Obama Will Not Meet with Israel’s Netanyahu This Month

Alex Wong/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- President Obama will not meet with Benjamin Netanyahu when the Israeli prime minister is in the United States later this month for the U.N. General Assembly, because the two leaders’ schedules make a meeting impossible, the White House said Tuesday.

“The President arrives in New York for the UN on Monday, September 24th and departs on Tuesday, September 25th. The Prime Minister doesn’t arrive in New York until later in the week. They’re simply not in the city at the same time. But the President and PM are in frequent contact and the PM will meet with other senior officials, including Secretary Clinton, during his visit,” National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said in a written statement.

The announcement comes amid tension between the United States and Israel over Iran’s nuclear program and follows Netanyahu’s declaration earlier this week that those who refuse to put “red lines” before Iran have no moral right to give Israel a “red light.”

The Obama administration has opposed issuing ultimatums, backing diplomatic negotiations and sanctions as the best approach to deter Iran from its nuclear ambitions.

An Israeli official told ABC News that Netanyahu’s office requested a meeting with Obama but was told that because of the president’s tight schedule it wouldn’t be possible. The official admitted that with just a day and a half open, the window wasn’t very big, although the official said the Israelis did offer to go to Washington if a meeting in New York was not possible.

The meeting was requested when the trip was made official more than a week ago and was declined “in the last few days,” according to the Israeli official.

However, the White House released a statement later Tuesday that no such request was made for the two leaders to meet in Washington.

"Contrary to reports in the press, there was never a request for Prime Minister Netanyahu to meet with President Obama in Washington, nor was a request for a meeting ever denied," the White House statement said.

This will be the first time Netanyahu has visited the United States as prime minister and not met with Obama.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Why Did the Obama Admin. Deny Bolivia’s Extradition Request?

AIZAR RALDES/AFP/GettyImages(WASHINGTON) -- On Friday, the President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, announced that the U.S. government was refusing to extradite former President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, who is facing formal charges of genocide.

“A document arrived from the United States, rejecting the extradition of people who have done a lot of damage to Bolivia,” announced Morales, who called the U.S. a “refuge for criminals.”

The controversy dates back to October 2003 when Sanchez de Lozada sent his military forces to quell protests against his government, resulting in the deaths of 67 men, women, and children, mostly from the impoverished indigenous Aymara community. Sanchez de Lozada eventually fled his country and sought refuge in the U.S. In 2007, Bolivian prosecutors brought charges against him.

The move has prompted some harsh criticism from critics of U.S. policy. Writing in the Guardian, Glenn Greenwald calls this “a classic and common case of the US exploiting pretenses of law and justice to protect its own leaders and those of its key allies from the rule of law, even when faced with allegations of the most egregious wrongdoing. If the Obama DOJ so aggressively shielded accused Bush war criminals from all forms of accountability, it is hardly surprising that it does the same for loyal US puppets. That a government that defies US dictates is thwarted and angered in the process is just an added bonus. That, too, is par for the course.”

So why wouldn’t the U.S. cooperate with this request?

On Friday, U.S. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell was asked about this, and he said “we reiterate our expressions of sympathy to the victims and their families who lost their lives or were injured in the civil unrest surrounding the protests of October 2003.  But as a matter of longstanding policy, we don’t comment on specific extradition requests, so I simply can’t get into that.”

Trying to shed some light on what’s going on behind the Obama administration denial of the request, ABC News granted anonymity to a source familiar with the matter to give some perspective. The source said there were serious technical problems with the Bolivian extradition request.

“The former president is accused of genocide for ordering security forces to suppress some violent demonstrations where people were killed,” the source recalled. “For extradition requests to be successful, there are two standards that must be met. One, the accused crime has to be a crime in both jurisdictions, and two, there has to be a reasonable belief that the individual committed the crime.”

The Bolivian request failed to meet both of these requirements, the source said.

As a technical matter, the U.S. criminal code doesn’t have the crime of “genocide,” so an extradition request would need to accuse Sanchez de Lozada of murder or conspiracy to commit murder or some similar charge.

Moreover, the source said, “the accusation is of genocide but there was no proof presented” in the extradition request that Sanchez de Lozada knowingly ordered the killing of these individuals. Clearly the military forces were acting on his orders to suppress the demonstrations, but so far the U.S. has yet to see any evidence that Sanchez de Lozada ordered anyone killed.

“The was virtually no evidence presented in the petition,” the source said, adding that the Bolivian government by reputation often sends “very defective requests” to the U.S. government, and suggesting that this may have been more of an attempt by the Bolivian president to get on his “anti-American soapbox” than anything else.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Obama Suggests Military Action in Reponse to Syrian Chemical Threat

Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- President Obama warned Syria on Monday that the U.S. would consider military action if President Bashar al-Assad's government either moves or uses its arsenal of chemical or biological weapons against his opposition.

The administration has previously shied away from suggesting any direct intervention in the 18-month-long conflict that has left an estimated 21,000 people dead and threatens to spread to the rest of the Middle East.

However, the prospect of Syria's stockpile of chemical and biological weapons falling into terrorists hands prompted Obama to issue his most forceful comments yet about the situation.

During a White House press briefing, the president said, "We have put together a range of contingency plans.  We have communicated in no uncertain terms with every player in the region that that’s a red line for us."

As of now, al-Assad said he would only use these unconventional weapons that include mustard gas, sarin nerve agent and cyanide against invading armies.

The administration has been pressed by certain war hawks on Capitol Hill, particularly Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, to offer more direct assistance to rebels battling al-Assad's forces in what has become a do-or-die war for control of Syria.

Establishing a no-fly zone over Syria is more problematic than it was in Libya because al-Assad's air defense is more powerful, with about 20 times more surface-to-air missiles that could shoot down enemy aircraft.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Israeli Report Claims Obama Knows Iran Is Very Close to Nuclear Weapon

IIPA via Getty Images(JERUSALEM) -- An Israeli newspaper is reporting that President Obama was just given new intelligence that suggests Iran is much further along in developing a nuclear arsenal than previously believed.

According to Haaretz, the National Intelligence Estimate report, which is regularly updated, stated that "Iran has made surprising, notable progress in the research and development of key components of its military nuclear program."

The U.S. and Israel have been at odds over whether a preemptive military strike should be launched to destroy Iran's nuclear program that Tehran alleges is for peaceful purposes.

Israel contends that sanctions and diplomacy have done nothing to stop Iran's uranium enrichment operations -- the key to making atomic bombs -- while the White House says sanctions have devastated Iran's economy as the administration prefers to exhaust all non-military options first.

Asked about the veracity of the Israeli newspaper story on Thursday, White House press secretary Jay Carney said, "I don't comment on intelligence matters or intelligence reports the president may or may not have received.  I can tell you that the president remains committed to preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon."

Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that the NIE report, if true, "comes very close to our own estimate, I would say, as opposed to earlier American estimates.  It transforms the Iranian situation to an even more urgent one."

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Does Walesa Embrace of Romney Mean Poland Dislikes Obama?

JANEK SKARZYNSKI/AFP/GettyImages(GDANSK, Poland) -- When President Obama visited Poland last year, Prime Minister Donald Tusk told his American guest, “We feel that you are one of us.”

He didn’t go as far Monday, at least not publicly, following a meeting with Mitt Romney. But former Polish president Lech Walesa, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, did give his seal of approval to the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

“I wish you to be successful because this success is needed to the United States, of course, but to Europe and the rest of the world, too,” Walesa said through a translator. “Gov. Romney, get your success. Be successful!”

The endorsement of a U.S. presidential challenger, unusual in its boldness, was particularly eyebrow-raising in light of Walesa’s refusal to meet with Obama on his visit to Poland one year ago.

Walesa, the former leader of the Solidarity movement that helped bring down communism in Poland, cited scheduling conflicts at the time for why the two could not meet, though Walesa’s absence was widely interpreted in local news reports as a snub.

So what impact will Walesa’s embrace of Romney have on the 2012 presidential race?  Little, experts say, although it does symbolize a real sense of discontentment among many Poles and Polish-Americans over Obama’s handling of the bilateral alliance during his term.

“This is a powerful statement on Polish relations with the U.S. right now,” Alex Storozynski, president of the Kosciuszko Foundation, a nonpartisan Polish educational and cultural group, said of the Walesa endorsement.  “Poles in Poland are frustrated with the Obama administration.”

Top among the frustrations is an unfulfilled Obama promise from 2008 to add Poland to a list of visa waiver countries, a move that would allow freer flow of travel to and from the U.S. for families, business people and tourists.

Some Poles are also miffed by Obama’s “reset” policy with Russia, a longtime Polish nemesis, and his backing away from parts of a George W. Bush-era missile defense plan.

“They had courageously agreed to provide sites for our anti-missile systems, only to be told, at the last hour, that the agreement was off. As part of the so-called reset in policy, missile defenses were sacrificed as a unilateral concession to the Russian government,” Romney said of the Poles at a VFW convention in Reno last week.

President Obama also recently angered some Poles and Polish-Americans when he referred to “a Polish death camp” -- as opposed to a Nazi death camp in German-occupied Poland -- during remarks at the White House in May. The gaffe drew swift and stern public rebukes from Polish leaders that later led to a letter of regret from Obama to Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski.

“If he was ‘one of us’ he’d know that Germans did build those camps,” Storozynski said.

Still, there is ample evidence U.S.-Polish ties, particularly military, remain strong and that Walesa’s endorsement carries little sway.

Obama approved steps to assign a U.S. Air Force contingent to Poland beginning in 2013 as part of the NATO alliance. And both countries’ military leaders say they have close working relationships. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta hosted the Polish Defense Minister last week in Washington.

“Walesa is probably Poland’s best international statesman, not because he’s right, not because he knows what he’s talking about, but because of an aura of credibility from his past and the Nobel Prize. In many ways, he has more stature overseas than at home,” said John Micgiel, director of the East Central European Center at Columbia University.

“But what Mr. Walesa says doesn’t carry a lot of weight with Poles or Polish-Americans.  He thinks differently than most people,” he said.

Solidarity, the trade union group Walesa once led, disassociated itself from his comments Monday, saying in a statement that “Mitt Romney supported attacks on trade unions and employees’ rights.”

“Solidarity was not involved in organizing Romney’s meeting with Walesa and did not invite him to visit Poland,” the group said.

What does all of this mean for U.S. voters of Polish descent?

“They don’t see Obama as their candidate, or Mitt Romney as their candidate,” Micgiel said. “They are truly swing votes.”

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Obama Announces $70M In Military Aid for Israel

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- As Mitt Romney prepares to travel to Israel this weekend, President Obama announced today that he is releasing an additional $70 million in military aid for Israel.

The new funding is intended to help Israel boost production of a short-range rocket defense system, known as Iron Dome. “This is a program that has been critical in terms of providing security and safety for Israeli families. It is a program that has been tested and has prevented missile strikes inside of Israel… We're going to be able to lock in that funding to assure that that program continues and that we are standing by our friends in Israel when it comes to these kinds of attacks,” Obama told reporters in the Oval Office today.

As he reiterated his administration’s commitment to Israel, the president flubbed the amount of new aid, initially giving the correct $70 million figure and later saying it was actually $70 billion.

The president made the announcement as he signed the United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act. “What this legislation does is bring together all the outstanding cooperation that we have seen really at an unprecedented level between our two countries to underscore our unshakable commitment to Israel's security,” Obama explained.

The White House maintains the timing of today’s announcement and bill signing was not intended to upstage Romney’s foreign trip.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Romney Advisers Tell Brits Obama's ‘Comfortable with American Decline’

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images(LONDON) -- Mitt Romney would do a better job than President Obama of highlighting the Anglo-Saxon relationship between the U.S. and Britain, according to the London Telegraph’s interview with two Romney advisers who declined to give their name for the story.

“We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and he [Romney] feels that the special relationship is special,” an adviser told the British paper.  “The White House didn’t fully appreciate the shared history we have.”

One adviser also told the paper, “Obama is a left-winger.  He doesn’t value the NATO alliance as much.  He’s very comfortable with American decline and the traditional alliances don’t mean as much to him.  He wouldn’t like singing ‘Land of Hope and Glory.’”

The Telegraph reports that the advisers would not go on the record because they have been instructed to not insult the president in the foreign press.  The Romney campaign has also made it clear that it will not criticize the president during the six-day trip overseas.

Romney landed Wednesday morning in the U.K. at around 10:30 a.m. local time, arriving at his London hotel with his wife Ann shortly thereafter.  He has no public events scheduled on Wednesday.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

John McCain Goes Hard After Administration's Syria Policy

Mark Wilson/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Never one to mince words about his disagreements with the White House over foreign policy, Sen. John McCain went on the offensive again on Monday to blast President Obama for failing to get the U.S. involved in the Syrian conflict.

The Arizona Republican who lost to Obama in the 2008 presidential race has been quick to call out the commander in chief for allowing rebel forces in Syria to be greatly outmanned and out-equipped by the national army.

However, Monday's tirade reached new levels of acrimony even for McCain as he described the administration's policies to remain on the sidelines as "feckless," "disgraceful" and shameful."

According to McCain, "Because of our feckless foreign policy, we now have the danger of chemical weapons being transported to Hezbollah."  On Monday, a Syrian government spokesman seemed to confirm the existence of chemical weapons but later explained he was only talking in hypotheticals.

The GOP lawmaker added, "The president does not believe in American exceptionalism and doesn’t want America to lead."

In spite of his disagreement with Obama, McCain appeared to concur with the general sentiment of the White House that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will eventually have to step down.  The U.S. is reportedly working with Israel and Turkey in preparing for that possible scenario.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Obama, Putin React to Damascus Bombing

Pete Souza/The White House(WASHINGTON) -- The White House announced Wednesday that President Obama spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the earlier explosion in Damascus that killed Syria's defense minister and two other government officials, including the brother-in-law of President Bashar al-Assad.

At his daily press briefing, administration spokesman Jay Carney said the two leaders "agreed on the need to support a political transition as soon as possible that achieves our shared goal of ending the violence and avoiding a further deterioration of the situation."

Washington and Moscow have been at loggerheads over how to handle the conflict in Syria now in its 17th month with as many as 17,000 people having died in the fighting between al-Assad's forces and rebels intent on removing him from power.

Carney said that Obama and Putin would be working harder toward finding a solution even as the situation in Syria is "spinning out of control."

The press secretary said it's Obama's opinion that Wednesday's bombing proved that there will be no let-up in violence until a political transition has taken place, a point the U.S. is trying to get Moscow and Beijing to accept.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Obama Softens Some Sanctions on Burma

Alex Wong/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- President Obama today announced that his administration is easing restrictions on U.S. companies seeing to “responsibly do business in Burma.”

“Easing sanctions is a strong signal of our support for reform, and will provide immediate incentives for reformers and significant benefits to the people of Burma,” Obama said in a written statement.

The president was following up on his pledge from last November to “forge a new relationship” with Burma when that country’s repressive regime released some political prisoners, eased some restrictions on media and began a dialogue with prominent dissident and Nobel Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi.

The administration, however, specifically excluded “the armed forces and Ministry of Defense-owned entities” and, through an Executive Order, gave the Secretary of the Treasury the ability to expand sanctions “to those who undermine the reform process, engage in human rights abuses, contribute to ethnic conflict, or participate in military trade with North Korea.”

“This Order is a clear message to Burmese government and military officials: those individuals who continue to engage in abusive, corrupt, or destabilizing behavior going forward will not reap the rewards of reform,” Obama said in the statement.

The statement didn’t enumerate the specific restrictions that have been eased but added that “responsible investment will help facilitate broad-based economic development, and help bring Burma out of isolation and in to the international community.  My Administration will continue to support the Government of Burma in its efforts to work toward international standards for economic growth, responsible governance, and human rights.”

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio