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Pompey Junglist wrote:Re: Obama v Bush. I suspect time will prove that Obama's strategy has made the World a far more dangerous place than Bush ever could.
Red lines... I've a feeling we'll be talking about those for decades to come. By refusing to act when his own red lines were crossed, Obama signalled an end to America being the global policeman. While the chattering classes in the West rejoiced, the World's despots got ready for action.
He shouldn't have called them 'red lines' as that requires a strong reaction once they are crossed. Bad move.
But otherwise, what do you think he should have done? Should he have sent forces into Syria and almost certainly up against a belligerent Russia? I was in Kosovo when Russia and NATO forces raced each other to seize ground. All very dangerous and this was in a non-strategic part of the world.
Obama's opponents love to say he was trumped by Russia when they removed the chemical weapons and left Assad in power. But the chemical attacks stopped without any Western military response, didn't they? The Syrian conflict remains more or less domestically contained (ie no foreign military involvement...the thousands of foreign fighters asides), doesn't it?
Bush ignited a still-raging region-wide conflict in the Middle East and sparked the creation of a rapidly-growing, out-of-control and globally-active Islamic extremist network.
By comparison, Obama has done a fairly respectable job keeping this disastrous foreign policy from snowballing further.
Pompey Junglist wrote:Re: Obama v Bush. I suspect time will prove that Obama's strategy has made the World a far more dangerous place than Bush ever could.
Red lines... I've a feeling we'll be talking about those for decades to come. By refusing to act when his own red lines were crossed, Obama signalled an end to America being the global policeman. While the chattering classes in the West rejoiced, the World's despots got ready for action.
He shouldn't have called them 'red lines' as that requires a strong reaction once they are crossed. Bad move.
But otherwise, what do you think he should have done? Should he have sent forces into Syria and almost certainly up against a belligerent Russia? I was in Kosovo when Russia and NATO forces raced each other to seize ground. All very dangerous and this was in a non-strategic part of the world.
Obama's opponents love to say he was trumped by Russia when they removed the chemical weapons and left Assad in power. But the chemical attacks stopped without any Western military response, didn't they? The Syrian conflict remains more or less domestically contained (ie no foreign military involvement...the thousands of foreign fighters asides), doesn't it?
Bush ignited a still-raging region-wide conflict in the Middle East and sparked the creation of a rapidly-growing, out-of-control and globally-active Islamic extremist network.
By comparison, Obama has done a fairly respectable job keeping this disastrous foreign policy from snowballing further.
hmmmm...while I agree there is not much else Obama could have done, well...maybe drone strikes on Syrias airfields....surely your reading of the Syrian situation is incorrect?
The chemical attacks have indeed continued, albeit with chlorine weapons instead of the previous versions, and the conflict has indeed widened into Iraq via ISIS and thus Iran is involved and so is most certainly not domestically contained.
The real culprits here though, are not Bush or Obama...its the Arabs that have failed themselves...all of them have had the opportunity to sort it out, most all have failed to this point because they are far too excited about killing each other.
This is why we should not take sides in their conflicts....its a no win situation for us.
