In the 2012 presidential debate between the congenitally smarmy and clownish Barack Obama and the hapless and fearful of offending Mitt Romney, Barack Obama leveled this charge against Romney:

OBAMA: Governor Romney, I’m glad that you recognize that Al Qaida is a threat, because a few months ago when you were asked what’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia, not Al Qaida; you said Russia, in the 1980s, they’re now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because, you know, the Cold War’s been over for 20 years

But Governor, when it comes to our foreign policy, you seem to want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s, just like the social policies of the 1950s and the economic policies of the 1920s.

Obama was wrong then. But if he had been right, then the testimony of his own nominee to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine General Joe Dunford would have provided damning appraisal on the fecklessness of Obama’s foreign policy:

During his confirmation hearing Thursday morning, President Barack Obama’s pick to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Joe Dunford, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Vladimir Putin’s Russia ranked No.1.

Moscow’s behavior is “nothing short of alarming,” the general said, adding that “Russia presents the greatest threat to our national security” and “could pose an existential threat to the United States.”

If Chief Justice John Roberts is reading this, we’re using a dictionary where this is found:

An existential threat is a threat to something’s survival.

One of the critical geo-political errors made by George H. W. Bush was treating Russia, the successor state to the USSR, as some sort of pet Yorkie that could be made to perform tricks rather than a nuclear-armed kleptocracy ruled by, as George Patton would have said, ‘recently civilized Mongolian bandits.’ George Bush was getting the formula right when he left office. He had looked into Putin’s soul and beheld a seething, effervescing puddle of hate and corruption.

China may be our most dangerous adversary. Iran is the one most likely to do something really ugly. But Russia is the only nation in the world that has set out to pick a fight with the United States for no other reason than Putin needs a permanent enemy to fight in order to remain in power. This was obvious in 2009. It is staggeringly obvious today.

So Obama owes the nation answers to several question.

Is General Dunford right?

If not, why are you appointing a man with a fatally flawed strategic vision?

If Russia is an existential threat to the United States, when did this come to pass?

Were you lying in 2012 to score cheap debate points?

If not, where do you screw the pooch in the intervening 3 years to make Russia an existential threat?