Posted on 01/25/2015 6:25:10 AM PST by HomerBohn
President Barack Obama will cut short his three-day trip to India and visit Saudi Arabia to pay respects after the death of King Abdullah, U.S. and Indian officials said Saturday.
The schedule change, announced shortly before Obama left for India, means the president will skip plans to see the Taj Mahal, and instead pay a call on an influential U.S. ally in the volatile Mideast.
The king, who died Friday, was aggressive in trying to check the spreading power of Saudi Arabia's chief rival, Iran. Obama visited the ailing monarch in his desert compound last March.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the president and first lady Michelle Obama would travel to Riyadh on Tuesday and meet with new Saudi King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud. Vice President Joe Biden was to lead a U.S. delegation, but Earnest said the White House changed plans after determining that Biden's trip coincided with Obama's departure from India. Biden will remain in Washington.
The more substantive portions of Obama's trip to India appeared unlikely to change.
Obama was due to arrive Sunday for meetings with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, then attend Monday's annual Republic Day festivities, which mark the day in 1950 that India's constitution came into force.
Relations between the world's two largest democracies are strengthening after recent tensions. Obama and Modi developed a good rapport during the prime minister's visit in Washington last fall.
Modi's invitation to Obama caught some in the U.S. off guard.
"It took us by some surprise," said Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser. "There's a great affinity between the United States and India and our people, but there's also a history that is complicated and that would have made it seem highly unlikely that a U.S. president would be sitting with India's leaders at their Republic Day ceremony."
While in India, Obama also planned to meet with Modi and attend an economic summit with U.S. and Indian business leaders.
Obama will be the first U.S. president to visit India twice while in office; he also traveled there in 2010 for an economic summit.
His trip was expected to be heavy on symbolism and lighter on substantive advances, though climate change, economics and defense ties are on the agenda. Still, U.S. and Indian officials appear to agree that even a symbolic show of solidarity would mark progress after recent difficulties.
While military cooperation and U.S. defense sales have grown, Washington has been frustrated by India's failure to open up to more foreign investment and to address complaints alleging intellectual property violations. India's liability legislation has also prevented U.S. companies from capitalizing on a landmark civil nuclear agreement between the two countries in 2008.
Relations hit a new low in 2013 when India's deputy consul general was arrested and strip-searched in New York over allegations that she lied on visa forms to bring her maid to the U.S. while paying the woman a pittance. The official's treatment caused outrage in New Delhi, and India retaliated against U.S. diplomats.
Modi's hosting of Obama caps a year of high-profile diplomatic maneuvers by a leader denied a U.S. visa in 2005, three years after religious riots killed more than 1,000 Muslims in the Indian state where he was the top elected official.
The visit ties in with Modi's election promise that he would turn around Asia's third-largest economy. It also could send a message to Pakistan and China - India's closest neighbors and rivals - that Modi has a powerful ally in the United States.
The White House plans to push India on climate change, particularly after reaching a sweeping agreement with China on limiting carbon emissions. Accompanying Obama are several U.S. business leaders hoping to forge new partnerships with India.
Here we have a parasitic, braying jackass of a president who petulantly refuses to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, because Congress did not ask his permission for the PM to address Congress.
We can only hope that the blunderer doesn't attempt to hop in the casket with Kink Abdullah in order to have a one-way conversation with a corpse or to kiss his ass one last time.
The childishness of the faggot is sickening.
Maybe he’ll take an AsianAir flight instead of Air Force One.
Hey, perhaps he can count this as his Hajj and thereby fulfill his obligation?
Maybe he should bring Cat Stevens along to sing Peace Train at the funeral.
“The White House plans to push India on climate change, particularly after reaching a sweeping agreement with China on limiting carbon emissions. Accompanying Obama are several U.S. business leaders hoping to forge new partnerships with India.”
Can you say “Eco-profiteering”. That’s what the whole trip is about, finding ways to milk the cash cow for his big business buddies. Think about it....
Bowing down before the new Muslim king? MANDATORY!
I bet that Ted Nugent could play something appropriate.
Is this as bad as it can get for the USA? I said that when Carter was elected in ‘76. I was wrong, never dreamed of the current train wreck. I knew it would be bad but it's very, very bad indeed...
Best idea.
Bring along Billy Goat Clinton to blow on his saxophone some wailing, sad Muslim tune.
Maybe Obama will seek political asylum. He remembers what happened to those Romanians.
Actually, I don’t think our satirical imaginations are wild enough to conceive of anything that will embarrass our country more than that which the Obola administration will deploy in utmost sincerity.
You nailed it. Muslim suck-up using diplomacy as an excuse to catch some Islamic goodvibes.
Still can’t figure where O sits in the Sunni-Shia rivalry, though.
Ummm...the guy’s already been planted. So is he going so he can swear fealty to the new king?
Hey! We should not be surprised when he does the Mecca thingy. He could rightly wear a burka.
With his non-stop flipping us off, it would be quite reasonable for him to have to keep raising the “in yo face MoFo” bar.
I bet that Ted Nugent could SLAY something appropriate.
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