Pataki: Obama to Blame for US Troubles Abroad

By Greg Richter / NEWSMAX

President Barack Obama's "lead-from-behind" strategy is to blame for most of America's problems abroad, former New York Gov. George Pataki said Sunday.

Obama has disengaged the United States from many parts of the world, Pataki told host John Catsimatidis on "The Cats Roundtable" on AM 970 in New York.

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Pataki said Obama should "declare cyberwar on North Korea" for its role in hacking Sony Pictures and threatening terrorism at movie theaters that showed "The Interview," a comedy about the assassination of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.

"We should do everything we can now to make the North Koreans pay for this act against the United States’ freedom of speech," Pataki said.

The former governor called the recent fall in oil prices "a tremendous thing for the American consumer" and for the U.S. economy. He called it a "very positive thing" that the plunging prices have hurt Russian President Vladimir Putin and forced him to reconsider his attitude toward the West.

"Let’s pat the American ingenuity that helped create this who fracking miracle on the back," he said.

Pataki was critical of Obama's move last week to normalize relations with Cuba. It sets a "terrible precedent" to trade three convicted Cuban spies for an American whom he said was essentially taken hostage.

"This president has too often not stood with our allies like Israel, and too often has shown weakness or accommodation to our enemies like, now, Cuba," he said.

Pataki announced last week he is strongly leaning toward a run for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016.

Asked what sets him apart from what is expected to be a large Republican field, Pataki said he has "run a large, complex, very blue state … for 12 years, and, at the end, left it dramatically changed. That he said, sets me apart from those who talk about things but haven’t had the actual ability to show whether or not they can run a complex government."