Accusing the White House of sending a “very foggy” message to the Middle East, Rudy Giuliani said the administration needs to publicly amp up support for Israel, has fallen “behind the curve” on Libya, and should be doing more to encourage regime-toppling revolutions in places like Iran.
The former New York City mayor, who is weighing a run for president, spoke with POLITICO after returning from a three-day stint in the Jewish state, where he spoke at the Haifa Chamber of Commerce and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, among others.
"With all that's going on in the Middle East, the U.S. first of all has to appreciate even more the state of Israel as a country that is a stable democracy, What we see throughout the Middle East right now... [is that] Israel remains the sole source of stability for that entire region, and our support for Israel has always been there, but this is probably a time at which we should emphasize that support."
Giuliani said he encountered up close a sense from Israelis that the U.S. backing for the Jewish state isn't as strong as it could be — a constant refrain from some Jewish leaders in America. Obama last week met with a group of Jewish leaders at the White House amid some of those concerns.
As for the uprisings that have been sweeping across the Arab world, Giuliani said the White House is sending a “foggy message” to the region, adding that he'd "like to see the administration use this opportunity… to define democracy and freedom as being about not just elections, but about the principles of a democratic society so that the elections mean something."
"It looks like America is behind the curve and that's not a place for America to be if we are... the bastion for freedom and democracy," Giuliani said."Why shouldn't we take advantage of this and [support] the same type of thing happening in places like Iran and Syria, I haven't heard that from the administration, and the president needs to do that because he's left a certain amount of confusion."
"They said they didn't jump aboard the situation in Libya right away because they were afraid that that would make it impossible to get Americans out of Libya. ... Now, what you're saying to these authoritarian goverments is, ‘Keep Americans then,’ because if you keep Americans there then you neutralize America."