By John Ransom
Tuesday, February 04, 2014
The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war
was in his heart: his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords.
Psalm 55:21
There are many things that are difficult to explain about
the Obama administration. An apparently free and independent people not only
elected him president of the United States, but also re-elected him even as it
was apparent that his administration was mostly a miserable failure-- even by
the measure of liberals.
Historians will long ponder how a president who spent as
much money and legislated as much produced very little that actually helped the
man on the street…and then was re-elected. Obama’s very own rhetoric about
jobs, wages, and the economy since his re-election has been a confession of
failure more than a domestic program.
But while we have been focused on the ruinous domestic
side of Obama’s policies, it is perhaps on foreign policy that the results will
travel farther with us.
The Middle East is ripe for the next world war, as we go
into the sixth year of appeasement policies aimed at getting our enemies to
think we are really swell guys. It’s the first time since 1944 that the
geopolitical conditions in the Middle East are so unstable that it’s hard to
predict with certainty how it will all play out.
And a stable foreign policy doesn’t thrive on that type
of uncertainty.
Revolutions do though, as we are witnessing.
The situation in Syria, we’ve learned this week, is so
bad and so unstable that even Al Qaeda is beginning to disown the effort and
their allies.
“Al Qaeda appears to have had enough of one of its
affiliates fighting in Syria: the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant,” says
CNN. “The group has been locked in conflict with other Islamist factions and
gained a grim reputation for abuses in parts of Syria it controls, including
summary executions and mass killings.”
The last time we checked in with the Islamic State in
Iraq and the Levant, they were busy plundering the Iraqi Anbar province.
Imagine what you must do to gain a reputation for
savagery so bad that even Al Qaeda is put off by it.
Congratulations Obama.
Because while Al Qaeda is the most visible participant in
the coalition fighting in Syria, make no mistake: It’s Obama that’s given
groups like the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant the guiding hand and the
support the terror coalition needs to make a fight in Syria and Iraq and in
Libya.
If there was any one thing the White House could do to
make Syria’s Baathist dictator Bashar Hafez al-Assad look like a more appealing
alternative to the terrorists supported by the U.S., they must have just
overlooked it.
Because they have done everything possible to prop up
Assad, while apparently attempting to topple him.
From a blood-thirsty dictator, they have turned him into
a kind of martyr, who while not possessing saintly attributes, is a better
devil that we know than the devils Obama is supporting.
Which leads us to the eternal—and internal—question of
the Obama administration: Are the people behind the Obama policies really this
dumb—along with their president—or are they doing this on purpose?
It will be a question that historian will wrestle with,
and perhaps the legacy that Obama leaves for his presidency.
Because while liberals like to cite Bush as “stupid,” his
policies and goals were clear to allies and enemies, even when they lacked in
execution.
Clarity, indeed, is actually a central goal of any good
foreign policy, if foreign policy is meant to avoid war.
World War I was started because all parties misunderstood
the goals of every other party. Before the outbreak World War, II Hitler
misunderstood England’s resolve to fight, because English leaders were too busy
assuring Germany that they wouldn’t fight under any circumstances. Stalin
underestimated Truman at Potsdam, while Truman was unclear about American
commitment to Korea, resulting in the Korea War-- a war that we carry with us
today.
War is made more possible by pusillanimous, covert and
unintelligible foreign policies.
And I’m just saying that war is probably not what
liberals signed up for.
But war, very possibly, is what they will get.
In fact, they have it already.
Obama either meant to do it, or he didn’t.
And historians will be left sifting through the rubble to
ask why.
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