POST OF THE DAY: The roots of ISIS do not lie in the actions America took in 2003. Bush made mistakes in Iraq, and left a ramshackle state that functioned less badly than any of its neighbors. Obama walked away, pulled out a cigarette, tossed the match over his shoulder and ignited a fuse that, from Damascus to Baghdad to Amman and beyond, will blow up the entire Middle East. Back in America, the coastal sophisticates joke at those knuckle-dragging rubes who believe Obama is some kind of secret Muslim. But really Occams razor would favor such an explanation, wouldnt it? That a post-American Middle East divided between bad-cop nuclear Shia and worse-cop head-hacking Sunni was the plan all along. Because there are only two alternatives to that simplest of simple explanations: The first is that Obama and the Z-graders who fill out his administration are just blundering buffoons. And we all know from Michael Beschloss that hes the smartest president ever, so it couldnt possibly be colossal stupidity on a scale unknown to American history, could it? The second is that his contempt for American power - a basic class signifier in the circles in which hes moved all his life - is so deeply ingrained that he doesnt care what replaces it.
Posted on: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 18:56:30 +0000