At a campaign event in western Iowa, Michele Bachmann spoke about the key foreign policy issues of defending Israel and challenging Iranian influence in the Middle East — and declared that other countries ought to be afraid of the United States.
“That’s the problem today in foreign policy: You want the other nations to fear us,” Bachmann said, the Des Moines Register reports. “They don’t fear us today. They laugh at us. This is serious. The United States is being mocked at and laughed at. We’re the military super power of the world and we’re being mocked at and laughed at and being disrespected?”
After Bachmann further declared, “I will use absolutely everything in our arsenal against the Iranians, because they need to know that they should fear the United States,” a man in the audience interrupted and asked whether the U.S. should be feared — or respected?
“We want both,” Bachmann replied. “We want to be both feared and respected. Number one, you want respect. But when you’re respected you’re also feared.”
