Barack Obama wants to “do nothing” on the world stage and the United Nations is a “laughing stock”, according to new Labour MP Stephen Kinnock.
The husband of the Danish Prime Minister launched a full-blooded attack on the American president last night as he also bemoaned the failures of international institutions such as the World Bank.
The Aberavon MP, son of former Labour leader Neil Kinnock, claimed the Western leaders have “profound misunderstandings” about the sheer level of Russia’s “resentment” towards the West.
His attack on President Obama is likely to raise eyebrows in Washington thanks to his marriage to Helle Thorning-Schmidt, who is seeking re-election as Denmark’s leader.
Ms Thorning-Schmidt was snapped laughing with President Obama as they posed for a selfie at the memorial for Nelson Mandela in 2013.
Speaking in the residence of the Danish ambassador to the UK, Claus Grube, Mr Kinnock said: “We have never seen a time where we have such a risk adverse and timid global leadership - President Obama with his dogma of strategic patience, which to me just seems like an excuse to do nothing.
“We have European Union member states squabbling amongst themselves constantly looking to make headlines in their own national capitals rather than actually recognising the only way to create a resilient global and regional system is by compromising, cooperating, collaborating.”
President Obama, Ms Thorning-Schmidt and David Cameron at Nelson Mandela's memorial
Mr Kinnock also turned his guns on some of the key international organisations, and said: “The global institutions are totally inadequate.
“The United Nations, I’m very disappointed and sad to say this, I think it’s become something of a laughing stock.
“I think that there’s big questions about the legitimacy of the IMF, the World Bank, which are still dominated by the industrialised Western powers in the world where money and powers are shifted so much from west to east and from north to south.”
Speaking about the “truly worrying” threat to the West from Moscow, Mr Kinnock – who lived in Russia for four years – said: “There are profound misunderstandings of the Russian psyche.
“Having lived and worked there I understand…I think the only way to really understand Russia is to have been there and to see how much resentment there is about the way Russia feels its been treated down the years by the West, how much of a feeling of conspiracy feelings are all around and so we have to take that into account.”
President Obama has faced criticism from Republicans over his perceived lack of strategy for dealing with ISIS.
Leon Panetta, one of President Obama’s former Defence Secretary’s, also attacked the US leader for rowing back from his “red line” over Syria’s use of chemical weapons in that country’s civil war.
In his memoirs, published last October, Mr Panetta said: “The power of the United States rests on its word, and clear signals are important both to deter adventurism and to reassure allies that we can be counted on.”
Last week, the current Secretary of Defence Ashton Carter claimed it was the UK which risked “disengagement” from the world if David Cameron did not commit two per cent of national wealth on military spending.