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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFrank Rich: Obama's Foreign Policy Critics are Wrong
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/25733-obamas-foreign-policy-critics-are-wrong>>>
You will notice that the crowd of pundits and (mostly Republican) politicians insisting that Obama do something about these horrors never actually say what that something is. They offer no strategy of their own beyond an inchoate bellicosity expressed in constructions along the lines of we must more forcefully do whatever it is that Obama is doing. Thats because Obama is already doing the things that can be done (and that some of his critics redundantly suggest): bombing ISIS positions wherever it is feasible; searching for allies to join action that might defeat them on the ground; trying to rally Europe to tighten the economic noose on Putin and Russia. There will surely be more actions to come when Americas ducks are in a row, and if the president were to delineate them, you can be certain hed be condemned for tipping off our enemies in advance.
Contrast his deliberateness with his critics, most of whom have in common that they were completely wrong in endorsing the disastrous Iraq War that precipitated the current crisis. Hillary Clinton, for instance, has gone on record of late saying that she, unlike Obama, would have armed moderate forces in Syria to bring down Assad. But as Thomas Friedman, these days a much-chastened Iraq War enabler, has pointed out, theres a reason why even Israel didnt take up that tactic: Those moderate forces, to the extent they could be identified, were doomed to fail, and chances are that whatever arms we got to them would have fallen into ISISs hands. (As indeed has been the case with armaments we bestowed upon Malikis Iraq government.) As John McCain chastised Obama for not doing enough to fight ISIS last month, he had the gall to brag on CNN that he had predicted what was going to happen in Iraq. He had indeed predicted that Iraq might be destabilized by the withdrawal of American troops, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and, besides, McCain is always in favor of more American troops as a one-size-fits-all panacea for international conflicts. His earlier predictions were that we would win the Iraq War easily, and that the Sunnis and Shia would probably get along in post-Saddam Iraq because there was not a history of clashes between them. Why in Gods name should Obama listen to him or Clinton now? Why, for that matter, do Sunday talk shows repeatedly book McCain and repeatedly fail to challenge his long record of wrong calls on the Middle East?
As a corrective, I highly recommend an essay by Michael Cohen of the Century Foundation, published last weekend in the Daily News, that lays out in detail why Obama has a strategy for ISIS, Russia, and other foreign-policy crucibles, and why most of his critics do not. Its a much-needed blast of reality. As an aside, Cohen also raises another intriguing question: Why are politicians and pundits giving the relatively slender threat of an ISIS attack on America more weight than the gun violence that takes the lives of an estimated 30,000 Americans every year?
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Pundits vs President:
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/punditry-presidency-article-1.1921882
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Frank Rich: Obama's Foreign Policy Critics are Wrong (Original Post)
blm
Sep 2014
OP
blm
(113,064 posts)1. Needs eyeballs and brains......
comprehension wouldn't hurt, either.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)2. They are paid to lie. Period.
kentuck
(111,102 posts)3. Thoughtful, Rational, and Deliberative versus Impatient, Reckless, and Threatening?
That is why they are wrong.
blm
(113,064 posts)5. Historically so.
.