Washington Post Editorial, "The Middle East’s mounting danger": Pax Obama or Pox Obama?

"I can't answer a question, that you can't give me the question to."

- Chuck Hagel, House Hearing, Bergdahl release, June 11, 2014

You don't believe Hagel said this? Listen for yourself (see: http://freebeacon.com/national-security/chuck-hagel-doesnt-know/):



Okay, so what if Obama appointed Chuck Hagel, most kindly characterized as a cretin, as secretary of defense? And so what if Obama appointed John Kerry, who once labeled Bashar al-Assad his "dear friend" and whose attempts to resculpt the Middle East and his craggy face have met with derision and failure, as secretary of state? Why should the US require leadership in such posts when pax Obama has changed the future direction of America and mankind?

The answer is to be found in the latest fly in the president's Coke-and-a-smile foreign policy ointment: the collapse of Iraq, which is a direct consequence of Obama's almost total abrogation of responsibility involving a genocidal civil war in Syria.

As observed today in a scalding Washington Post editorial entitled "The Middle East’s mounting danger" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-middle-easts-mounting-danger/2014/06/11/bda10008-f180-11e3-bf76-447a5df6411f_story.html?hpid=z4):

"FOR YEARS, President Obama has been claiming credit for 'ending wars,' when, in fact, he was pulling the United States out of wars that were far from over. Now the pretense is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain.

On Monday, a loathsome offshoot of al-Qaeda, the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, captured Mosul, one of Iraq’s most important cities, seizing large caches of modern weaponry and sending half a million civilians fleeing in terror. ISIS, which can make the original al-Qaeda look moderate, controls large swaths of territory stretching from northern Syria into Iraq. On Tuesday, militants advanced toward Baghdad, capturing Tikrit and other cities.

If Iraq joins Syria in full-fledged civil war, the danger to U.S. allies in Israel, Turkey, Jordan and the Kurdish region of Iraq is immense. These terrorist safe havens also pose a direct threat to the United States, according to U.S. officials."

Should America indeed be worried? As reported in a New York Times article entitled "Sunni Fighters Gain as They Battle 2 Governments, and Other Rebels" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/12/world/middleeast/the-militants-moving-in-on-syria-and-iraq.html?hp&_r=0) by Thanassis Cambanis:

"Having seized vast areas of Iraqi territory and several large and strategic cities, including the country’s second-biggest, Mosul, [the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria] controls territory greater than many countries and now rivals, and perhaps overshadows, Al Qaeda as the world’s most powerful and active jihadist group.

. . . .

In areas that fall under their control, the jihadists work carefully to entrench their rule. They have attracted the most attention with their draconian enforcement of a fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic Shariah law, including the execution of Christians and Muslims deemed kufar, or infidels."

In short, ISIL has gone unchecked, and yes, there would appear to be dire consequences on the horizon  resulting from Obama's "leadership from behind."

But not to worry: Chuck Hagel and John Kerry have it all under control for the president . . . not.