Say this for Barack Obama: He’s got a gift for taking a bad situation and making it worse.
Friday’s dismal jobs report cemented the view that Obama’s second term is a disaster. Combine the weak economy with his failure to build a coalition for a military strike on Syria, and the president looks like a man who doesn’t have a friend in the world — or a clue about where to find one.
Humiliated by Vladimir Putin at the G-20 summit in Russia, Obama was reduced to praising a mushy statement calling for a “strong” response to the use of chemical weapons by Bashar al-Assad. Nine member countries signed on, including France, Italy, England and Saudi Arabia, though not all actually support a military strike. The refuseniks included China, Russia, the European Union, Brazil and India.
The forecast is cloudy in Congress, too. Early support for a strike is collapsing, and it is now an uphill fight for Obama to get the authorization he seeks. If he loses, it means the hot potato he passed to Congress will get tossed back into his lap. Then what?
My view is that a strike that punishes Assad for using chemical weapons must be strong enough at least to change the momentum of the civil war and help deter other rogue nations, especially Iran, from using weapons of mass destruction. But Obama’s team fumbled the case for action by promising only a “shot across the bow,” then proposing a resolution without limits. Their failure to be clear, even in classified briefings, has cost them support from some members who were willing to buck negative public opinion.
So Obama’s reluctance to lead is matched by a world and nation reluctant to follow him.
No comments:
Post a Comment