[DCWhispers] Since becoming President of the United States and this nation's Commander in Chief, Barack Obama has had a consistently strained relationship between himself and the U.S. military. It appears that relationship has reached an all new low following what some are indicating to be among the most lopsided and disastrous negotiations in all of American history.General Dempsey is said to have made repeated overtures to the White House in the final weeks of the now infamous Iran nuclear negotiations. The primary sticking point was the administration's initial desire to immediately lift restrictions on conventional weapons sales to the Iranian government, an action lobbied for heavily by both Russia and China who hope to make billions off of future military deals with Iran.
Dempsey was repeatedly pushed off to State Department officials who assured the Joint Chiefs Chairman his concerns would be "shared with others" within the State Department and that he would be better served limiting the sharing of his views with Secretary of Defense, Ashton Carter. This process is rumored to have first annoyed Dempsey and then eventually infuriated him to the point he was openly criticizing a sitting president to military staff, something said to be well beyond his normal pattern of behavior.
"General Dempsey has always been a company guy. That's why the White House put him there. They wanted someone who kept quiet and followed orders. That relationship began to fall apart during the Iran nuclear negotiations and then blew up in the final days when he went to Congress and on record issued a public ultimatum. There was to be no immediate allowance for weapons sales to Iran by other nations. Instead, the Obama White House and Iranian representatives agreed to continue freezing such sales for an additional five to eight years. The White House blinked."
If he was feeling any satisfaction over getting at least some of his concerns finally addressed, General Dempsey was apparently not sharing that satisfaction with those around him. Instead, staff close to the general had this to say regarding the Obama White House:
"Rank amateurs and the most dangerous kind of arrogance. China dominated these negotiations from the beginning to the end and the White House seemed more than happy to let it happen."