Obama and the Road Not Taken

Townhall.com ^ | July 31, 2014 | Victor Davis Hanson

[Kaslin]

The Obama administration often denies any responsibility for the current global chaos or claims that it erupted spontaneously. Yet most of the mess was caused by, or made worse by, growing U.S. indifference and paralysis.

Over the last five and a half years, America has had lots of clear choices, but the administration usually took the path of least short-term trouble, which has ensured long-term hardship.

There was no need to "reset" the relatively mild punishments that the George W. Bush administration had accorded Vladimir Putin's Russia for invading Georgia in 2008. By unilaterally normalizing relations with Russia and trashing Bush, Barack Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton only green-lighted further Russian aggression that has now spread to Crimea and Ukraine.

There was no need for Obama, almost immediately upon assuming office, to distance the U.S. from Israel by criticizing Israel's policies and warming to its enemies, such as authoritarian Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan and Hamas.

Any time Israel's enemies have glimpsed growing distance in the U.S.-Israeli friendship, they seek only to pry it still wider. We see just that with terrorists in Gaza who launch hundreds of missiles into Israel on the expectation that the U.S. will broker a favorable deal that finds both sides equally at fault.

[Tax-chick]

Both a bloody [Syrian] dictatorship and its bloody jihadist enemies share a general contempt for a perceived weak America.