“Obama’s [complete lack of] strategy on Islamic State revives tensions over Syria" — Washington Post
The Neo-con “Bush Doctrine” has been replaced by a half-hearted, half-assed Neo-con “Obama Doctrine”
For now, the only responsible position for any solid Republican or any other patriotic American is to shout “Hell No ! We Won’t Go !” — to Iraq or Syria — Now is the time to build up the arsenals and walls of “Fortress America” against any and all threats just like was done in the late 1930s
A key piece of the new oppositionist thinking appeared in the Washington Post today; it pointed out the main flaw in the Obama “strategy” vis a vis ISIS and/or ISIL, as Obama likes to call it ( See “Obama’s strategy on Islamic State revives tensions over Syria” by Liz Sly, 9/11/14, Washington Post [http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/obamas-strategy-on-islamic-state-revives-tensions-over-syria/2014/09/11/6a118349-4aee-4377-bd55-b1b672954b4f_story.html#] [Liz Sly is the Post’s Beirut bureau chief. She has spent more than 15 years covering the Middle East, including the Iraq war. Other postings include Africa, China and Afghanistan]).
Here’s what Liz Sly had to say in her WP article, “The prospect of deeper American involvement in Syria is reopening the stark global divide that fueled the escalation of the conflict three years ago, underscoring the challenges confronting President Obama in his first real foray into the morass of Syria’s war. *** The moderate Syrian opposition welcomed Obama’s pledges of accelerated support as well as possible airstrikes against Islamic State militants, which could potentially reverse more than a year of defeats on the battlefield inflicted both by the militants and by the government of President Bashar al-Assad....”
RISKING DIRECT CONFLICT WITH SYRIA, RUSSIA AND IRAN AND/OR INDEFINITE QUAGMIRE WORSE THAT BUSH’S INVASION OF IRAQ OR JOHNSON’S WAR IN VIET NAM
Here’s the rub: “Syria’s main allies, Russia and Iran, expressed dismay that the United States apparently plans to intervene without their approval in the conflict that Assad had until recently appeared to be winning....” An America led by Barack Obama simply cannot stand up to either Russia or Iran.
“In media interviews, Syrian officials made it clear they are unhappy that Assad’s regime has been excluded from Obama’s calculations. *** ‘If any strike is carried out without our coordination, we will consider it an aggression,’ Bouthaina Shaaban, a close adviser to Assad, told CNN. ‘President Obama would be very much ill-advised to carry on with what he said’....”
More important than that according to the Sly piece in the WaPost, “As Secretary of State John F. Kerry wooed America’s traditional Sunni allies in Saudi Arabia on Thursday, Iran questioned his motives. *** ‘Some of the countries in the coalition are among the financial and military supporters of terrorists [including ISIS] in Iraq and Syria,’ [Iranian] Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham told reporters in Tehran on Thursday.
When one gets a more accurate and fundamentally more truthful assessment from an Iranian minister than you do from the President of the United States or any member of his administration, as an American you have a major problem.
How many times are the same mistakes going to be repeated. — “Iraqi Freedom” — Viet Nam — these were major blunders by Presidents George W. Bush and Lyndon B. Johnson
Hence, the only sensible response to what Obama’s now proposing is for good Republicans and true patriots to shout as loud as they can, “HELL NO, WE WON’T GO ! ! !”
Instead of appropriating any funds for any aspect of Obama's Iraq--Syria non-strategy, American needs to rebuild its greatly eroded and rapidly hollowing military machine; putting intelligence and other special operations operatives on the front line for truly secret missions, including completely decapitating all actually threatening organizations. In addition, our borders and international ports of entry need to be made virtually impregnable by full manning with technically superior and properly trained and led border agents.
