Monday, April 29, 2013

Smart foreign policy

In 2011, America got a splendid gift from the Middle East - the Syrian "reformer" and John Kerry's "Dear Friend" finally got in trouble with his own population. Today, Syria is battleground, a place where Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Lebanese Hezbollah fight against Al Qaeda. The war between American bitter enemies brings to mind Henry Kissinger's famous quip about the Iran-Iraq war: "It's a shame they can't both lose". What a smart US president would do in this case? He would try to stay as non-committal as possible, and say his thanks to God that helped his country.

But being a smart president is not something Barack Obama is capable of doing. As someone previously noted, ""He wants to be the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral, and the baby at every christening". And so Obama, in the best traditions, "acted stupidly" - he decided that the world simply cannot survive if he keeps him mouth shut - and he announced that if Assad used chemical weapons, that would be a game changer, and would provoke America to do something really-really drastic.

And in 2013 it became undeniable that Assad used the chemical weapons against the rebels - and even Obama's Secretary of Defense conceded that fact - together with about half a dozen countries. It also became quite clear that our president has no idea what to do next and even felt remorseful for "acting stupidly". If Obama ignores the use of chemical weapons, the world will judge him and the country as non-serious. Israel will finally conclude that all Obama's pronouncements about nuclear Iran were worthless. If Obama decides to send the US troops to fight in Syria, he will screw up a perfectly fine conflict between Iran and Al Qaeda - and Syria will likely look even worse than Libya after Obama's war.

Even the Democrats noticed that Obama put the credibility of this country on the line. Rep. David Cicilline, a Democratic member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said that “There’s no question that when the United States takes a position that this crosses a line, that our failure to respond has implications. So that if we, in fact, determine that chemical weapons were used, I think the expectation is that we and the coalition and others take some action.”

The most amazing thing about our president is that he is capable to take a perfectly good situation and turn it against the interests of this country. This man has a serious talent of turning anything he touches into shit. Too bad American people were stupid enough to elect him twice. We all will pay for this in the decades to come.

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