Friday, July 12, 2013

Washington Post Editorial, "Obama’s feckless Syria policy is likely to fail": The Anti-Leader Struts His Stuff

Today, in an editorial entitled "Obama’s feckless Syria policy is likely to fail" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obamas-feckless-syria-policy-is-likely-to-fail/2013/07/11/3e22468a-ea4b-11e2-aa9f-c03a72e2d342_story.html?hpid=z3), The Washington Post savages the president's failure to take any action whatsoever involving the Syrian calamity:

"IT HAS been a month since the White House informed journalists that President Obama had decided to supply Syrian rebels with light arms. Since then, the regime has launched a bloody new offensive in the city of Homs, using heavy artillery and rockets to attack residential areas held by the rebels. Thousands of people have been killed, adding to a death toll approaching 100,000. President Bashar al-Assad has been boasting of his military successes and of the failure of outside powers to bring down his regime. Meanwhile, the United States has failed to deliver any of the promised munitions to beleaguered rebel forces — 'not even a single bullet,' one source told The Post’s David Ignatius.

The delay can be attributed in part to congressional resistance: According to reporting by The Post’s Karen DeYoung, the administration’s plan has drawn objections from members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, which are responsible for reviewing covert operations. But the larger problem is an extraordinary failure of leadership by Mr. Obama. While deciding on intervention in a fateful Middle East war, the president has chosen a minimalist option likely to fail while declining to publicly explain or justify his actions.

. . . .


Mr. Obama’s fecklessness on Syria has baffled and alarmed important U.S. allies, including Turkey and Israel, which wonder if the United States can still be counted on as a force in the region. It has emboldened not just Mr. Assad but also Iran, which has been stepping up its own intervention in Syria in the belief that it will not be countered. Now the president is failing to deliver even on the modest action he decided on. It’s a spectacle that can only harm U.S. standing in the Middle East — and prolong Syria’s bloodshed."

Obama is feckless? Yes.

Obama has a Syria policy? No, unless "leading from behind" falls into this category.

Obama has emboldened Assad and Iran? Absolutely. Also add to the list Russia's President Putin, who has become openly contemptuous of Obama.

An extraordinary failure of leadership by Mr. Obama? Get serious, boys and girls. What did you really expect?

What a mess.

2 comments:

  1. Jeff, there are real reasons for concerns.
    -Obama is stalking Mandela in the hope that when Mandela dies, he'll be able to reemerge as ... Mandela. Try to criticize him them.
    - Kerry does something which looks totally insane - he goes through the same totally senseless motions pretending to do something useful.
    - the world is really collapsing.
    Something isn't normal in this fiddling when the world around is burning.
    It is one thing to fiddle when there is relative stability, it's another thing when the world is on fire. I don't want to spend my time wondering whether it's madness or criminality, but something is really, really, really wrong.
    The analogy which comes to mind it ... the FSU. When the Soviet people were starving in their tiny shared communal spaces, they also also were ... feeling for poor American workers, suffering in their suburban houses and poor French workers spending August on the Riviera, etc.
    Again, there is madness in the air, and it's scary.
    Someone HAS to bring reality to Washington (and Europe - Ashton)

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  2. I think I should add, clarify. My analogy isn't probably clear, or isn't even a good one. I just wanted to say that this was a case of ideology (capitalism is bad, unlike of course Soviet paradise) overriding reality.
    This is exactly what we have now.
    Kerry's sitting in Israel now and babbling about peace now is as sane as the Soviet leaders' (or regular citizens') feeling ... for everyone, but themselves (I mean citizens).
    Again, can someone bring some sense into this nonsense?

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