Obama’s Ideological Holiday in Havana by Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post
The split screen told the story: on one side, images of the terror bombing in Brussels; on the other, Barack Obama doing the wave with Raúl Castro at a baseball game in Havana.
On one side, the real world of rising global terrorism. On the other, the Obama fantasy world in which romancing a geopolitically insignificant Cuba — without an ounce of democracy or human rights yielded in return — is considered a seminal achievement of American diplomacy.
Cuba wasn’t so much a legacy trip as a vanity trip, vindicating the dorm-room enthusiasms of one’s student days when the Sandinistas were cool, revolution was king and every other friend had a dog named Che…
Comments
An interesting question arises...why do the western leaders ie Obama really need strategies when they do not act anyway???
Putin ignores Minsk & Assad the Syrian Ceasefire.
EU/US leaders absolutely know that but look away & hope to sit it out.
They are so wrong..
The main parallel between Ukraine and Syria is the self-deceit of the west to suppress its responsibility to act.
A valid question actually....
That highly touted Obama WH Iran Deal strategy is really working out now for the US in Syria.....those "moderates" can be counted on.....
Iran will continue escalating its involvement in Syria after Obama recognized its "legitimate defense concerns".......ie a land corridor to Hezbollah and Syria a largely Arab Sunni nation state inside the Iranian sphere of influence.......
Iraqi Badr Military Wing posted new photos of some more of their troops heading to Syria to crush terrorists ie Sunni's and FSA.
Aleppo Commander of Badr Military Wing in Syria visiting some troops.
BTW........
I had Sunni's in Diyala Province in 2005 already warning me that the real threat was not the Sunni's BUT Badr Corp.
BTW Badr answers to the IRGC.........
A major side effect of this poorly thought through Obama strategy is the following and it is coming.........
There will not be peace in Syria until Iran & its proxy forces sees confrontation only possible at this stage by Saudi-led Islamic coalition
BUT WAIT.....Obama in his Goldberg interview basically told KSA they should accept "a cold peace" and should "share the region" whatever that means to Obama????
AND the Obama WH strategies "thing" just keeps on getting worse......
America is now in a proxy war with... itself in Syria, as Pentagon and CIA-backed militias repeatedly exchange fire http://ln.is/chicagotribune.com/NUGzP …
How is that Obama WH Iranian strategy working out now?
Fallout from IranDeal is as promising as fallout from Reset with Putin
Al Arabiya English
✔ @AlArabiya_Eng BREAKING: Iran's leader Khamenei says those who say future is in negotiations rather than missiles, are wrong
http://ara.tv/mffvv
Remember it was the Obama intellectual argument that the "moderates" would come forth and led Iran and thus be supportive of the long term Obama vision for the ME??
This is what happens when there is no thorough and open discussion around a strategy...any strategy......
Remember the recent SWJ WaPo article on the highly successful Obama WH Syrian/IS strategy that was working...and "we just did not get it"?
This has happened on the Obama WH watch that they seem to have totally overlooked with dealing with Assad then and now...after dropping their four year demand that Assad must go in order to appease Putin.
This is a big deal for the Syrian anti Assad opposition.......
Pro-Assad MP Ahmad Shlash confirm Ural's death and vows to retaliate in #Idlib.
Mihrac Ural led the May 2013 massacre of Baniyas at the Syrian coast. Hundreds of women & children were executed.
Video from Baniyas during the 2013 massacre filmed by the killers themselves. #Syria (GRAPHIC)
http://youtu.be/hUkB9uBqNY8
This is often totally forgotten by the entire West especially the Obama WH when they claim their so called strategy is working.
Excellent research and journalism by @JulianRoepcke for @BILD - HUGE implications for Ukraine/EU/NATO/UN https://twitter.com/JulianRoepcke/status/715048667821027328 …
BTW this reporter had a large Twitter following on his Syrian and Ukraine blog sites for years before he was hired by BILD....
BILD has been one of the most aggressive western MSM against Putin's actions in both Ukraine and Syria...shame it is not matched as much by US MSM...as they have successfully merged traditional MSM with the online social media world...a good example for other western MSM outlets and their printed newspapers sales have climbed massively because of it.
For years many German turned away from BILD as it was considered to be a "conservative anti communist/Soviet Union" yellow press newspaper but now it is considered to be a quick read for well written, fact checked and well informed political news.....
This just crossed the social media side......
Air Force Freak @AlRFORCEFREAK
#RUAF bomber 28807 in contact with ground control. Passing long coded message.
Nuclear-capable bombers airborne - Is this Kremlin's response to exposé of Donbas Commission by @JulianRoepcke? ;) https://twitter.com/AlRFORCEFREAK/status/715044756452155392 …
Air Force Freak @AlRFORCEFREAK
#RUAF strategic air Il-78 tanker 78346 passing coded message to ground control. So likely also Tu-95s or Tu-160s airborne.
Air Force Freak @AlRFORCEFREAK
@Sigint67n at least two a/c so far
28807
78346
Latitude 67N SIGINT @Sigint67n
RUAF strategic sw net up w voice traffic. Tu22/95/160 up today?
Over on the Ukrainian 2016 thread...I will post an extensive amount of social media open source analysis that actually defines the depth of the Russian military invasion of Ukraine....that has been developed over the last few months from extensive 2014 Google Map/Earth data that YES one would assume even the US IC has from their billions invested into ISR...BUT strangely the Obama WH has chosen to not release as it might clash with their early on defined "incursion" vs "invasion" convoluted word choice.
Another failure in the so called Obama list of strategies has been eastern Ukraine..if we go back and look at the Obama WH's early declaration that the Russians were on an "incursion" which sounds strangely like a "vacation" NOT an actual military "invasion" which denotes a military annexation THEN we would not be seeing this released here in Berlin late yesterday evening for this mornings news cycle.
Read and slowly ask yourself...is Putin actually annexing eastern Ukraine, trying to freeze it or just using it as a negotiation tactic.....there is only one choice....full annexation just as he did in Crimea.
Julian Rpcke @JulianRoepcke
Exclusive @BILD
Putin's shadow government for Donbass exposed
http://www.bild.de/politik/ausland/u...2202.bild.html
THIS development did not take some by any surprise in Ukraine as it has been privately talked about for the last six months...the US Obama WH has apparently been pushing back on this development as not so important...BUT it is.
AND even if Ukraine fully adhered to Minsk 2 Russia will never return eastern Ukraine nor the border to Ukraine.
Something the Obama WH has been basically trying to ignore until Obama is out of office....basically they are throwing over the fence to the next US President to figure out and yet they have had over two years to do something substantial YET nothing really outside of just talk and a lot of Kerry/Nuland trips to Russia.
Any Obama strategy for this development..and do not tell me his US IC did not know about it??
"@Ukr_Che: ОТРК "Искандер" ВС РФ на Хмеймиме " Russian Iskander E missile system spotted in Syria.
BTW...nuclear and chemical capable......
This has been now photo confirmed and a serious threat to Israel......and Turkey and the US and NATO pulled out their Patriots.......
So now there are reports confirming that Assad received loads of Iskander-E 300 km range missiles from Russia
QUESTION..Erdogan is visiting now Obama and this just "leaked out".....??
Appears that Turkey can play FP as well as Obama....
Remember the "herding cats video".........I am not the only one beating up the President...and I am not in the US.....
BTW...this article is far harsher than what I post here if you ask me as he has at least a reputation to defend in his articles...I just sit in Berlin and watch the ground reality tell me what reality is these days and ask the simple question WHY....again the Obama WH is a bunch of cats being herded towards 2017 and his legacy....AND Obama simply has again and I will repeat it...not a single coherent strategy for anything......
Taken today from the Syrian 2016 thread.....
http://thefederalist.com/2016/03/28/...able-quagmire/
How President Obama Made Syria An Unfixable Quagmire
With nearly half a million dead and U.S. proxies fighting each other, Syria represents a failure of U.S. strategy and a lack of presidential leadership.
Tom Nichols
By Tom Nichols
March 28, 2016
QUOTE
It didn’t have to be like this.
The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that Syrian opposition forces backed by the CIA and the Pentagon are now fighting each other. (Buzzfeed’s Mike Giglio actually wrote this story more than a month ago, with the simple but true headline: “America Is In A Proxy War With Itself In Syria.”) The Syrian conflagration has entered the phase where pretty much everyone shoots at everyone else: “Any faction that attacks us,” an officer from the one of the CIA-supported groups told the LA Times, “regardless from where it gets its support, we will fight it.”
Well, of course they will. Every group in Syria is now in a Hobbesian free-for-all. The death toll is now climbing toward the half-million mark. No one has any incentive to do anything but kill or be killed.
There will be no settlement. The recent “cease-fire” is the Russian variant of that term—used the same way by the Russians in Ukraine these days—meaning “a period of combat in which the Russians help the Americans pretend that no one is fighting.” The Russians, of course, claim they’ve left Syria, when they mean they’ve flexed enough muscle and killed enough of Bashar Assad’s enemies that they can now leave a smaller force in place. Assad remains in power, and likely will stay there.
It’s easy to read about this situation—best described by a compound noun that includes the word “cluster”—and reach the conclusion that the U.S. intelligence and military establishments have no idea what they’re doing. The problem, however, is not with American tactical and operational excellence: we have that in abundance. Rather, Syria represents a failure of U.S. strategy and a lack of presidential leadership.
Failing to Act Is to Act
Of course, this kind of story fuels the critics who believe President Obama made the right decision to stay out of the Syrian conflict. This, however, represents a fundamental error of logic. The situation in Syria today is not a vindication of President Obama’s decision, it is the result of that decision.
The situation in Syria today is not a vindication of President Obama’s decision, it is the result of that decision.
Or, more accurately, it is the result of the president’s lack of a decision. Remember, Syria looks as it does in 2016 because the Obama administration’s response to the use of chemical weapons was to outsource U.S. security management to Vladimir Putin. We will never know if Assad could have been toppled, or by whom; the Russians rendered those questions moot when they intervened.
They continue to do so at will, and Assad will now exterminate every rebel of any stripe. (Killing anyone involved in ISIS is just a coincidence at this point, at least for Assad and the Russians.)
Meanwhile, in the absence of a clear strategy, U.S. national security institutions are doing what they think they’re supposed to be doing. What we’re seeing in Syria is what happens when large organizations, lacking direction from a strategic center, continue with their organizational priorities. They will do what they’re good at, whether it makes strategic sense or not. Without coordination and an imposed strategy, they will default to trying to keep alive the people they know and to protect the assets they have in place.
This is what happens in a strategic vacuum: operations take the place of strategy.
We’ll Allow a Disaster, Then Use It to Justify Our Inaction
Critics of any proposed intervention ask: “Well, what would you do now,” always posing the question as if the previous three years didn’t happen. As I note regularly, this is like driving a car off a cliff and then handing the steering wheel to your screaming passenger and saying: “Fine, you drive.”
This is like driving a car off a cliff and then handing the steering wheel to your screaming passenger and saying: ‘Fine, you drive.’
It’s too late for a coherent strategy of intervention, but it is the zenith of hypocrisy to allow a situation to deteriorate into utter disaster and then to point to that same disaster as the justification for never intervening. It is not only circular logic, it is dishonest and intentionally so.
A wiser policy three or four years ago might have averted this mess. I count how I and so many others called for a better U.S. policy not in months or years, but in deaths. By that measure, I was arguing for a more active approach to Syria more than 450,000 deaths ago. Among the measures that should have been taken: creating safe havens, no-fly zones, and destroying Syrian air assets and airfields.
Had these actions been taken with strategic clarity—that is, with the clear intention of destroying the Assad regime’s ability to commit mass murder and averting the opening for a Russian intervention—I do not believe a ground invasion would have been necessary (or wise).
But we’ll never know. Syria is a charnel house now, and Russia is ascendant in the Middle East (as John Schindler and I predicted three years ago), precisely because the White House refused to make any substantive decision at all. Mostly, our policy in Syria seems aimed at protecting the president’s legacy: perhaps his future library will have a display of the Syrian catastrophe with a plaque assuring visitors that Barack Obama, for eight years, held firm to a course of “not being George Bush,” or “not doing stupid ####” or some of the other deep thoughts that have emanated from the Obama foreign policy shop.
Now It’s Too Late to Do Much of Anything
These quips might be good guidance for the team worried about the president’s standing on the bookshelves of academic historians, but they aren’t much help for soldiers and intelligence operatives trying to keep people alive in a country undergoing a savage meltdown.
No campaign can or should promise to fix Syria: that time was hundreds of thousands of deaths and a million refugees ago.
Speaking of books, the administration’s United Nations ambassador, Samantha Power, wrote an entire volume—an excellent one that I assign in my classes at Harvard—about crises like this one. It had lots of helpful advice about how to see such catastrophes coming and how to respond to them.
Apparently, no one listens to her, including the president. She did try, apparently, to raise such issues with Obama. The president’s response, according to Jeffrey Goldberg? “Samantha, enough. I’ve read your book.”
So, without a strategy, Power does what UN ambassadors do. She goes to New York and makes speeches. The rest of the government, likewise set on autopilot, does whatever it can do. The various groups of the Syrian opposition, facing annihilation, do whatever they can do.
Things might have been different had a more engaged chief executive been in charge of an actual policy. But that time has passed. Worse, there is no hope for the next president, almost certain to be Hillary Clinton at this point, to rescue any of this, no matter what she says on the trail. No campaign can or should promise to fix Syria: that time was hundreds of thousands of deaths and a million refugees ago.
We can all disagree on what to do next. Whatever it is, it won’t be enough; this is foreign policy as triage, not elective surgery. But we should never let the blame shift away from where it belongs, from a president and a national security team who refused to create a strategy, and left everyone else—in Washington and in Syria—with no option but to improvise in a situation that should never have been allowed to get this bad.
UNQUOTE
As a President I would vote for he or she should at the least a measure of foresight...and that is totally missing from this Obama WH.
Foresight is what his NSC and his IC is to give him if he does not bring his own curiosity to the question WHY that should be asked every minute or every day he or she is President...global events do not sleep thus his NSC and IC should not as well and if he was broadsided once but in this case it seems to be all the time do you not think he should be asking the question WHY???
But he did not so the question is WHY not.....he has a certain arrogance...mainly he is the smartest in the room and that leads to where we are today. He does not seem to allow room for his biases which can be dangerous if followed as a natural instinct....
That by the way is not from me but stated often from those that were around him in the last eight years......
I will give you the perfect intellectual argument Obama has used often in the last five years to avoid anything that smacks of the use of force, or the military.
When confronted over his lack of engagement on the shipping of ATGMs to Ukraine to defend them against at first 400 Russian tanks now well over 700, and the distinct lack of shipping more TOWs to the FSA as well as MANPADS....what exactly was his intellectual argument?
You cannot win a military victory in either situation thus talking is the only way forward....BUT WAIT what has Putin taught the US that counters the Obama intellectual argument...YES you can indeed win militarily if you are politically astute enough to make the correct moves at the correct times ...some in the international relations world call this "creditability" that is lent to the talking process.
In Syria Putin has gone for a "military win" and does not give a hook for whatever Obama does AS he fully knows Obama will do nothing.
In the Ukraine they on their own have virtually rebuilt their former rag tag military of a standing army of 5000 into a strong defensive and actually offensive capable 250,000 army rebuilt along the way by US/NATO military trainers BUT using their own built or refurbished military equipment equaling anything Putin has right now in eastern Ukraine AND in the process have actually frozen Putin in place something no one thought possible in 2014.
AND along the way during this last Russian ground offensive that you hear very little of now in the US MSM totally beaten up on the pride of the Russian Army their Spetsnaz.....killing over 15 and wounding over 25 in the last two weeks alone.
So I reality and against the Obama intellectual instinct of no war-no military engagement....it is possible to militarily effect political changes.
Again you might say it is great we the US did not get involved militarily...but wait...not boots on the ground...but weapons that allows one side to at least defend themselves...that was not even on the Obama radar screen......AND that would have not compromised a single thing for Obama...that is why I mentioned here earlier to Bill M...Obama has an ideological bent that he nicely hides behind that arrogance that is worth a major thesis on when he leaves office.
Second example....go back and reread all of the Obama comments and interviews on the sending of weapons to the anti Assad forces....he literally hid behind the intellectual argument of "who is a moderate that we can trust as we do not want the weapons to get to IS"...as he assumes for some strange reason "all who fight in Syria are jihadi's"......
Robert Jones who comments here has had it right for several years now....provide the assistance to the civil society they need to defend themselves and then sit back and allow that civil society to make their own decisions all the while signaling you will accept those decisions right or wrong from our perspective and assist where you can....this gets one far further along than where we are right now.....with no influence and not knowing what can be done.
Now take that assumption back into the article I posted from the LA Times and then reread that article with this in mind.
So are you really saying this President has been so right on with every developing global problem and his NSC has been spot on in advance of recent developments say over the last five or so years?
If he is not then he has a serious NSC problem and the entire US IC Warnings and Indications Divisions are failing him....
Are you saying this President's so called war on IS has been a rip roaring success..if so then why is IS growing in strenght especially after this President has killed via drones, USAF and JSOC over 25,000 AND are you saying this President knew in advance via the US IC that Russia was on the edge of invading Crimea before it happened OR this President rightly called the Russian armored invasion of eastern Ukraine "an incursion"??
Is it not interesting that former two SecDef's from both political parties basically complained about working with this President and his NSC...a rarity by US any standards....in my 60 or so odd years this is a first.....
Remember it took the Obama WH and the US IC a long while to finally admit they were taken by surprise with Crimea and eastern Ukraine..even social media open source anlysis was releasing Google Earth analysis proving the Russian Invasion and cross border shellings LONG before the US finally released a grand total of four photos....
Two days ago they released 2014 Google Earth data actually showing Russian tanks crossing physically into Ukraine...which until today the US has never admitted they had any coverage on....ever wonder why?
OR let's shift to just the economics side..are you saying this President was fully aware of the impending US economy implosion caused by rampart real estate speculation that even Wall Street was starting to warn about before he became President...that is why he has advisors supposedly?
For over two years I used a HP video "Herding Cats" in order to depict the decision making processes inside a BCT Staff and it is no different inside the Obama WH right now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_MaJDK3VNE
I am just not the only one seriously attacking his lack of any strategy...check both the US left and right spectrum..even advisors who got him into the office are seriously questioning his moves lately......the debate is picking up steam simply because there is not a single Obama strategy that can be judged...and that is deliberate.....
Actually Obama triggered this debate himself with his Goldberg interview.
I will repeat it again.....arrogance is not a strategy....but "herding cats" would be a far better description of the current Obama FP than using the term "strategy".....
Bill......here is the perfect summation of this lack of any strategy by Obama say just in Syria....for over four full years all we heard from this WH is Assad has to go as he is the reason for a massive genocide on his own civil society...and then the so called chemical weapons red lines that went nowhere.....AND now what do we see out of the last Kerry visit to Moscow is now the US remained totally silent on whether Assad has to go and or not BUT released by the US Embassy in Damascus yesterday Kerry and the DoS fully support the demands by the Syrian opposition HNC that Assad has to go.
If we accept the WaPo article that Obama does in fact have an Syrian/IS strategy that is working THEN just where was this President during the following...granted some of it was before his time BUT this should have played a major role in his development of a strategic response to Assad......BTW.....much of this I confirmed in national level reporting already in 2005/2006 BUT it was at that time largely ignored.....
BTW..this is part of the Obama strategy problem...Iran is heavily invested in Syria due to their land corridor to Hezbollah and their regional hegemon fight with KSA and they desire to have a sphere of influence over Syria basically an Arab Sunni nation state.....BUT Obama needed his Iran Deal...Obama claims to be heavily involved in the fight against IS...BUT WAIT both Iran and Russia are just as heavily involved with first AQ and then later IS AND still are....Obama claims that he needs to deal with Assad...BUT WAIT Assad is heavily tied to Iran, Russia, Hezbollah/IRGC AND IS/AQ....
Have we seen any clear, concise and coherent Obama strategy on how to handle this convoluted 21st century nightmare of a FP problem....YES we did.....just talked about in WaPo...BUT have we actually seen it written and or described anywhere outside of WaPo??....not really.
FactsPalmyraCantErase: Assad bet his survival on making Syria a binary choice—him or the terrorists. Palmyra is part of the accompanying messaging.
In eastern Syria a network of safehouses and training camps for IS's predecessor was run by Assad's military-intel
Jihadis injured fighting for IS's predecessor were given medical treatment by Assad at least as late as 2010.
Assad was found liable in U.S. district court for IS's Amman bombing in 2005 + the beheading of two Americans in '04
In eastern Syria a network of safehouses and training camps for IS's predecessor was run by Assad's military-intel.
Badran al-Mazidi (Abu Sayyaf), an IS facilitator for FF, was killed in safehouse in eastern Syria overseen by Assad.
Documents uncovered showing 700 FF entering Iraq, AUG 2006-AUG 2007, show all of them coming through Syria.
Fatah al-Islam, a jihadi group which started a small war in Lebanon in 2007, was an instrument of Assad's FP.
At the outset of the uprising, when Assad was killing peaceful protesters, he released senior IS leader Amr al-Absi.
When the rebels fought IS in JAN-MAR 2014 and in Aleppo in JUN 2015, Assad bombed the rebels.
Now convince me that Obama indeed had what he deemed in the WaPo article "a successful Syrian/IS strategy".....
BTW...most of the above has been openly discussed in social media BUT virtually not discussed in US MSM or by the Obama WH.....
AND while Obama talks a great line on his fight against IS...this needs to be read in the face of the simple fact...IS is getting actually stronger during the Obama period NOT weaker...
ISIL has come of age
http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/isil-has-its-eyes-on-al-qaeda…
Written by someone who inherently knows IS extremely well.
BTW.....posted on social media and not yet to be discovered by US MSM media nor the Obama WH.....
Really suggest all go back to the SWJ WaPo article in which the Obama WH makes the argument that their "Syrian/IS strategy is truly working"..."it is just we do not get it" and we need just more messaging in order to "get it".
You will notice just how I massively beat up on this article using the reality of the ground events...nothing more in order to reflect the utter lack of this so called successful Syrian/IS strategy....
There is a massive amount of arrogance in that article....arrogance coming out of the Obama WH that finds itself again in the 20,000 word Goldberg article.
I have learned something over the years...where there is arrogance...someone is attempting to cover up something..as arrogance is a sign of personal weakness or the attempt to cover up an existing weakness....and in this case...there has been for eight long years virtually not a single clear, concise, coherent and printed strategy by the Obama WH.
BTW...yes IS is a threat to the US...BUT not an existential threat... a really huge difference that a clear, concise and coherent Syrian/IS strategy could have easily addressed...instead we get a CIA supported Syrian proxy fighting a CENTCOM supported Syrian proxy inside Syria....why....lack of a clear, concise and coherent strategy at any level and all the players simply doing what they assumed the WH wanted them to do in the vacuum of no strategies.
BTW...Obama does in fact have a political ideology that he has hidden well for almost eight long years...and we have not even started debating that here at SWJ and that IMHO is what is really driving his lack of a defined strategy.
Bill...while I agree with some of your points this President is and will always remain "an isolationist"...why...think it through....check the alleged exchange between Obama and the Israeli PM mentioned in the Goldbery interview over whether Obama fully understands the Palestine/Israeli issue...simply telling for this President.
Obama came up with the image of being a community activist and using negotiations as the way forward...that is what he is continuing to do now...he firmly believes in "soft power" as that is his one of his "biases"....
In the interrogation business in order to be a really good interrogator one must inherently know your own personal biases and we all have them and then to be able to step out of them and analyze without their influence....only then do you "understand" what you are both "seeing and hearing"...Obama has failed to do just that....if anything this is his single worst failure and has led to no strategy as he is supposedly the "smartest one in the room".... also clearly indicated in the Goldberg article...especially when he digresses and talks about his own ideas and thoughts on FP.....ask the current US UNSC Ambassador about her experiences with this Obama NSC and Obama.
Secondly, as the first elected "Black President" and the a"black recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize"...he is not going to rock his legacy with anything that smacks of military adventurism....especially after he has publicly stated his Presidential period will be about ending wars not starting wars.
Why is his FP not effective?...this goes to what I have been saying for literally months...he has no strategy.....not for anything...and that is reckless for a sitting President of the US...why... this world in the 21st century is indeed complicated far more than at anytime since the Wall came down 25 years ago....BUT that does not mean a sitting President is suppose to "wing it"...with absolutely no strategy for just about anything.
I do agree the US can and should slowly disengage but only after the world fully understands exactly what that disengagement means and not until a new structure is in place that allows the regional players a chance to listen to an "adult" when things go wrong which they will as regional players are ego driven.
BUT here is the Obama problem and again it goes back to the lack of a strategy..if you are going to disengagement then what is the "strategy"...there is none.
The Obama idea is to allow the regional players to step up and work it out among themselves via dialogue...sorry that....."ain't never going to work".
Even in this 21st century there must be an "adult in the room" and we are seeing this in Iraq of all places......there is the arising opinion among the Iraqi Shia political elite that yes in fact the US can be viewed as a "honest broker" as they sense they are slowly losing control of their own country to Iran and her IRGC driven Shia warlord militas.
BUT this "honest broker" must be in a position to use force if necessary..AND Obama is unwilling to use massive force....thus the use of SOF, drones and JSOC...smaller footprint yes BUT it allows him to state at the end of his Presidential terms and for his "legacy"..."I did not get the US into any military engagements".
Everything he does is focused on not using force of any kind.
Even his so called success in cuba has been nicely countered yesterday by Fidel....and what about the whole issue of human rights and the 3000 politicaql prisoners in Cuba..during the entire secret talks...not a single mention of this problem...why because he wanted the history books talking about his approach to Cuba.....
BREAKING: Cuba 'has no need of gifts from the US': Fidel Castro — @AFP
Obama talks alot but not much has been delivered on the FP side thus ...."it has been basically ineffective"....and that goes back simply to a lack of any strategy whatsoever.
Strategies are necessary for FP.....why they are the functioning backbone that one works off of and modifies as the ground reality changes....it allows for lessons learned and for changes...BUT if you have none...you are simply "winging it".....
Obama has been "winging it" for almost eight full years.
Outlaw,
I don't disagree with many of your assertions, but I'll focus my comments on the areas of disagreement.
You claim it is dangerous for a sitting President to make statements about free loaders when referencing leaders from other states. Perhaps you are right, but I have a hard time believing he is the first President to do so. Clearly the Bush/Cheney administration had the same concerns, but if I recall correctly Rumsfeld was the mouth piece. They not only expressed concern about the "old Europe" and praised the new Europe, they initiated substantial force cuts in Western Europe. The American people as a whole are getting tired of Europe's and others' free riding under the U.S. security blanket. The comment was in bad form, but this is an open secret. Was the statement wrong? IMO yet, but it wasn't unfounded.
This NSC is the worst in years? We usually try to avoid political debates on SWJ, but I think it is fair to say the Bush NSC was equally wrong headed and their decision to invade Iraq has a been a disaster for our country. That isn't an apology for the current NSC, a council that simply wishes problems away (see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil), but lets put it in balance. We could also talk about LBJ's administration.
Does the NSC have a strategy for Iraq and the other issues? Yes. Can you see it? No. As you know policy statements are often unclassified, but the strategies for defeating or countering an active adversary are not for good reason. The better question is the strategy working? I personally would have a hard time making a case that is working; however, that is different than claiming one doesn't exist. I also think some strategies could work, but the reality is they are seldom executed as written.
Actually, I see the current strategies in large part mimicking the current statement on the SWJ front page, "go early, go small, and go long." That is an agenda statement to promote a particular organization's approach, that is disconnected from any strategy. This doesn't equate to a theory of victory in most cases, in some it could. In fact, we have taken that approach many places and we are not making progress. A reasonable man would question the approach if it wasn't working. However, if you make the argument it takes decades for the approach to work, then no one survives in a key position long enough to make the case this is a failed approach. The defenders simply state they need more time (multiple command selects can then command and get credit for winning, even when we failed).
This go early, go small, and go long approach can be a good approach for shaping the environment, developing critical relationships, preventing conflict, and so forth, but it is not a winning strategy if the situation evolves into an open conflict. Yet, that is exactly what we're doing.
As for fighting terrorism, President Obama carried the fight to Al-Qaeda, but until recently he has failed to do the same with ISIL in my opinion. I suspect the reason we got off to a slow start, was/is his political agenda of disengaging from the unpopular mess in Iraq (a key campaign promise). Unfortunately, the real world isn't that simple. While I tend to agree that it is unlikely that ISIL would even exist if we didn't invade Iraq, we're past that point. This is a very different situation than the situation in 2002 when the former administration made the decision to invade based on questionable premises. Today there is a real threat to our interests, yet it appears that the administration was blind to the new reality.
As for President Obama being an isolationist, I don't buy it. That doesn't mean his foreign policy is effective, it obviously isn't. The real problem is that President Obama has failed to lead effectively on the global stage, and while that is serious in your and my view, that is still very different than being an isolationist.
Regarding your comments on Trump, he is well known for making careless and uninformed comments. That will undermine our relationships around the world quicker than the current administration's failure to lead. I think it is a real possibility that Trump could become the next President despite the naysayers. The voters are rightfully angry, but the way one expresses their anger can certainly make the situation worse. A lesson I learned the hard way.
BTW...social media has been on this trail of this since the Russian invasion into eastern Ukraine and has been pushing it until finally MSM is slowly engaging into the topic.
MustRead, Especially for mfa_russia:
Russia accidentally revealed
2000 KIA
3200 severely WIA
in eastern #Ukraine.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-number-of-russian-tr… …
BTW...in the Ukrainian thread I initially called the Russian KIA loses in the 1600 to 2000 range and took hits on that comment....was based on a lot of social media comments and photos released via social media.
BTW..you did notice that Trump picked up on the Obama "freeloader" comments and has focused as well on a heavy critique of the Saudi's, NATO and Europe also mentioned by Obama in his interview....AND Trump is being viewed in Europe as a true "isolationist" also based just on his comments.......
Linkage...between the two.....definitely yes when it comes to isolationism....
Trump questions NATO, support for South Korea and Japan ahead of Nuclear Security Summit
http://read.bi/1PyZJtQ
Obama if one really takes the time to thoroughly read his Goldberg interview...all of it....and then take the time to thoroughly look at every move he has made in just say with Crimea, then on to eastern Ukraine and then on to his last five years of a non Syrian strategy.
It is reckless for a sitting President to made statements such as "free loaders" when referencing leaders of nation states...you can think it but never say it publicly. It is reckless of a sitting President to basically makes changes to a security structure that he thinks he needs to change BUT at the same time not place some form of bridging structure in place in the regions he has retrenched in ie ME...it is reckless of a sitting President to state a particular region should have a "cold peace" and then fully tilt to one of those players in that "cold peace"...
I could go on and on and on and on....
His NSC has been criticized as well for being the worst one seen in years.
I would suggest going back and rereading the WaPo article that SWJ posted here on the Obama Syrian/IS strategy and where he openly states it is you and I and others who simply do not "get it" meaning his Syrian/IS strategy is indeed working.... ALL we need is a "little more messaging" from his WH, DoS and DoD which happened right after the WaPo article came out if you remember.
He has no strategy unless you can define a concise and coherent one that I can see in print. Grand ideas without a strategy is like whistling Dixie as you go over the cliff thinking the road ahead is straight...
How many times has this President failed to inform Congress on treaty violations that he is required to do but does not as it would impact his moves with say Iran and or Russia??
Remember the press conference after the IS incursion into Iraq out of Syria where he publicly stated he had no strategy BUT was working on one...ever see it in print??? Thus the surprise to read in the WaPo his Syrian/IS strategy was working...we just did not "get it".....
After the killing of an estimated 25,000 jihadi's in the ME IS is still as strong as ever and in fact expanding it's operations at a speed that even AQ was not capable of even as they lose territory.
THAT is "doing quite a bit to fight terrorism"....not really....
If there is a strategy then in fact one could indeed judge his effectiveness...BUT there is none and that is deliberate as historians will then have to debate what we are debating here...what exactly was his strategy?
BTW...there are times that even social media seems to be better informed than this President is...at least they are days ahead of the US MSM and sometimes even faster than Kerry in linking the dots....
You are completely right...a President must deal with the reality of the world we all see...the problem is I am not sure exactly what reality he is seeing.
Remember that famous 2014 statement of his during a also public press conference...."we will judge Putin by his actions not his words"......
That would in theory require a strategy BUT wait there is none....
So again when dealing with say Putin's "actions" just what is the Obama strategy for dealing with him as a defined, concise and coherent strategy that we can judge his effectiveness on??
BTW Wilson also conducted diplomacy outside the US and at the same time fully isolated the US until WW2.
So I will until one can point to a written and published strategy not just talk in an interview continue to call Obama an isolationist....
Calling the President an isolationist is simply wrong, actually it laughable to do so when he is engaged in diplomacy outside the U.S. The article pegged one of his biggest shortcomings, which is his inability to communicate in a way that emphasizes with the victims of terror attacks, while not exaggerating the threat.
As for strategy, he has strategy, the argument is it isn't working. A President should never make decisions based on the noise coming from social media, to include this site. Nor should a president make decisions based on far left or right ideogies, instead he or she must deal with the world as it really is, and calculate with imperfect information what decisions are truly in U.S. interests in the short and long term. He has done quite a bit to fight terrorism, but the effectiveness of his approach is in doubt.
Bill...remember when I used the single interesting word...."retrenchment"...this President is taking the US in a neo isolationist phase very very similar to Wilson in 1920 after the Great War....in this case the "Great War" is occurring after the combination of Iraq and AFG and a major economic depression which still has not fully worked it's way through the US economy which is still basically weak if one looks now at the slow collapse of the housing market.....again......
Remember what was your response to the word "retrenchment".....now with the Goldberg interview you can see as clear as mud the "retrenchment hard at work".....
Was not wrong was I?
Outlaw:
But does Obama, and his NSC, stand alone?
Note that in the Goldberg interview, the American people, the American Congress, and indeed, the entire Western world (and especially our key allies residing therein) seemed to see things much as Obama and his NSC ultimately did:
BEGIN QUOTE
In the days after the gassing of Ghouta, Obama would later tell me, he found himself recoiling from the idea of an attack unsanctioned by international law or by Congress. The American people seemed unenthusiastic about a Syria intervention; so too did one of the few foreign leaders Obama respects, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor. She told him that her country would not participate in a Syria campaign. And in a stunning development, on Thursday, August 29, the British Parliament denied David Cameron its blessing for an attack.
END QUOTE
Thus, what you suggest as a unique weakness and lack of strategy -- of our president and his national security staff -- might this be being confused with, for example, an overall agreement/a consensus not to act; this, to be found -- as outlined so clearly by Goldberg above -- in the views of the American people, the views of the American Congress, the views of our key allies and, indeed, the view of the entire Western world?
An interesting article in that the author is not far from wrong.....Obama and his NSC are the weakest pair in the last 70 odd years......
One hallmark is the constant attempting to sidestep anything that smacks of strategy as then he would have to take action......because if it is his strategy then he must act...it is telling that in the Goldberg interview everyone else is at fault.....but not the Obama WH......