By Steve Hynd
"Whereas Bush sought to eliminate terrorism by pursuing his �freedom agenda� (liberty imposed at the point of a bayonet), Obama has demonstrated an inclination to consult, engage in give-and-take, and make room for issues to which Bush gave short shrift. Yet for all these differences, there is one matter in which Obama stubbornly cleaves to the course set by his predecessor. Step by inexorable step he has taken the United States (its allies trailing reluctantly behind) ever more deeply into the vortex of Afghanistan. Neoconservatives and hawkish Americans of whatever stripe have little if any reason to complain: in escalating and prolonging the conflict there, Obama has in effect resuscitated the �global war on terror� that was on life support by the time President Bush left office.
As a consequence, the normally risk-averse Obama has, in effect, placed his entire presidency (and perhaps his country�s future) in hock. Confronting genuinely important problems � restoring economic stability, addressing contentious security issues ranging from the rise of China to the Iranian nuclear programme, not to mention the Gulf oil spill � Obama has in effect bet the house on America�s ability to determine the fate of a quasi-nation possessing marginal significance to the West. Lending this tale an added aura of tragedy is the sense that Obama understands the fix that he�s in. The Most Powerful Man in the World finds himself a prisoner of events he cannot control. Difficult circumstances, bad luck, the imperatives of electoral politics, and wilful (or incompetent) subordinates have all combined to manoeuvre him into a corner where the available choices are increasingly narrow and uniformly unattractive.
Yet Obama cannot evade personal responsibility for the bind in which he finds himself. To insulate himself from the charge of being a national security wimp, candidate Obama had declared Afghanistan the �necessary� war, contrasting it with the war in Iraq that he opposed.
Few of those who voted Obama into the White House cared all that much about his fulfilling this particular campaign pledge. But for whatever reason, he insisted on doing so."
One of the standard lines trotted out by Democrat hawks is that Obama promised an escalation in Afghanistan so why are all we proggies who supported him whining about it now?
Well, he promised a bunch of stuff -- being an "honest broker" between Palestinian and Israel, closing Gitmo, a full withdrawal from Iraq, a real attempt to negotiate with Iran, an overhall of America's medical system which would break the insurance companies' stranglehold and give all Americans coverage, strong regulation for the finance industry and Wall Street, the end of lobbying power via multiple revolving doors -- that he hasn't delivered on.
If he had to break one of those promises, we'd rather it had been the one that led the US and its poodle allies deeper into the quagmire.
So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.
ReplyDeleteSun Tzu's The Art of War
Some supposedly well-informed people have said Obama knows himself. So, assuming his problem is that he doesn't know his enemy, for a crash course, he could do worse than viewing Zeitgeist the Movie on the internet.