we're going to need a president ... who understands the gravity that ... but to take a break ... will be back with more depressing thoughts because ... what better way to bring in the new year ... I this apology ghost of the Potomac Watch podcast join me in my colleagues every week is we dissect all of the latest happenings in Washington check this out and WSJ dot com slashed I can see and become a subscriber on I can stitch or spot if I am and who will play music ... WSJ podcast listen ambitiously ... from the opinion pages of Wall Street Journal ... this is ... for an edition ... now from our studios in New York ... Bret Stephens and Mary Kissel ... so Mary were back ... and um you know we can't I know the news is the little bit ... but we cannot let this past John Kerry's ... seventy two minutes speech ... and he wasn't ... talking slowly by the way seventy two minute speech at the State Department ... excoriating Israel following ... the vote to the UN or the United States abstained and permitted the United Nations Security Council ... to claims that all Israeli court settlement activity including any streams from ... beyond the nineteen sixty seven armistice lines ... are you legal ... which means that the Western wall in the Jewish quarter of the old city which was beyond the old line of nineteen sixty seven ... any Israeli who is a refurbishing the synagogue there are more praying in the wall ... is in ... the age in some kind of settlement activity so John Kerry goes and gives this long speech ... and watching the speech ... I watched the whole thing to watch Sika's was in a transcript available and had to write about it ... I'm ... and I'm thinking ... ok we've got half a million dead in Syria ... we have um we have major threats to international ... order you and continues ... to ... push the boundaries and violate the terms of its nuclear deal with the last ... what should the outgoing secretary of state ... DeVault is probably his last major address to ... the Israeli settlements scoring embarrassing humiliating ... a country that the administration keeps saying has no better supporter ... then the ... Obama administration ... so ... um ... do we require the ... political profile Tang carry or a psychological my guess is my question now that it's it's it's a it's a perversion of our interests that's for sure but for them I also add to that list of what he should be focusing on ... on the attacks on Christians in in in the killings in Iraq and in what were the collapse of Venice well ... I mean it too late ... to sell on the list is so so very long ... on the look that the the the Obama administration ... started ... eight years ago by focusing on the Israeli Palestinian issue ... by the time the bypassing Israel and going to Cairo ... to talk about ... the reconciliation ... with Muslims and an appointed sound of Netanyahu ... all of this show been in Israel travel to tracking even travel to Israel ... on so this is I would argue a continuation of a three years ... of ... attacks on Israel's snubs of Israel ... and of the fundamental perversion American interests in the region of Obama focusing on other replies ... with a copper sees ... a post American interests like Iran while he integrates the only functioning democracy in the Middle East I e ... Israel now ... John Kerry got the sense within the speech that John Kerry has wanted to get this speech ... for years yet on and that he was somehow released by the White House ... and given the green light to do it ... because of the UN intentions as in what we sent our message at the UN in ok John ... Johnny if you wanna go get the speech go get that now I think the reason to give the speech and why is that the administration does truly believe ... that the problem to any obstacle to Israeli Palestinian peace is settlements not but what the real problem is which is what you've been saying for years ... God is the fact that ... Palestine does not accept Israel's right to exist that is the problem ... that is the major obstacle in the obstacle to an Israeli Palestinian peace ... they just don't understand that it's actually ... I think the reason carried kids that speech aside from is misguided convictions ... is to ... set the tone for the Democratic party going for it to say ... this is where we want you in your platform to go this is a statement of our ideas were to try to drag you there ... and also to send a message to make life more difficult for the incoming trumpet demonstration ... but create problems it's very hard quality hard for the one I thought it would be very hard for the trumpet ministrations ... to to to to pass a resolution the Security Council reversing with Obama to stand IA on the other hand ... Aaron David Miller who certainly no one on the right to work for the ... Number secretaries of state but systemic or close to the Clinton ministrations ... has called this ... a mistake ... to start a tactical grounds and that it's likely to have the opposite effect of the one that carry ... its hands it's going to embolden ... the right in Israel that the settlement movement in Israel because the mistake ... you can't rely on the Americans um ... these guys are out ... are out to lunch they're not our friends lets not make concessions ... to the United States an expected to be ... that the word of the reciprocated with ... some kind of friendship ... Benjamin Netanyahu went out of this way I think you may be the only Israeli Prime Minister ... tobe ordered a complete settlement freeze in a minivan into thousandnine he ordered a complete settlement freeze ... milk payback or no no no no ... barely any recognition ... for the administration from the administration even though the policies refused ... to negotiate he was the first Likud prime minister to come on say we need to ... accept a two state solution ... again he was punished for this by the administration ... he then made sure that is filled did not strike he ran for two thousand twelve which was widely anticipated ... the administration repaid him with the Rand deal which ... the overwhelming majority ... of ... Israelis see as ... the see the trail of of of their of their fundamental ... interest ... and then of course when he's a lame duck president and has nothing left ... to lose ... fixes Roma pants at the UN Security Council just in the way to you ... aam pointed out will be difficult to ... the damage for of which will be difficult when you ... but in many ... there's some people were listening to his Parkinson's a hold on a second home on a second ok ... we just ... signed a thirty billion dollar deal for Israel to purchase American weapons the first to thirty five sq ... landed in Israel was was practically a launch customer for more most sophisticated aircraft ... I'll we've helped fund the Iron Dome which ... defends Israeli cities against ... Hamas ... rocket ... attacks ... aam and all we are asking for is some abatement in terms of their settlement construction in May when ... they went to that ... so this is just desserts for is from I think ... I think it would be worth while if hiked up from one minute are ... our audience through ... the way a normal middle of the road Margaret ... is really thinks about ... his experience of ... diplomacy ... over the last ... thirty or so ... years ... the ... the ... Israel votes forty pro peace government in nineteen ninety two ... of the Yitzhak ravine of ... a loss of memory ... reading comes to power he invites the PLO ... into Israel they signed the Oslo accords while most from the first minute that they sign it Yasser Arafat instead of renouncing terrorism ... is trying to sneak terrorists across the border into Gaza ... Israel gets out of all the major ... Israel ... the Palestinian population centers Gaza City Ramallah ... J Nene ... anomalous ... and so on ... and instead of having a costume part of the cracks down on terrorism ... some lead buses start being ... blown ... even so in nineteen ninety nine ... Israel is once again believers in peace ... both for another pro peace the government of ... the cooed Barack ... he ... tries to return the Golan Heights to Syria ... aam ... with this minor ... defense ... commitments from Syria that that that they would respect is really defenses ... it's nowhere with the Syrians ... he continues to to ... negotiate with a house is ... at camp David in two thousand Israel offered somewhere between ninety and uh hundred percent of the land ... and Palestinian statehood ... if only the costumes and say ok this is our claims against Israel this is the end of the story ... the Palestinians rejected the deal in you don't have to take my word for it that's what Bill Clinton ... said ... in the summer of two thousand ... and they reject the deal and then they started intifada which takes the lives of a thousand Israelis and lived in Israel through most of that time ... bombs nearly every week it is really cafes buses malls ... and so on ... even so in two thousandseven another pro pieces really Palace to his Israeli Prime Minister global mark ... again makes an offer to um ... to ... the Palestinians for state ... be rejected again one more point in two thousand five ... then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ... unilaterally with straws every settlement in every seven from Gaza ... he also gets his fill out of policing Gaza's border with Egypt ... soap Gaza has a sovereign border with Egypt which Israel does not ... does not control the idea that ... Gaza is called the blockaded by Israel is simply that of a demonstrably false ... does Gaza become a shining example with a Palestinian state ... will be in ... its progress is ... cares about them that welfare of its people work towards peace and so on ... now on the country as well as experience not one not two but three wars ... that came out of Gaza after Hamas took over so the average Israeli looks of things in says one and IRA what I want to replicate that disastrous experience that we have in Gaza ... in the much larger West Bank which has ... heels and now is that overlook the coastal plain of Israel ... and which they can use and probably will use as a beast to to to attack Israel ... and which will probably be calm as Gaza became ... Hamas controlled ... territory ... phenomenon for some lines ... that the conclusion of normal it's really trials is that the essence of the problem is not whether Israel has a neighborhood ... that ... infringes beyond the nineteen sixty seven lines ... it's the Palestinians ... remained wedded to an ideology and fundamental ... national commitments ... that are and religious commitments that are antithetical to the existence of the Jewish state in any pointers ... and with John Kerry needed to do ... in a far more forceful way ... was to say to the Palestinians ... you guys will get the states ... when you are prepared to live in January and perpetual and sincere peace with your neighbors ... and work on building up your own institutions so that you can be the Costa Rica the Mediterranean ... rather than ... another yen and another South Sudan another field ... and fanatical stayed ... threatening all of its all of its neighbors I'm and I'm glad you rehearse that history has achieved the required listening ... on it for every ... if a person in the child's administration from the winners of the media of Christine's a form posse ... so but it raises the ... question why do you think then given that history and is very clear set of facts ... that John Kerry gave that's because I think that John Kerry is wedded to ... a worldview it's about twenty years out of date ... and you know one thing I would add is that in the nineteen nineties it was plausible to imagine that the essence of the conflict was territorial and therefore the problem was ... the territory that settlements were taking from the Palestinians ... in this entry it's ... only possible to seriously argue that the conflict is not fundamentally territorial its existential and it's largely ... religious and Atlanta just one more point ... no Israelis are looking around their neighborhood ok ... having given up the Golan Heights to Syria ten fifteen years ago he would now be in the hands of ... ISIS job of Taunus rock ... literally you know staring over the Galilee ... Israel Christian tourists were not be able to visit ... you know the the the Sea of Galilee make an error ... because they have a ISIS artillery raining raining down on them ... and so carries world feel if it was formed in a very different ... it's another thing ... I'm sorry that to mean John Kerry says the inspector clues though of diplomacy community see the pink Panther movies will make suspect was oh so funny ... is that the way Peter sellers plays and ... he's the only guy who doesn't understand ... that he's a withering in the SoC ozone takes itself seriously ... even as he kind of ... communal bubbles around ... and sort of sometimes improbably succeeds in a way that John Kerry isn't probably succeeded in being a long-term U S Senator and then ... us Secretary of State of the United States ... do yourself a favor the New Republic of all magazines had a long article in twenty fifteen which went over the history of Kerry's failed effort to reach ... a peace between Israel the Palestinians back in twenty four twenty thirteen twenty fourteen ... and it's really a record of ... not ... of of Tuesday net mix of of missed clues may mis understood messages ... and and he is you know it's sort of like some try a brilliant man trapped by a tragic circumstances ... you know Henry Kissinger in the wake of the Paris peace accord ... or ... you know um as raked in in in post World War two Czechoslovakia ... it's just a guy who's out of his death ... and I was watching John Kerry in on this for each morning ... it was one cliche after another ... hard truths to our friends on comparable choices ... you know innovative approaches and so on ... any thought ... like that the only cliche this guide midst ... is the cliche that brevity is the soul of wit ... um aren't so with that last topic ... we were suppose to have a truce in Syria ... this was announced yesterday ... it already seems to be falling apart ... an X in the most interesting thing about it is that this is an agreement between Russia and ... Turkey ... he ran ... the Assad government ... and just one missing piece in ... the United States ... the mean union team ... ahh and it's not the first time that the Obama missed ration has been excluded from talks ... I this is the most the most recent ... version of that event ... and look ... it's entirely understandable um Obama has played absolutely no role ... in Syria he's conceded Syria to the Russians who now ... aam are are you flew bombing missions in and committed war crimes on behalf of the sign their client ... and and and so why would you ... include the United States is absolutely no need but it's it's it speaks volumes speaks absolute Connie and ... about the lack of US influence in the region courtesy of this one ... you know I think the difference when it comes to Syria policy between ... the Obama administration Trump administration is the Obama administration will scream ... this is terrible this is shameful ... Samantha Power will powers will give a Tearful addresses of the Security Council ... and the Obama missed ration would do nothing ... the trial administration will do nothing ... but it won't even bother to ... read and it made even ... essentially ... team up with Russia except Russian gains ... in ... Syria ... it continued to ... fight ISIS which were which were doing ... already ... as part of except that Russia aside he ran ... will be the new Domino don't know ... about that for an inline to seek the lifting of the everywhere and there are ... a little bit because ... yes you are correct that ... the cooing sounds the Trump has made towards whom ... are extremely worrying and ... he he will be flanked by the tension or Michael Flynn's is national security advisor who also ... has a close relationship with Russia but ... you know I think there'll be other voices around the table there will be ... General James Madison ... and as Secretary of defense if he isn't confirmed that the kids away for ten to become or sector defense ... and I don't think that he's ... spoken by one of the key trusts who knew ... aam and also Rex Tillerson the nominee for Secretary of State ... yes he has done business in Russia but the idea that you rise ... to the top of As Exxon you're an awful ... awful smart guy in here somehow ... going to ignore the history of coups and and and and allow yourself ... to get into a deal that lets him trap you in in in it I just ... I find that hard to believe ... I and I ... feel I have ... I hope that I am proven correct on that but I don't think it's a short but I wanna wait and see ... what Trump actually get to actually anonymous say since this is the very tail end of twenty sixteen ... we're hoping for the past week I mean you know this is it the ended the day it's not just ... in a wishing Schadenfreude here ... um wishing for the Trump administration to fail ultimately means wishing for the United States to fail and that's I think that's just categorically ... wrong ... um ... this is been a year of surprises the suspect twenty seventeen is can it be ... a year of surprises ... and when I think about all my new wrong predictions for twenty sixteen the lesson I take away from it is ... don't make predictions for the next two years so with that word in a wish you happy new year I'm very happy and will be back next week and a more than her usual times um to won't continue to ... to ... depress and hopefully ... inform and