This era came to a messy, tragic end on September 11, 2012 in Benghazi, Libya. When the world feels like it can sack an American embassy, murder American diplomatic personnel, and do so without meaningful fear of consequences, it’s the President who is to blame. Only the massive, backbreaking efforts of his media enablers (looking at you, Candy Crowley) let him skate and push giving even the most limited answers back past the election. This final phase has gotten even messier. The bad actors of this world have seen all Barack Obama’s cards, and they know on his best day he can’t bluff his way past an opponent holding a pair of twos. They know his soaring rhetoric is rarely backed up by action or force of arms unless it meets his specific political criteria. Since Benghazi, Barack Obama hasn’t had a good day on the foreign policy front. Egypt is mired in a post-coup economic and political quagmire. Libya has fallen to the Islamist horde, who are holding pool parties at what was our Embassy. Syria has devolved from mere oppression to a human-rights tragedy nearly unprecedented in a region where the unprecedented is expected. ISIS is spreading across the Middle East, traveling down a river of blood toward Baghdad, Amman, and Damascus. That our State Department still believes that ISIS is subject to moral pressure or diplomatic persuasion makes one wonder if they watch the news. ISIS isn’t a rational actor, but John Kerry and Hashtag Harf seem to think that strongly-worded tweets are a substitute for having an American foreign policy that recognizes evil when it sees it and takes action to protect American interests. Vladimir Putin rolls Obama on a near-daily basis, with the annexation of Crimea and the invasion of Ukraine being greeted largely with toothless sanctions and rhetoric. Our NATO allies aren’t going to walk away from today’s Estonian events with a sense of clarity and resolve. They, like our enemies, know that Obama is great at promises and great at speeches, but far less reliable when it comes to commitments that might interfere with his legacy, or his golf game.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 02:58:01 +0000
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