Former U.S. Ambassador To Russia Michael McFaul’s Assessment On U.S.-Russia Relationship And Iran Deal

[Valin]

Hugh Hewitt Show:

Duane Patterson

Friday, March 13, 2015

 

Ambassador McFaul served in the Obama administration for two years, is now a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and had a very candid assessment of the growing threat Russia poses.

 

Audio

 

(Snip)

 

HH: And so, but your assessment of him, has he changed, or are we changing in our understanding of him? I asked George W. Bush that a couple of years ago, and former President Bush said he changed, the President did, not President Putin. Putin was the same, but he’d head faked Bush at the beginning. What do you think?

 

MM: I think both are true. I think Putin has gotten, has become more suspicious of the West. He’s always been suspicious, right? Let’s be clear about that. He’s a former KGB colonel, so he’s always had that mindset. But over the last several years, it’s gotten worse. He assigns powers to the United States that we don’t have. He can’t believe that individuals would actually do something, you know, to make their lives better. So when people demonstrate, for instance, he always assigns that to the CIA in some conspiratorial plot. And with time, with age, he’s gotten worse with that. And second, he’s become more withdrawn. You know, 15 years ago, he had a group of advisors. Some were, we would call them conservative economists. In Russia, they call them neo-liberal economists. But they were friends of his, they were colleagues of this. They worked in the government with him. They got a flat tax done, by the way, a Hoover Institution idea that we’ve never done in our country, and he reduced the corporate tax by 11%. And he was talking to those people. Today, he doesn’t talk to them. Today, you know, he’s been in power for 14 years, 15 years. He thinks he knows everything. And so his circle of friends and circle of advisors has gotten smaller. And I think that makes him more dangerous.

 

HH: Now in terms of that level of danger, how does he assess President Obama? What’s your opinion of his opinion of President Obama?

 

MM: He thinks President Obama double-crossed him..........................(Snip)