Posted on 04/24/2016 1:11:28 AM PDT by nickcarraway
A couple of weeks ago, I was talking with Philip Gordon, who held the Middle East portfolio at the National Security Council from 2013 to 2015 (and before that, served as assistant secretary of state for European affairs) about my Atlantic article, The Obama Doctrine. The piece tried to explain how the president understands the world, and Americas role in it. (This week, the president is on a tour of the some of the countries he discussed in the article.)
Gordon, a loyal Obama man, is, like his ex-boss, somewhat-to-very fatalistic about the ability of the U.S. to direct the course of events in the Middle East (realistic, rather than fatalistic, is the term the president prefers). Gordon is known for, among other things, a pithy and concise formula he developed to explain why President Obama, and many of his advisers, are so hesitant to engage fully in the various catastrophes of the Middle East. In Iraq, the Gordon dictum goes, Obama learned that full-scale invasions leading to regime change dont work; in Libya, he learned that partial interventions leading to regime collapse dont work; and in Syria he learned that non-intervention also doesnt work. An unspoken but obvious lesson: Once a president reaches this set of conclusions, can you blame him for wanting to pivot to Asia?
So I was a bit surprised to hear Gordon tell me that he believes, in retrospect, that President Obama should have attacked Syria in retaliation for its use of chemical weapons in 2013. A year earlier, the president drew a red line for the Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad regarding the potential use of such weapons; a year later, when Assad deployed sarin gas in the town of Ghouta, killing as many as 1,300 people, Obama set in
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Assad is not and never was our ally, that said he was not our enemy and making him our enemy only benefits other enemies of ours.
That the US government actually has a Syria policy is news to me. I thought the closest thing we had to a policy in the Mid-East was paralysis by analysis.
“We Should Have Bombed Assad”
I thought we were?
If you want a more sensible foreign policy just bomb the black White House.
I guess ending his nuclear program and fighting Al Qaeda
“a year later, when Assad deployed sarin gas in the town of Ghouta, killing as many as 1,300 people”
a proven fraud
(For Libya, there was a UN resolution.)
Not that I ever saw. This was a NATO attack in support of EU policy goals.
Even the UN investigation of the 2013 chemical attack pointed stringy to it being a false flag orchestrated by the FSA, Turkey and probably elements of the USG
They just miscalculated obamas weakness in actually reacting to his own redline bluster
Which has hurt us to this day with our other allies, but at least Obama’s wobbly legs saved us from entering a war that was planned for us for the benefit of Saudi Arabia and turkey, to embroil us in yet another ignoble tar baby foray into the Middle East
He was in the way of the Obama/Clinton plan to create a new Caliphate.
They needed the territory.
They went for Libya, Egypt, and Syria.
They figured they already had the Palestinians, Lebanon and Iraq,
And we now see what Obama had planned for Iran.
they need to nuke Saudi Arabia and then 80% of terrorist will fade
you are wrong
Iran is the enemy
ask yourself, why would a brutal Muslim leader; Assad, retake a Christian city if they are as brutal as BiRacial Hussein Obama claims that they are? Syrian government troops and local militia have retaken the Christian city of Al-Qaryatayn from Islamic State. rt.com/news/338453-syria-christian-al-qaryatain-retaken/
No, there was a UN resolution. The US state department persuaded Russia to abstain, by telling them that the purpose was solely humanitarian in nature - to protect civilians by setting up a no fly zone. This has been a sore point with the Russians ever since, because they maintain they were betrayed. Medvedev (who was President at the time) lost a lot of credibility in Russia by agreeing to abstain. (He’s sort of been in the dog house ever since.)
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