l****z
发帖数: 29846 | 1 Dick Cheney Is Still Right
Obama's return to Iraq reveals how wrong he has been about the world.
Sept. 9, 2014 7:24 p.m. ET
President Obama will lay out his plan to counter the Islamic State on
Wednesday night, and we'll judge the strategy on its merits. But the mere
fact that Mr. Obama feels obliged to send Americans to fight again in Iraq
acknowledges the failure of his foreign policy. He is tacitly admitting that
the liberal critique of the Bush Administration's approach to Islamic
terrorism was wrong.
Recall that Mr. Obama won the Presidency by arguing that the U.S. had
alienated the world and Muslims by recklessly using force abroad. We had
betrayed our values by interrogating terrorists too harshly and wiretapping
too much. Our enemies hated us not because they hated our values or our
influence but because we had provoked them with our interventions.
If we withdrew from the Middle East, especially from Iraq; if we avoided new
entanglements, such as in Syria; and if we engaged with our adversaries,
such as Iran and Russia, the anti-American furies would subside and the
world would be safer. We should nation-build at home, not overseas, and
slash the defense budget accordingly.
***
Mr. Obama pursued this vision starting with his Inaugural Address and
throughout his first term. He tried to "reset" relations with Russia by
dismantling a missile-defense deal with Poland and the Czech Republic. He
muted support for the democratic uprising in Iran in 2009 lest it upset the
mullahs he needed for a nuclear weapons deal.
When the Syrian revolt erupted in 2011, Mr. Obama called for Bashar Assad to
go but did nothing to aid the moderate opposition. In the process he
overruled Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, CIA director David Petraeus,
and his ambassador to Damascus Robert Ford.
The U.S. absence left Syria's battleground to the Russians and Iranians, who
helped Assad hang on, and to the Qataris, who have funded Islamic State and
the al Qaeda affiliated al-Nusrah. But Mr. Obama was unrepentant, saying as
recently as August that it had "always been a fantasy" to think that arming
the moderate Syrians would make a difference.
Above all Mr. Obama sought to end the U.S. presence in Iraq. He made a token
effort to strike a status of forces agreement past 2011, offering so few
troops that the Iraqis thought it wasn't worth the domestic political
trouble. Mr. Obama then sold his total withdrawal as a political success,
claiming Iraq was "stable" and "self-reliant" and making a centerpiece of
his 2012 campaign that "the tide of war is receding." He ridiculed Mitt
Romney for warning about Mr. Putin's designs.
Mr. Obama doubled down on his peace-through-withdrawal strategy in the
second term, speeding up the U.S. departure from Afghanistan. On May 23,
2013, he summed up his vision and strategy in a sort of victory speech at
National Defense University:
"Today, Osama bin Laden is dead, and so are most of his top lieutenants.
There have been no large-scale attacks on the United States, and our
homeland is more secure. Fewer of our troops are in harm's way, and over the
next 19 months they will continue to come home. Our alliances are strong,
and so is our standing in the world. In sum, we are safer because of our
efforts."
Then in January his friends at the New Yorker quoted him as comparing
Islamic State to the "jayvee team," and this summer he said Mr. Putin is
doomed to fail because countries don't invade others in "the 21st century."
***
So where are we less than a year later? Iran's mullahs continue to resist Mr
. Obama's nuclear entreaties, while Mr. Putin carves up Ukraine and
threatens NATO. China is breaking the rule of law in Hong Kong, pressing its
air-identification zone in the Pacific, and buzzing U.S. aircraft.
Syria is now a terrorist sanctuary from which the Islamic State has
conquered a third of Iraq, the first time since 9/11 that jihadists control
territory from which they can plan attacks. Al Qaeda's affiliates have
expanded across the Middle East and Africa, attacking a mall in Kenya and
kidnapping schoolgirls in Nigeria.
Mr. Obama can blame this rising tide of disorder on George W. Bush, but the
polls show the American public doesn't believe it. They know from experience
that it takes time for bad policy to reveal itself in new global turmoil.
They saw how the early mistakes in Iraq led to chaos until the 2007 surge
saved the day and left Mr. Obama with an opportunity he squandered. And they
can see now that Mr. Obama's strategy has produced terrorist victories and
more danger for America.
Mr. Obama's intellectual and media defenders were complicit in all of this,
cheering on his flight from world leadership as prudent management of U.S.
decline. Even now some of his most devoted acolytes write that Mr. Obama's "
caution" has Islamic State's jihadists right where he wants them. It is hard
to admit that your worldview has been exposed as out-of-this-world.
We hope tonight's speech shows a more realistic President determined to
defeat Islamic State, but whatever he says will have to overcome the doubts
about American resolve that he has spread around the world for nearly six
years. One way to start undoing the damage would be to concede that Dick
Cheney was right all along. | C*******h
发帖数: 6095 | 2 Has O8 ever been right about anything??? LOL
For Americans, it's been a shame in their history that they elected a
president like this... | T*********I
发帖数: 10729 | 3
【在 C*******h 的大作中提到】
: Has O8 ever been right about anything??? LOL
: For Americans, it's been a shame in their history that they elected a
: president like this...
| t*c
发帖数: 8291 | 4 More worse presidents are coming.
所以这个总统不会是历史上最糟的总统，只是至今为止最糟的总统。因为更糟的在后面。
美国已经过了no-return point. 我们可以看到的，只是坠崖还是下缓坡的差别。
【在 C*******h 的大作中提到】
: Has O8 ever been right about anything??? LOL
: For Americans, it's been a shame in their history that they elected a
: president like this...
| S*********g
发帖数: 24893 | 5 Dick shouldn't have invaded iraq in the first place. | s********t
发帖数: 4150 | 6 O8 has always been right. He's been simply executing his plan of destroying
USA.
【在 C*******h 的大作中提到】
: Has O8 ever been right about anything??? LOL
: For Americans, it's been a shame in their history that they elected a
: president like this...
| m**k
发帖数: 290 | | c*l
发帖数: 1433 | 8 当初切尼就不该出兵伊拉克，既然出了，就不该轻易撤回。所以最终说明，萨达姆是伊
拉克人民的正确选择。 | n**1
发帖数: 318 | 9 同意这个说法。
视角大一点才能看得更清楚。
面。
【在 t*c 的大作中提到】
: More worse presidents are coming.
: 所以这个总统不会是历史上最糟的总统，只是至今为止最糟的总统。因为更糟的在后面。
: 美国已经过了no-return point. 我们可以看到的，只是坠崖还是下缓坡的差别。
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