Cooper: With Xi And Putin, ObamaIs Out Of Pope Moments

After several days of being on the same page with a world leader like Pope Francis, left, President Obama was to have his hands full with meetings with China Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladamir Putin.
After several days of being on the same page with a world leader like Pope Francis, left, President Obama was to have his hands full with meetings with China Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladamir Putin.

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Tennessee lawmakers weigh in on Pope Francis' address to Congress

As president and first golfer, Barack Obama is undoubtedly used to a lot of gimmes on the green.

He's had one in Washington, D.C., this week with Pope Francis, who echoed the president's thoughts on illegal immigration and climate change (though the two differ greatly on abortion and gay marriage).

But, with time running out in an administration fraught with foreign policy disasters, Obama has the unique opportunity to meet with both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russia President Vladamir Putin over a span of several days here in the United States.

How to handle the two is decidedly no gimme.

Whether he remains the cool, not-my-worry leader he's been up to now with the two powerful nations or whether he begins to talk and act tough to counter recent moves by the two nations is the central question.

Obama was expected to raise with the Chinese leader recent cyberattacks on American companies and government agencies, Xi's silencing of dissidents and lawyers in China, and the country's annexation of disputed islands and atolls in the South China Sea.

One of the cyberattacks, believed to have come from the communist country, resulted in the theft of 22 million security dossiers and 5.6 million fingerprints from the Office of Personnel Management.

Obama reportedly has been considering economic sanctions on China, which has denied all the cyberattack allegations, but decided to take no actions until after he could meet with Xi.

Such sanctions helped bring Iran to the table for nuclear talks several years ago before the U.S. concluded the deal earlier this year by caving in on nearly every issue surrounding the Middle East country's nuclear program.

With Putin, his country's military build-up in Syria and its continued aggression in Ukraine - following its March 2014 annexation of the Crimea - are likely to be the topics of conversation.

In recent months, Russia has sent weapons, troops and supplies to an airport near the Syrian coastal city of Latakia - and may be developing two additional military bases - in an effort to bolster the presidency of lawless leader Bashar al-Assad, who has been responsible for gassing villages and dropping barrel bombs on civilians.

In the Ukraine, although a ceasefire has been in place since February, Russia - despite U.S. economic sanctions put in place over the Crimea seizure - has continued to meddle in the dispute between the country and separatist rebels.

Both China and Russia have made some of the aforementioned aggressive moves because the U.S. abroad is perceived to be weak under Obama and unlikely to respond. Thus, the stances he takes with the countries in the individual talks are likely to determine how the relationship between the U.S. and the two countries will be - and how China and Russia will, in turn, react abroad - for the remainder of his administration. We suggest those stances be stronger.

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