The one thing we do know for sure is that no matter what Obama does about Syria, the Republicans will attack him for it.
Ironically, because Obama has no really good options, at least from a political viewpoint, this means that he can pick the option that he actually believes is the right thing to do.
It will be interesting to see what he does.
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Here’s an interesting take on Obama’s handling of Syria: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/the-left-and-right-entire_b_3852157.html?utm_hp_ref=tw
According to this view, Obama’s “weak” stance of deferring to Congress could actually be seen as an intentional step toward shrinking the military-industrial complex and the imperial presidency. I’m not sure if I’m fully convinced, but it’s interesting. We’ll see what happens after Congress votes one way or another.
Michael, it sounds like a good theory, and as much as I’d like to believe it the only problem is that Congress wholeheartedly blessed invading Iraq and Afghanistan. So it remains to be seen if this will shrink the military-industrial complex at all (and it would need quite a bit of shrinking!)
I think Barrack should offer Vladimir his Pulitzer Peace prize as an olive branch and send the Pope a box of White House chocolates.
It’s fascinating that a liberal American president is shown the way to avoid war by a former KGB chief.
If you ignore his flowing rhetoric and look just at policy stances, Obama is hardly a liberal.
Curious as to whether you wrote that before or after Putin and Obama got together and came up with the perfect solution. And even Assad agrees. Assad has a fascinating history, educated as an eye doctor in England. Wife very Western. Wants to help people. Wasn’t supposed to succeed his father. His younger brother is much more in to military than Assad.
Obama has always been a moderate.
I would be shocked if the US or even the UN hadn’t thought of the Syrian government relinquishing their chemical weapons before. In any case this is more than likely a delay tactic and its likely that it will drag on and the air strike drum beats start again.
Worst part about all this is that the US is perceived to have lost this battle. Everyone is totally ignoring that Syria has admitted they have chemical weapons. If they do fall into the wrong hands and they are used against the US what will those who decried any action against Syria say? Blame the US and the UN for standing back?
Another aspect I hate about the SYria fiasco and the NSA fiasco is how Putin has been elevated to God status and the US portrayed as an evil empire. The last time I checked Putin arrests everyone who stands against him including a frigging punk band and has sickening policies against gays amongst other things. All topics that liberals care about. Yet shockingly Putin’s status has been elevated and the US looks like a cry baby. Pardon the language but its unfuckingbelievable.
Jonah – It’s called leadership and we lack it, but the UN has been devoid of it for some time now. Our campaigner in chief didn’t have this in his program script. But don’t worry because as we write, political operatives are devising a way to spin this favorably. We shall prevail and live to campaign another day.
The republicans haven’t been that bad during this affair at all. In fact a good amount of them agree with Obama. The resistance is coming from both democrats and republicans alike. It is kind of amazing that the republicans have done smear campaigns over past things with little effect, but they aren’t going too hard on this and Obama’s political capital is being wrecked in the eyes of the public, according to CNN
Your right Duckman -it’s mostly the media and pundits that are expressing the negativity. Republicans probably have an agenda like taking back the military sequester cuts, but for the most part they are trying to back up the president. All politics is “if I support this, what do I get in return” so its understandable, although I don’t like when everything works that way.