Obama Is a Symptom, Not the Cause, of America’s Loss of Credibility
16th September 2013
Paul Mirengoff cuts to the chase.
The world sees the spectacle of (1) a “red line” drawn by the U.S. president being brazenly crossed without retribution and (2) America wantonly farming out its response to the crossing of the red line to Vladimir Putin, a sponsor of the regime we had vowed to punish.
My, what a surprise! Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.
To be sure, I am not as convinced as Mirengoff that the case for intervention is so clear-cut. The job description of the Federal government isn’t ‘blow up foreigners who are doing stuff we don’t like’, it’s ‘protect the interests of America and its citizens’, and on that basis I don’t see that we have any reason to get involved in Syria at all — both the terrorist-supporting Assad regime and the terrorist-supporting jihadist rebels are our enemies, and the best outcome would be for them to slaughter each other for another ten years, as Iraq and Iran did during the 1980s; to quote Henry Kissinger, ‘It’s too bad both sides can’t lose’.
This view of Obama reminds me of the common view of Roosevelt in 1940 — he’d do the right thing if it weren’t for that pesky democracy thing, being hamstrung by Congress and public opinion and all. The point is that, in a democracy, which we still pretend to be, the President is supposed to be guided by Congress and public opinion, not regard them as inconvenient obstacles. I am far more concerned with the government’s loss of credibility at home than I am worried about what foreigners think; Tomahawk cruise missiles will correct the latter in short order if it becomes necessary.