Posted on 09/03/2013 3:58:13 PM PDT by ClaytonP
Syria's butcher Bashir Assad could end up toppling British Prime Minister David Cameron and not the other way around, while also giving Russia a big boost back on to the Great Power stage and green lighting Tehran's most ambitious and sparky plans in its mountain tunnel complexes.
Along the way he has exposed President Obama as feckless and fearful. The president and his team are scrambling to remind lawmakers of what the Commander-in-Chief ought to have long ago argued to the country: When the good guys blink, the bad guys notice.
Lots and lots of blinking. Most of the people who could be expected to step up and support significant punishment of Assad, while noting the importance of any president following through on presidential threats, have been out of sight.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is happy to tell you we have no interests in any of this, and kudos to him for his honesty. Will that play in the 2016 primaries beyond 10 percent of the GOP? If it does, the party of Ronald Reagan is dead, and former Ohio Sen. Bob Taft will finally get his due.
It’s doubtful that Govs. Chris Christie of New Jersey, John Kasich of Ohio, Rick Perry of Texas and Scott Walker of Wisconsin see it Rand's way, or Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida or John Thune of South Dakota, but none have yet dared to make the sort of statements of policy and purpose on Syria that get noticed.
Three of the governors have re-election campaigns, which excuse them to some extent from blunt talk about tough choices, but Rubio, Thune and Perry have a lot of opportunity right now to stand for Reagan's robust commitment to international stability, American greatness, and a refusal to be intimidated by Russia, much less by smaller states with big plans.
Rep. Tom Cotton, a combat veteran of both Afghanistan and Iraq, was blunt and bold, calling for military retaliation against Assad before any other major figure in American politics had done so.
"Rangers lead the way" is the proud statement of that community, and Cotton was and remains at least in spirit an Army Ranger. He is providing an example for the presently cowed national-security Republicans.
Here is the problem: The small-government folks applaud Paul, and the rule-of-law conservatives share much of his agenda of concern over the president and his administration's epic lawlessness and arrogance, but there is a significant difference between a president's ability to act unilaterally at home and abroad.
These commonalities cannot obscure the huge chasm between a Taft Republican and an Eisenhower Republican when it comes to the world and the military's strength.
Last month, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel suggested the U.S. could have to make do with eight or nine carriers, and the response from the GOP was ... silence. Admiral Mahan is getting kicked to the curb along with all memory of the '30s.
The nonsense about "war weariness" is a Manhattan-Beltway media elite trope, a familiar dodge to get the blame off of their beloved Barack and back on Bush, despite the fact that W's free states of Iraq and Afghanistan are doing well compared to Obama's experiments in Egypt and Libya.
American leadership and military prowess isn't perfect, and leadership isn't easy and is never free from errors. Fecklessness, by contrast, is always disastrous.
The side-by-side comparisons of the world as Bush left it in January 2009 and as it is now in September 2013 make the case for American strength. Now, when will the GOP's front bench gather the courage to say so?
I need more evidence of who really gassed those people than some pictures and democratic leadership going into orgasim mode.
I see that we are once again in total agreement!
Hugh, can’t you disagree without being so disagreeable? Think you’re going to convince anyone with your insulting condescension?
Syria’s butcher Bashir Assad******
Hardly certain who used the gas although it makes a lot more sense the rebels did based on the direction of the war.
What isn’t in doubt is which side cuts out and eats the heart of the opposition, or, beheads a young, newly married Christian and feeds his body to the dogs.
How true! But again, the Republicans are getting blamed for an administration that dithered for several months and still shows no signs of a long-term plan. Now they have to decide...at the last minute... to vote for a strike that has no end game and whose strategy will change minute to minute as evidenced by the lead-up decision making by BO and JK.
Mr Hewitt is wrong
I am not an Isolationist. I am simply not an interventionist when there is no national interest involved. Unlike the Republicans in the 1930’s I do not argue that the US needs a less capable military. I do not doubt that there are groups and nations that would like very much to attack the US if they could. I do not delude myself, as liberals and Ron Paul does that they will stop trying to do this if the US is simply nicer to them.
US foreign policy should be based upon a few simply precepts.
1. Leave us alone and we will leave you alone. Your internal affairs are your own concern; deal with them yourself.
2. We mean what we say
3. We say what we mean
4. We will not promise more than we can deliver
5. We will not make make threats unless we are willing to back them up. We do not posture or rattle sabres.
The only nuance in these is that some cultures value honesty more than others. They would need to be enlightened as to the true simplicity of the 5 points.
Geez, I am a low level academic and I could be a better SoS than PIAPS or JF-Kerry
All the Salem talkers are big on the idea that is our Moral Duty to save the world. Every single square inch of it.
That’s strike two for Hugh.
Strike one was pushing for RINOmney.
There’s always been something about Hewitt that I don’t like.
Whether it wants to be saved or not.
heh heh heh!
Well, I’d want to keep the modern technologies. But the mores were mostly better. (The stuff we wouldn’t want, like Jim Crow, were pretty much brought by Democrats.)
STFUHH
The original problem was 0bama’s red line.
There was no willingness or strategic need to overthow Assad when the line was crossed.
So, we’re left with lobbing bombs to assuage 0bambi’s bruised little “man”hood.
Exactly... we are currently having “talks” with the Taliban... and result of a pissed off Karzai (their rivals in the drug trade main export of Afghan). Our purpose for remaining in Afghan is obscure at best but it does have something to do with rare earth minerals (which china has monopoly on) and a pipeline route. This is disgusting... period. Like Jimmy Stewart in “Shenandoah” who was like George Washington about “entanglements”.
This is Eisenhower’s warning about mil-indust. complex... plastered over with self righteous indignity over the “crime” committed supposedly by Assad (but only the secret world of elites can know how we know— classified and all that). I call BS on the entire gambit, which began in Benghazi and exposed obamaumao as further wasting our military even worse than LBJ. Deo Vindice.
which is not a salvation at all. it is a cruel hate fueled caricature of it.
Hugh Hewitt: The Voice of GOPe.
You and Mark Levin (who served in the Reagan administration) agree.
Wasn’t it Hewitt who predicted that Romney would easily win Ohio in 2012????
Start with that freaking whiny-ass voice. Like a yuppie wailing “he butted in line” at the high school cafeteria.
When Reagan bombed Libya it was after Americans had been killed. No he didn’t kill Kadaffi but he got the message and didn’t screw with us any more.
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