The Ecomonist on Obama's impotence

The Economist ^ | 5/1/14 | Economist

[ghost of stonewall jackson]

“WHY is it that everybody is so eager to use military force?” America’s cerebral president betrayed a rare flash of frustration on April 28th when dealing with a question in Asia about his country’s “weakness”. Barack Obama said his administration was making steady, if unspectacular, progress. By blundering into wars, his critics would only harm America.

Mr Obama has still made a difficult situation worse in two ways. First, he has broken the cardinal rule of superpower deterrence: you must keep your word. In Syria he drew “a red line”: he would punish Bashar Assad if he used chemical weapons. The Syrian dictator did, and Mr Obama did nothing. In response to Russia’s aggression, he threatened fierce sanctions, only to unveil underwhelming ones. He had his reasons: Britain let him down on Syria, Europe needs Russian gas, Congress is nervous. But the cumulative message is weakness.

Second, Mr Obama has been an inattentive friend. He has put his faith in diplomatic coalitions of willing, like-minded democracies to police the international system. That makes sense, but he has failed to build the coalitions. And using diplomacy to deal with the awkward squad, such as Iran and Russia, leads to concessions that worry America’s allies. Credibility is about reassurance as well as the use of force.

[Izzy Dunne]

Economist, I understand.

Ecomonist, not so much.

;-)

[Organic Panic]

Yes. Why use the military? There are much more powerful sanctions.

Obama can defriend Putin and his inner circle of oligarchs.

Obama can use the power of the hashtag to embarrass Putin.

Obama can leave a bad review of The Kremlin on Yep.

Obama won’t give Putin an Ipod with Obama’s speeches and an audio copy of “Dreams Of My father.”

Obama might take back his unused red line from Assad and send it to Kiev.

Putin’s in big trouble.

[867V309]

At least LBJ had the common decency to go off and die at a relatively young age after he left office. I doubt hussein will, but hope springs eternal.

[Terry L Smith]

A mulatto, maybe-American cornerstore organizer, makes for a wise foreign advocate, not.

[MUDDOG]

LBJ did die off, but he didn't shut up, according to a story in the UMass student newspaper in the early '70s.

They sent a reporter to talk to a famous psychic in western Mass (Elwood Babbitt), and got an interview with LBJ.

[867V309]

I do not believe that Assad used chem.

Of course he didn't. The only way he could lose the fight with insurgents was to provoke outside intervention on a major scale. This was classic false flag operation.

[griswold3]

The current situation proves Obama’s foreign policy has failed. That said. Conservatives should spell out where we go from here.
The ‘coalitions’ need to be rebuilt. (What the coalition will look like is also another dilemma. Hopefully, not the Communitarian the Left wants) But to do that we need to get our credibility back. How do we do that?

[Iron Munro]

Never send a girly-boy to do a man's job.