Tag Archives: Syria

Have We Bungled Our Way To Success In Iraq?

Posted on by

A radical Islamist group called ISIS made major advances this week in Iraq. President Obama is reviewing his options. Is the best bet to let Sunni and Shiite radicals fight it out? [Credit: AP]

A rad­i­cal Islamist group called ISIS made major advances this week in Iraq. Pres­i­dent Oba­ma is review­ing his options. Is the best bet to let Sun­ni and Shi­ite rad­i­cals fight it out? [Cred­it: AP]

“We’re leav­ing behind a sov­er­eign, sta­ble and self-reliant Iraq, with a rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment that was elect­ed by its peo­ple.” – Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, Decem­ber 15, 2011

The Pres­i­den­t’s illu­sion that we accom­plished our mis­sion in Iraq evap­o­rat­ed this past week, when Sun­ni mil­i­tants call­ing them­selves the Islam­ic State of Iraq and Syr­ia (ISIS) and fly­ing the black flag of Islamism over­ran Mosul and Tikrit. The embat­tled Iraqi gov­ern­ment still holds Bagh­dad, but its sov­er­eign­ty, sta­bil­i­ty and self-reliance have been exposed for the arti­fice they long have been.

The truth is that things began to unrav­el in Iraq two and a half years ago, when we declared vic­to­ry and with­drew our troops. “This is the start of the Iraqi civ­il war that was so obvi­ous­ly going to break out after we washed our hands of it,” Ken­neth M. Pol­lack of the Brook­ings Insti­tu­tion told the Wash­ing­ton Post.

Yet this lat­est in a series of for­eign pol­i­cy fail­ures may actu­al­ly work to our advan­tage.  Hav­ing Sun­ni and Shi­ite mil­i­tants and the Iran­ian Army cross­ing swords in Iraq may not be the worst thing from the per­spec­tive of US interests.

Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Can President Obama See The World As It Is?

Posted on by

President Obama this week urged graduating West Point cadets to "see the world as it is." But does he see it all that clearly? [Credit: NY Daily News]

Pres­i­dent Oba­ma this week urged grad­u­at­ing West Point cadets to “see the world as it is.” But how clear­ly does he see it? [Cred­it: NY Dai­ly News]

Pres­i­dent Obama’s mas­tery of the obvi­ous was on dis­play this week dur­ing his lengthy address at West Point.

“Iso­la­tion­ism,” he declared, “is not an option.” There’s a bold state­ment.  But that’s “not to say that every prob­lem has a mil­i­tary solu­tion.”  Has any­one ever said that?  “War rarely con­forms to slo­gans.”  Rarely?  “U.S. mil­i­tary action can­not be the only — or even pri­ma­ry — com­po­nent of our lead­er­ship in every instance.”  Has that ever been sug­gest­ed?  “Amer­i­ca should nev­er ask per­mis­sion to pro­tect our peo­ple, our home­land, or our way of life.” That’s a relief.  “The most direct threat to Amer­i­ca at home and abroad remains ter­ror­ism.”  Real­ly.  But “a strat­e­gy that involves invad­ing every coun­try that har­bors ter­ror­ist net­works is naïve and unsus­tain­able.” That would require an awful lot of inva­sions.  “We must uphold stan­dards that reflect our val­ues.”  Uphold­ing stan­dards that don’t reflect our val­ues would seem wrong.  “We should not expect change to hap­pen overnight.”

Change, nev­er­the­less, is occur­ring – but not the sort of change the Pres­i­dent has been advo­cat­ing. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

The Iran Nuclear Deal and the Price of Raising False Hopes

Posted on by

US Secretary of State John Kerry shares a moment with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammed Javad Zarif, after concluding an agreement for relaxed sanctions and renewed talks. [Credit: BBC]

US Sec­re­tary of State John Ker­ry shares a moment with his Iran­ian coun­ter­part, Mohammed Javad Zarif, after con­clud­ing an agree­ment for relaxed sanc­tions and renewed talks. [Cred­it: BBC]

Iran, World Pow­ers Reach His­toric Nuclear Deal. – Wash­ing­ton Post 

“What was agreed last night in Gene­va is not a his­toric agree­ment, it is a his­toric mis­take.” — Israeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Netanyahu

The irre­sistible ten­den­cy of gov­ern­ment to over­sell its achieve­ments was on dis­play in this past weekend’s announce­ments of an agree­ment between Iran and the so-called G5+1 – the five per­ma­nent mem­bers of the UN Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil and Germany.

News out­lets the world over her­ald­ed the Iran nuclear deal as “his­toric.”  Its crit­ics called it his­toric fol­ly.  Review­ing the agree­ment, it appears that both sides are exag­ger­at­ing. It nei­ther sets back Iran’s capac­i­ty to devel­op nuclear weapons nor facil­i­tates their devel­op­ment. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Syria and the Future of US Policy

Posted on by

credit abc

The August 21 chem­i­cal attack in Syr­ia has iron­i­cal­ly left Assad more secure­ly in pow­er than before, while increas­ing Russ­ian influ­ence in the region. [Cred­it: ABC]

The Syr­ia episode is behind us, but after the President’s ser­i­al impro­vi­sa­tions, our pol­i­cy, aims and inter­ests remain unclear.

Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Syria and the Budget: Putting Our Money Where Our Morality Is

Posted on by
credit telegraph

The Pres­i­dent delib­er­at­ed for weeks before decid­ing to ask Con­gress for autho­riza­tion to attack Syr­ia. He’s work­ing the phones to gath­er votes but will his bud­get pro­vide future Pres­i­dents with the resources to car­ry out sim­i­lar actions? (Cred­it: Telegraph)

On August 14, the Sec­re­tary of the Army gave his sub­or­di­nates an order: pro­duce a list of cuts that will reduce spend­ing by 25 percent.

A week lat­er, a chem­i­cal weapons attack near Dam­as­cus left an esti­mat­ed 1,429 dead,  mov­ing the Pres­i­dent to ask the mil­i­tary to pre­pare for a retal­ia­to­ry strike against the Assad gov­ern­ment. Even a lim­it­ed assault would cost hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars, accord­ing to defense experts. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Struggling to Make Sense of Syria and Egypt

Posted on by

A man prepares the bodies of those killed in last Wednesday's attack east of Damascus, Syria. [Credit: NY Daily News]

A man pre­pares the bod­ies of those killed in last Wednes­day’s attack east of Dam­as­cus, Syr­ia. [Cred­it: NY Dai­ly News]

Sarin vic­tims often first feel its tox­ic effects in their eyes.  They water and ache. Vision is blurred. Pupils con­tract to a pin­point. The nox­ious gas also affects the lungs, with chest tight­ness, cough and rapid breath­ing among the com­mon symp­toms. Then there are the car­dio­vas­cu­lar effects. The heart may race or sud­den­ly slow down. Blood pres­sure can spike or pre­cip­i­tous­ly drop. Nau­sea, vom­it­ing and abdom­i­nal pain are among its gas­troin­testi­nal con­se­quences. Its effects on the cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem include con­fu­sion, drowsi­ness and headache. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

How Washington Changed Obama

Posted on by
Washington has changed the President's hair color, as it has with his predecessors. But the changes run deeper. [Credit: Post Chronicle]

Wash­ing­ton has changed the Pres­i­den­t’s hair col­or, as it did his pre­de­ces­sors’. But the changes it has made in him run deep­er. [Cred­it: Post Chronicle]

“So eight years ago, I came here to deliv­er the com­mence­ment address for the class of 2005. Things were a lit­tle dif­fer­ent back then. For exam­ple, I had no gray hair. Or a motor­cade. Didn’t even have a prompter.”

Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, Knox Col­lege, Gales­burg (IL), July 24, 2013

Many things have changed in the eight years that elapsed between Pres­i­dent Obama’s two Gales­burg address­es. But per­haps none of those things has changed as pro­found­ly as he. Con­tin­ue read­ing →