Lee Smith tries to understand the administration’s reluctance to take on the Syrian regime, which can be seen machine-gunning protesters in this video. In the face of outrages committed daily, which it does not even bother to hide, “why is Obama protecting Assad?” he asks. For exempted Assad is. Smith cites diplomatic sources suggesting the Opthamologist of Damascus will be specifically spared from the “targeted sanctions.” The better not to anger the president of Syria.
Smith believes the reluctance is because Obama needs Assad to carry out his long-cherished goal of signing a comprehensive peace agreement between the Arab states and Israel. That, like other initiatves, has met with nothing but failure. But the greater the failure, the greater Obama’s need for Assad. Assad holds the keys to the car Obama dreams of driving.
So why is the administration protecting a regime that makes war against its own people as well as America and her allies? As Michael Doran explains in his latest article in Foreign Affairs (“The Heirs of Nasser”), it is because “the Obama administration has made the Arab-Israeli peace process the organizing principle of its Middle East policy.”
Doran writes that “from the outset, the Obama administration has believed in the importance of pursuing a ‘comprehensive’ settlement — meaning a peace treaty that includes not just the Palestinians but, in addition, all the Arab states, especially Syria.”
As the administration has failed to make any headway in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, the Syrian track has grown in importance. Consequently, Washington has chosen to treat Syria not as an adversary deserving containment but rather as a partner in the negotiations deserving of engagement.
The president, having bet the farm on the “engagement policy,” found he was losing; and determined to walk out of the diplomatic casino a winner, decided to double down. “If this leads to failure, doing it again but harder, will result in success.” Lee Smith calls the policy “adventurist and ideological.”
But the New Yorker disagrees. The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza argues that Obama is the very example of a non-ideological leader. Obama was growing all the time. It was true that “as a student during the Reagan years, Obama gravitated toward conventionally left-leaning positions.” But with the passage of years, he read the books and talked to experts and broadened his perspective.
Obama had always read widely, and now he was determined to get a deeper education. He read popular books on foreign affairs by Fareed Zakaria and Thomas Friedman. He met with Anthony Lake, who had left the Nixon Administration over Vietnam and went on to work in Democratic Administrations, and with Susan Rice, who had served in the Clinton Administration and carried with her the guilt of having failed to act to prevent the Rwandan genocide. He also contacted Samantha Power, a thirty-four-year-old journalist and Harvard professor specializing in human rights. In her twenties, Power had reported from the Balkans and witnessed the campaigns of ethnic cleansing there.
Power made a special impression. She convinced him of the need to stop “The Problem From Hell” — genocide. But his nuanced intellect prevented the notion from becoming dogma. He would not, for example, blindly follow the principle in Iraq.
As he campaigned in New Hampshire, in 2007, Obama said that he would not leave troops in Iraq even to stop genocide. “Well, look, if that’s the criteria by which we are making decisions on the deployment of U.S. forces, then by that argument you would have three hundred thousand troops in the Congo right now, where millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic strife, which we haven’t done,” he said. “We would be deploying unilaterally and occupying the Sudan, which we haven’t done.”
But his aversion to force was modified by the experience of having to deal with Afghanistan. He grew some more to accommodate the new knowledge. “In Oslo, he surprised a largely left-leaning audience by talking about the martial imperatives of a Commander-in-Chief overseeing two wars. Obama’s aides often insist that he is an anti-ideological politician interested only in what actually works. He is, one says, a ‘consequentialist.’” A consequentialist, one who seeks results.
Reading books by Tom Friedman? That will screw up anyone’s thinking.
Instead of R2P, (Wish/Want) W2P?
well look, I’m all in favor of an enlightened view that trots out universalist guidelines like R2P exactly when it’s convenient to do so.
so, nobody would take them seriously under such usage guidelines? imagine that. nudge nudge, wink wink.
“What Obama decides on the day is where US interest lies.”
Or as that other Hussein, Saddam, said, “The law is defined two inches above my signature.”
Or as Barak might say, “Ideology is defined by my teleprompter.”
Wow, supernatural force get this guy in office, supernatural force keep this guy from deep sixing nearly everything he touches and now right out of the book of truth (last chapter) we find out he wants to be the star in the roll to be played by a supernatural character…. One world financing, one world leadership and a peace maker for the most vexing of places… Ya this is life imitating the scripture right before your eyes… 2012 ushers in Obama’s heralding question is, is it the 12th imam that heals the fatally wounded world leader, is he the one or just the warm up act???
He is an ideologue;
he’s a member of Opportunists International.
It surely is essential
That Barack be consequential
And serene and up to date at every turn
For the world to be his oyster
He must leave his White House cloister
And be seen to grow maturely and to learn
Yes I know he reads the masters
And has bigots for his pastors
And his ancestry is redder than his schemes
But it really doesn’t matter
For there’s nothing that is sadder
Than a man who can’t tell life from fevered dreams
Wow Walt. What a gem!
A tumor is also growth.
Gilbert & Sullivan on “leading from behind” (from The Gondoliers):
Duke.
In enterprise of martial kind,
When there was any fighting,
He led his regiment from behind —
He found it less exciting.
But when away his regiment ran,
His place was at the fore, O —
That celebrated,
Cultivated,
Underrated
Nobleman,
The Duke of Plaza-Toro!
All.
In the first and foremost flight, ha, ha!
You always found that knight, ha, ha!
That celebrated,
Cultivated,
Underrated
Nobleman,
The Duke of Plaza-Toro!
Duke.
When, to evade Destruction’s hand,
To hide they all proceeded,
No soldier in that gallant band
Hid half as well as he did.
He lay concealed throughout the war,
And so preserved his gore, O!
That unaffected,
Undetected,
Well-connected
Warrior,
The Duke of Plaza-Toro!
All.
In every doughty deed, ha, ha!
He always took the lead, ha, ha!
That unaffected,
Undetected,
Well-connected
Warrior,
The Duke of Plaza-Toro!
Stage performance here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHnmWgv55ZU&feature=related
I remember one night I was leading from under the table. It was when a fight broke out in a bar.
It’s good to know that Obama has broadened his perspective and no longer just reads extreme leftist, but now also reads far leftists.
Since we are only bombing in Libya on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I figure that leaves Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for Syria. I would suggest bombing on the weekend, too, but I don’t think we can afford the overtime.
#7. Walt: First rate verse! One of your best!
#9. Langley
A tumor is also growth.
Tumors gotta eat, too……heh.
“Leading from behind.” Priceless. Did he say it with a straight face? Buffoons. Clowns. Dunces. It really is time to go John Galt on this administration.
It’s spelled “ophthalmologist”.
Walt @7: beyond good. Smokin’ brilliant. Are you writing the books for half the shows on Broadway? If not, why not?
of course in the Larry Niven “Ringworld” universe, the leader of the super-intelligent alien puppeteers is called “The Hindmost”, for that’s the safest position in the herd.
it’s not the worst advice in the world – “where the people lead, the leaders will follow”, nice 1960s slogan. it is not entirely inappropriate to any democracy. if you don’t believe me, ask Plato.
Brings to mind a framed item I saw at the Pentagon:
“When did you see them?
“How many of them were there?”
“How fast were they moving?”
“What direction were they headed?”
“I must find them!”
“I am their leader!”
#17 RWE
I wonder whether that framed item might be derived from a quote attributed to Alexandre Ledru-Rollin (d. 1874), a French politician under the regimes of Louis Philippe and Napoleon III. Ledru-Rollin fancied himself the leader-from-behind of the working class: “Il faut bien que je les suive, puisque je suis leur chef!“
Buraq is an stupid imbecile. A hateful, dangerous imbecile full of demons and rage from early childhood abuse, but an imbecile none the less. Buraq’ s strategies like his ‘engagement policy’ and R2P are public relations window dressing over policies that hide his blackhearted anti-American intent, and that have absolutely no chance to further America’s interests in the real world, if there ever was a hint of that intention.
But yet, these imbecilic policies are held in great esteem by our anointed great men as if from on high in their brilliance. So great is their esteem in the media that the Republicans dare not criticize them. Republicans like McCain, Lugar, Mc Connell, Snowe and Collins treat them with the utmost respect and confer great respectability in doing so. No serious dissent or discussion of their destructive consequences is allowed.
What should really happen is that these nutty ideas should be roundly ridiculed, derided and made fun of, and those who grant them respect should be ridiculed as well. These policies and pronouncements from Buraq should only be taken seriously only as far as their potential destructive power if ever implemented; otherwise they should be laughed at-at every turn. Buraq is a mean, dangerous, lazy, egotistical clown, who needs to be treated as such.
“Obama had always read widely, and now he was determined to get a deeper education.”
Pure revisionist BS. I get a lot of vibes from this guy, but being a big reader of real books is not one of them.
Just exactly who died and made us responsible for Mid East peace? Imagine the kudos awaiting O’Sputnik after he makes peace between Israel and Egypt again.
Perhaps the simple explanation is that the President is an anti-Semite.
Brooks 22,
You think?
The Israelis and many others, including increasingly I suspect the Saudis who feel like the dog that caught the car and now want to go back to when America was the strong infidel and the Israelis worked with them to keep order, are busy figuring out how to survive the next two years or six months to start with.
It brings me no joy to say it, but I had the same thoughts about a month ago regarding Obama’s propensity for “leading from behind.” Writing on another Belmont Club post, I expressed similar thoughts about Obama’s leadership style, especialy in this paragraph:
Having gone right on the previous assessment, I shall now venture another. Again, it brings me no joy to say it, and I wish I had some better news to foretell; but for better or for worse, here is what my searching mind tells me.
With his foreign policy being shown to be a failure and a worsening economic situation at home, one last offensive will yet issue forth from the Obama administration in time to kick off the 2012 campaign season in earnest. What the specifics of this initiative will be cannot yet be told, but its broad outlines are easy enough to guess: Obama will call for a populist uprising.
In terms of its scope and extraconstitutionality, it will effectively be “Obamacare 2.0″ , but its content will be very different. We can expect it to display a marked emphasis on environmentalism, especially with regard to mandating carbon reduction and efficiency (read: austerity) measures. We can expect it to involve a youth volunteer corps of immense proportions, which will simultaneously serve as a sort of para-political farm team and psi-ops apparatus, with a strong personal loyalty to Obama (i.e. something like a cross between the SS and the LaRouche organization, but fashioned for the final implemetation of ’60s radicalism). We can expect it to be managed through social networking sites and largely outside the channels of the official bureaucracy. And finally, we can expect it to be a spoils system that will previde educational funding and academic posts only to those with the preferred ideological makeup.
Since all of this will be done unofficially and voluntarily—”in the spirit of the times,” you might say—these legions will answer only to Obama’s personal charism. Being thus formless and unaccountable, they will be all the more dangerous. Obama will empower them with his presence, will empower every Leftist huckster and race-card dealer and community organizer in the land, and they will feel their oats, and will rise up and demand change. But Obama will have to be ever before them, on the Youtube channels and social media, doing his song and dance. He will appear ridiculous to serious folk, but it will matter no longer; for this is his last best shot.
In short, his ability for real political leadership in tatters, Obama will go into full-blown Ceaușescu mode, nightly marionette dances and all. He will drum an army of willing Leftists out of the soil to serve as his great host. For this next battle we must now prepare.
“I’ll go first…you lead the way”
~Moe Howard~
~Barokeydoke Hubris Obozo~
I think that Richard missed printing the best parts. Namely that Obama has been nothing but a part time anything for his entire life. He has not remained as one thing or another in job or person.
Second, there is the idea that leaders grow in office, but the question must be considered how much “growth” the office of President and the United States can sustain. Growth indicates facing challenges, experiencing failures and, hopefully, learning what to do when confronted with the next challenge.
Most leaders who achieve such offices already have met untold numbers of challenges in their lives allowing them to bring a greater amount of experience to their new position and respond with better decision making skills. It allows them to adjust quickly and make fewer mistakes. Obama has no such experience. We know it and so did the people that elected him. Obviously, people bought into his “hope and change” as an idea that his lack of experience would mean knew ideas, that Obama would be some form of radical change agent.
In fact, the article specifically notes that Obama was determined to shed “old ideologies”. Of course, he has not turned out to be so much of a radical change agent as a lackadaisical leader who surrounded himself with old realists and policy makers even as he expressed the desire to leave their ideas behind.
For most, this represents Obama’s maturity in leadership in recognizing his own weaknesses and surrounding himself with people who would shore up his weaknesses (I won’t go into how this lack of knowledge was Palin’s downfall and that the ability to talk like a leader superseded the ability to act like one). It would on any other day or person to be a sign of this maturity. The problem is that while Obama eschews any ideologies he seems to lack a set of principles on which to govern.
He wrongly assumes that principles are “blanket policies”:
Obama has emphasized bureaucratic efficiency over ideology, and approached foreign policy as if it were case law, deciding his response to every threat or crisis on its own merits. “When you start applying blanket policies on the complexities of the current world situation, you’re going to get yourself into trouble,” he said in a recent interview with NBC News.
The appropriate response to that is when you do not have a set of principles to guide your policies, you are going to get yourself into trouble. Principles do not make “blanket policies”. Principles are the foundation on which good policy is made. “Events” may require policy reviews, but principles, not ideologies, invariably lead to the right policies.
It is ironic that those who were so set against Bush’s principles for leadership have now discovered that the lack of principles is even more destructive.
Face it; Obama will go after Libya when it was just a plain stupid idea which had no true purpose but, will not go after a real enemy of ours and Israel. Obama has no logical reasoning for anything he does. He will go down in American history as the most disliked and worst President this country has ever had. There is no race card played here it’s just based on his ineffectiveness as a leader and President. Biden, Clinton, Holder, Reid, Pelosi says it all…..I have no business having this job. I look real stupid in the eyes of the world.
Matt # 24;
I hate to say it, but I agree with you. Since all of The One’s other dreams have turned to ashes in his mouth, his final gambit is very likely to be a combination of Mao’s Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, with a lot of Earth Day nonsense bruited about as the “inescapable imperative” therefore.
On the plus side, imagine the chaos on the left as SEIU, the New Black Panthers, and the Sierra Club slug it out over which of them are the genuine “Red Guards”. Sometimes chaos can be a good thing- when it forces your adversaries to engage themselves.
cheers
eon
Sorry, I disagree.
Obama’s foreign policy consists of always favoring the side that promotes militant Islam.
Naturally, he always follows it up with whatever excuses come to the minds of his Teleprompter-writers, but there is no need for us to take his word for anything.
Unless I missed it, no one has yet said the obvious: leading from behind is another way of saying that you’re being led by an ass.
#26 Kat-Mo, I agree with your assessment. Obama has no principles, no standards of governance. His focus is only on ‘feeling in control over others’. That is, Obama’s focus goes no further than himself. As Himself.
His whole life history reveals this isolate, self-absorbed psyche, including his lack of academic work (did nothing as ‘editor’ of the Harvard Law Review); his passive jobs that consisted merely of exhorting others to ‘activate’ (community organizer, member of senate, college lecturer). Obama has never run a business, run an organization, developed a policy or program – nothing. He delegates all such work to others; all he does is manipulate and charm.
With regard to foreign policy and Syria – it’s fascinating to see how rapidly his words about Libya have vanished. That’s pure Obama; the content of each speech is valid only for that hour and that audience; there’s no reference to any continuous principles. Remember how he told the world that the reason the US was going into Libya was because it was the US morality of always helping out for humanitarian reasons? Well, the Syrian govt is massacring its own citizens…and those words of Obama’s are as hollow as the wind.
I don’t think that Obama has a Middle East Policy and certainly, has no interest in Israel. Or Palestine. Obama is a shallow, ill-read and historically ignorant person; he has no understanding of what has happened and what is now occurring in the ME.
Again – Obama has NO policies about anything. He has one and only one focus; Himself.The only reason the US went into Libya was because France and the UK shamed him into taking some action. Obama doesn’t lead, he doesn’t initiate; he reacts to pressure from the outside. If Obama doesn’t feel that a situation is about Him, and also, that the situation does not enable him to control people…then, quite literally, the situation doesn’t exist for him.
Again – Obama has no ability to connect to any situation or any person that is not about Him. He feels nothing about what is going on in Syria. Or elsewhere. Those events and the people…are not about..Him.
Internally- Obama himself is run by hard radical socialists; their policies are geared to increasing the dominance of a central statist government and reducing individual freedom and power. For example, all his policies are statist. And his talk of increased taxes takes away private enterprise freedom for businesses are left with no investment strength. Obama likes that; he likes to take power away from other people.
As for the chatter from the MSM, they are tripping over the semantics of language, trying to come up with reasons for Obama’s actions – ignoring that with Obama – it’s all about Him. Him and whether he feels in control.
Get your Prius rollin’
Too slow for the highway
Dont need no adventures
’till elections come our way
Yeah we gotta keep things from hapnin’
Hug Assad in a love embrace
Hide all of the guns, have lunch, and
Stare off into space
Like a true witless child
We were born, born to be mild
Please dont ask us why
We ain’t even gonna try…
OK not Walt but couldnt resist. Now I got that song stuck in my head the rest of the day.
If one can not succeed at success, one can always succeed at failure. That way, even in failure one can hail oneself as a victor.
Interesting discussion. You should post your viewpoints about this on http://www.whitehousevoice.com!
Isn’t that what Stealth Socialists do…”lead from behind”?
Man, this Lizza character is a sycophantic cretin, isn’t he?
His writing and his “logic” remind me of the pot-fueled BS sessions of my youth. I was a very light toker, and preferred to be amused by the scatterbrained philosophizing of the others in the circle. Lizza would have fit right in.
“What Obama decides on the day is where U.S. interest lies.”
not quite
what obama decides is based on the polling results
@#16 josh
“it’s not the worst advice in the world – “where the people lead, the leaders will follow”, nice 1960s slogan. it is not entirely inappropriate to any democracy. if you don’t believe me, ask Plato.”
Our system of government is not a “democracy”. If you knew anything about classical Greek history, you would know that many Greek “tyrants” (leaders) were either ostracized, killed or placed under sentence of death because of disagreement with the majority. More rightly, “where the minority of the people lead, Obama follows”. His approval rating is under 50%. If this were a true democracy, Obama would be impeached, or worse.
The wimpiest editor at a most urgent moment in history. Only Remnick could write a bios of Muhammad Ali and then Obama and somehow fail to mention the uh…. connection betwixt the two. Tony Rezko. Pal and business associate to both Ali and Obama!
http://wwwtwosetsofbooks.blogspot.com/2011/03/update-nick-kaiser-devon-bank-sunrise.html
It is an absurdity to take seriously any of the defenses of Obama’s spasms and contradictions by the self-proclaimed intellectuals of the Left. In the first place, they claim a specious familiarity with the readings, conversations, and conceptual influences of a man who has spent millions of dollars obscuring and hiding information that should be available to the nation about his background.
The man is a cipher, intentionally. And he has clearly been aided and abetted in the cloaking of his biographical data by the same shadowy figures that artificially elevated him to national prominence all out of proportion to his meager talents.
Born to be guiled.