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icantfindaname posted:A large majority of the deaths and damage would have been avoided yeah. Pointing this out doesn't fit the narrative obviously, but it's still true Barrel bombs kill people like this- MK. 84s kill people like this.
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Mar 11, 2016 02:54
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icantfindaname posted:It's almost like ISIS isn't the problem with Syria, and is responsible for only a small fraction of the deaths and destruction That's one of the other things the article is vague about - they passingly mention that the White House expected Assad to go like Mubarak. I think there was some playbook logic at work where Russia was expected to have the same kind of influence over Damascus that the US had over Cairo.
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Mar 11, 2016 02:54
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Bip Roberts posted:. No, that's what Obama actually did. We're talking about what he should have done
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Mar 11, 2016 02:55
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Panzeh posted:Barrel bombs kill people like this- MK. 84s kill people like this. They kill people in numbers that are quantifiable, objective facts. It's scary to see the level of hulk rage that pointing out facts brings out in some people
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Mar 11, 2016 02:57
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icantfindaname posted:It's almost like ISIS isn't the problem with Syria, and is responsible for only a small fraction of the deaths and destruction Oh, is it Assad? The guy who generously stored all those prisoners in undocumented black sites on behalf of the US government during the 2000s? Or did the problems start with his father, Hafez, who joined America's coalition to fight Iraq (you know, the country that America had been selling weapons to in the 1980s because they were fighting the Iranians, to whom America was also selling weapons).
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Mar 11, 2016 02:59
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icantfindaname posted:No, that's what Obama actually did. We're talking about what he should have done So what should Obama have done, Harry Turtledove?
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Mar 11, 2016 02:59
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-Troika- posted:Obama doesn't really have a cohesive doctrine for international relations, he just kind of flops around limply like a fish, when he isn't actively ignoring the US's long time allies in order to suck Iranian and Russian dick. Do tell us, Troika - why is the Iranian Deal particularly laughable? What do you object to about it? Also, how has he sucked Iranian and Russian dick?
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Mar 11, 2016 03:02
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Bip Roberts posted:So what should Obama have done, Harry Turtledove? Moved to remove Assad at the start of the war in 2012 or 2013 Helsing posted:Oh, is it Assad? The guy who generously stored all those prisoners in undocumented black sites on behalf of the US government during the 2000s? Or did the problems start with his father, Hafez, who joined America's coalition to fight Iraq (you know, the country that America had been selling weapons to in the 1980s because they were fighting the Iranians, to whom America was also selling weapons). It's cool to see how it literally causes some people's brains to snap, Looney Tunes style, to suggest that America had, has or will ever have the ability to do something that is positive and constructive in the world
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Mar 11, 2016 03:03
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icantfindaname posted:Moved to remove Assad at the start of the war in 2012 or 2013 We don't assassinate heads of states - kind of sets a bad precedent.
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Mar 11, 2016 03:04
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icantfindaname posted:Moved to remove Assad at the start of the war in 2012 or 2013 Then the US ends up propping up a side in another civil war. The officials end up being corrupt(most of the people willing to be propped up by the US do) and unpopular and the US is embroiled fighting Sunni and Shia/Allawite insurgents.
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Mar 11, 2016 03:04
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Panzeh posted:Then the US ends up propping up a side in another civil war. The officials end up being corrupt(most of the people willing to be propped up by the US do) and unpopular and the US is embroiled fighting Sunni and Shia/Allawite insurgents. No, it doesn't. If the US had literally swooped in, assassinated Assad and his top generals, and flown away, it's very likely 80% of the deaths in this war would have been avoided. Even if you're absolutely 100% committed to die on the hill of everything Amerikkka could ever possibly do being bad and evil, you can't argue with a straight face the war would not have been significantly alleviated. Not gone entirely, obviously, but significantly less bad. The attempts to spin Libya, a war not 1/10th as bad as Syria, into some kind of nightmare that proves Syria could never have been helped is hilarious desperation on the part of people who want to convince themselves that isolationism is the correct choice McDowell posted:We don't assassinate heads of states - kind of sets a bad precedent. Well, you could have enforced a no-fly zone to the same effect. Too bad Obama chose not to icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Mar 11, 2016 |
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Mar 11, 2016 03:07
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-Troika- posted:Obama doesn't really have a cohesive doctrine for international relations, he just kind of flops around limply like a fish, when he isn't actively ignoring the US's long time allies in order to suck Iranian and Russian dick. Fantastic reading of the article. As to the flouting of the Iranian nuclear deal, please provide examples of the paranoid fantasy that exists only in your head.
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Mar 11, 2016 03:09
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So what happens when Russia and China start planning to assassinate American leaders and generals because they have gone mad with power and threaten self-determination?
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Mar 11, 2016 03:11
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McDowell posted:So what would your strategy be? This guy's characterization of ISIS is kinda laughable because any time someone says "they've been doing this for centuries" you've just heard or you're about to hear some really dumb poo poo.
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Mar 11, 2016 03:11
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icantfindaname posted:No, it doesn't. If the US had literally swooped in, assassinated Assad and his top generals, and flown away, it's very likely 80% of the deaths in this war would have been avoided. Even if you're absolutely 100% committed to die on the hill of everything Amerikkka could ever possibly do being bad and evil, you can't argue with a straight face the war would not have been significantly alleviated. Not gone entirely, obviously, but significantly less bad I'd be okay with that if we did the same to the Sauds, Erdrogan, and Bibi.
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Mar 11, 2016 03:12
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icantfindaname posted:Moved to remove Assad at the start of the war in 2012 or 2013 Nobody is debating whether American can or does do good in the world, we're talking about America's foreign policy, and in particular it's role in the middle east. And anyone who thinks America promotes regional stability or has promoted stability at any point in the last several decades is delusional. Which is why your argument is only sustainable when you speak in the vaguest of platitudes and pretend that history started in 2012 and anything that occurred before then is off bounds.
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Mar 11, 2016 03:13
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Panzeh posted:This guy's characterization of ISIS is kinda laughable because any time someone says "they've been doing this for centuries" you've just heard or you're about to hear some really dumb poo poo. Yeah that is some TV 'it's a holy war  ' crap.The Reset has to be a clear declaration that global civilization must be rooted in facts, not faith. It must be damning of all superstition and theocracy - not just Islam.
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Mar 11, 2016 03:13
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Helsing posted:Nobody is debating whether American can or does do good in the world, we're talking about America's foreign policy, and in particular it's role in the middle east. And anyone who thinks America promotes regional stability or has promoted stability at any point in the last several decades is delusional. Which is why your argument is only sustainable when you speak in the vaguest of platitudes and pretend that history started in 2012 and anything that occurred before then is off bounds. What do you think a good American policy toward the middle east would look like?
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Mar 11, 2016 03:18
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Panzeh posted:I'd be okay with that if we did the same to the Sauds, Erdrogan, and Bibi. Sure, works for me Helsing posted:Nobody is debating whether American can or does do good in the world, we're talking about America's foreign policy, and in particular it's role in the middle east. And anyone who thinks America promotes regional stability or has promoted stability at any point in the last several decades is delusional The US could have promoted regional stability, but Obama chose not to quote:Which is why your argument is only sustainable when you speak in the vaguest of platitudes and pretend that history started in 2012 and anything that occurred before then is off bounds. I'm not sure what this argument is supposed to mean. History "didn't begin in 2012" so in 2012 when Obama made the ultimatum and didn't follow through on it he was actually physically prevented by the all-powerful laws of History from making any other choice or action? We're talking about Obama's presidency in this thread, not Bush 2 or Clinton or Bush 1 or Reagan or whoever the gently caress. The counterfactual deals with Obama, and his actions in a particular time and place. Since you seem to be desperately avoiding acknowledging this, let me say it clearly: Failing to carry out the ultimatum in 2012 was a massive, massive mistake and directly led to a very large part of the destruction of the war that followed icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 04:51 on Mar 11, 2016 |
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Mar 11, 2016 03:20
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icantfindaname posted:Since you seem to be desperately avoiding acknowledging this, let me say it clearly: Failing to carry out the ultimatum in 2012 was a massive, massive mistake and directly led to a very large part of the destruction of the war that followed It was 2013 - and what if the Russians intervened against our intervention? You can't deny their investment in Bashar. Obama went to Congress because a strike could have escalated into World War 3. It's all in the playbook. Another implication of the article - the red line comment was driven by election year posturing. Bashar gassed Ghouta practically one year to the day as a 'Come at me, bro.'
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Mar 11, 2016 03:26
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McDowell posted:It was 2013 - and what if the Russians intervened against our intervention? You can't deny their investment in Bashar. Obama went to Congress because a strike could have escalated into World War 3. It's all in the playbook. The war ends up the same as today then. If making the strikes was as inconsequential a choice as you keep insisting it's very strange how angrily people are arguing against it. It would make no difference, so why would you care?
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Mar 11, 2016 03:31
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icantfindaname posted:Sure, works for me See, here's the problem: most of the people who invaded Iraq in 2003 thought they would be gone in a few months, too- that it wouldn't be a big thing. Lo and behold, poo poo happens, and we end up staying there. Things come up, mission creep happens. Foreign policy is not as simple as moving a few pieces on a chessboard. Most of the great powers in WW1 thought there would be a limited war over specific grievances. The "red line" statement should never have been made because it imposed a certain inertia on policy and let the Pentagon have a say. Never loving trust the Pentagon. The Pentagon liked Vietnam.
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Mar 11, 2016 03:31
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Panzeh posted:See, here's the problem: most of the people who invaded Iraq in 2003 thought they would be gone in a few months, too- that it wouldn't be a big thing. You keep insisting that things would have been as bad as Vietnam or WW1 if we had intervened, but guess what, it's that bad despite us not intervening. It turns out that non-intervention, like intervention, is a conscious choice with distinct consequences, no matter how hard you stick your fingers in your ears and scream you can't hear it
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Mar 11, 2016 03:36
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icantfindaname posted:If making the strikes was as inconsequential a choice as you keep insisting it's very strange how angrily people are arguing against it. Saying strikes could have escalated into World War 3 is the opposite of 'inconsequential'. Obama made the right call asking for a Congressional mandate - they still haven't even given him a Daesh-specific AUMF. As the article says - Daesh isn't an existential threat to the US, and smart energy policy is changing our relationship with the region.
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Mar 11, 2016 03:38
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icantfindaname posted:You keep insisting that things would have been as bad as Vietnam or WW1 if we had intervened, but guess what, it's that bad despite us not intervening. It turns out that non-intervention, like intervention, is a conscious choice with distinct consequences, no matter how hard you stick your fingers in your ears and scream you can't hear it Yes, thank you, all decisions have consequences. Well done.
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Mar 11, 2016 03:39
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Panzeh posted:Yes, thank you, all decisions have consequences. Well done. It's weird then how desperately people are arguing that actually nothing would have been different if we had intervened and that there were no consequences for failing to
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Mar 11, 2016 03:43
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icantfindaname posted:You keep insisting that things would have been as bad as Vietnam or WW1 if we had intervened, but guess what, it's that bad despite us not intervening. It turns out that non-intervention, like intervention, is a conscious choice with distinct consequences, no matter how hard you stick your fingers in your ears and scream you can't hear it The problem is how successful an intervention can be. In Rwanda it was effective, in Kosovo it as effective. In Iraq it was an incredible disaster. Obama had to weigh the failures of GWB up when looking at the situation. Can you necessarily blame him?
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Mar 11, 2016 03:44
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icantfindaname posted:
No one is saying this.
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Mar 11, 2016 03:46
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I thought Obama's stance on Syria as stated in the article was fairly clear. He did expect Assad to be overthrown, and he seems to admit that the first declaration of the 'red line' was a mistake. Assad wasn't overthrown, and he while he thought he wasn't bluffing on the chemical weapons, he couldn't follow through, although he did end the Syrian chemical weapon program through diplomatic means instead of military force. But his position as to America's place in the Middle East in the article seems to be 'as soon as we don't need oil anymore, and therefore the Middle East isn't an American interest, America has no place in the Middle East'. We can argue whether that is a good or bad stance, realistic or not, but from that perspective his actions there haven't been inconsistent. I personally like his stance of pivoting to places where growth is already apparent, like Vietnam, and pulling out of quagmire situations, winding down America's role as world police. In that vein, I like his 'no free riders' policy, although I am skeptical on whether it would allow the rest of the Western world to act as a check to America's unilateral influence as he says it would.
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Mar 11, 2016 03:50
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Tesseraction posted:The problem is how successful an intervention can be. In Rwanda it was effective, in Kosovo it as effective. In Iraq it was an incredible disaster. Obama had to weigh the failures of GWB up when looking at the situation. Can you necessarily blame him? You can absolutely blame him, because there's a slight, small difference between a limited air campaign and a full-scale, 100,000 strong boots-on-the-ground invasion, and the dude's a god damned idiot if he thought that they would end up the same
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Mar 11, 2016 03:53
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Griffen posted:That's kind of my point though. If you know something is a lost cause, you cut it off and don't get involved at all. If Syria was to note a shift in US policy to the Middle East as part of a greater "I regret that I have but no shits to give" and we wash our hands of the affair, great, and that is something I agree with. Being in Syria solves nothing. However, Obama didn't want to walk away entirely, as he still wanted the option to soap box and posture on the world stage about it. The problem was, everyone knew he didn't have any skin in the game, so his "red line" was a bluff that he got called on. Then we start doing this poorly thought out garbage like arming the "moderate rebels" which nets us 6 fighters for $500 million. We fund the SDF, which is really just an umbrella group of the YPG so we have plausible deniability about arming the Kurds, all the while using Turkish airspace and acting like Turkey is in any way a positive influence in the whole mess - effectively we're in a proxy war with a NATO member. All this makes us look weak and indecisive to other countries in the region (like KSA, Jordan, etc) who are now going it alone. When Iran ultimately restarts their nuclear program (if they haven't already) we have next to zero credibility to keep the Saudis from starting their own, if they aren't already. This is the thing that bothered me the most about Obama's breed of isolationism. When it comes to Syria, in hindsight everyone wants to talk about ISIS, and how complicated the situation was, and then look at Obama's decision not to intervene in the broadest way possible to describe it as the best course of action. I disagree with that assessment, but I can accept it, because Syria was and is complicated, and there was no magic button to save everyone and rebuild Syria into an oasis in the desert. But the issue is that US acted inconsistently with that doctrine on multiple occasions. They tried to play both sides, and playing both sides has been a fundamental pillar of how Obama does business throughout the world. In the early going of the protests, of course Obama came out and said Assad needed to go. I don't think anyone for or against intervention would say that was wrong. Assad is a monster, and he's the gasoline in the engine of hatred that drives Syria's war. He's not a legitimate leader and he shouldn't be in charge of Syria, and regardless of what the strategy became when it came to Syria, coming out and saying that was the right thing to do. But that was far from the limits of US involvement in Syria. The US obviously had calculated that they weren't willing to get militarily involved in Syria, but they kept this a secret in an attempt to open diplomatic channels with activists and militias inside Syria. They were very effective in doing this. In the beginning, the most successful rebel leader in all of Syria was Salim Idriss, a Syrian who advocated doing right by the international community, and doing whatever they had to do to appeal for military aid from the West, who they saw as their allies. The US played into this as best they could by presenting themselves as a real ally to the revolution. There was always some stalling tactic on the table that kept the opposition engaged. We're working on sending weapons. We're debating on a no fly zone. We're looking at setting up training camps. Just hang with us, we're in your corner and we're doing everything we can. In return for this good faith, the US was able to demand concessions from the opposition, such as getting field operatives into every major rebel meeting to make the US' voice heard, try and tell them who they could fight and who they couldn't, and things of that nature. And the FSA under Idriss made a lot of these concessions. At the end of the day, this was a deliberate campaign of deception at a really malicious level. The US was pretending to be on the side of the people protesting in the streets of Homs, but they would follow up a statement like that by making an implication that Assad could be a part of the solution in Syria, to throw a bone to Russia and Assad. And they didn't challenge Iranian or Russian support for Assad at all. So it was impossible to pin down what exactly the US was willing to do in Syria since they were constantly presenting themselves as holding contradictory positions. A few Syrian activists got wise to this, and tried to make it clear to others that they couldn't rely on the US, but these voices were not amplified. You talk to Syrians today, and the vast majority will tell you that they thought the US had their back. Things like the red lines statement and the CIA program to arm rebels in the south were seen as the real position that you could hold the US to. It was the Ghouta attack that finally blew the lid off the whole web of lies. That presented a decisive moment where the US finally had to either stand behind the rhetoric it had aimed at the opposition in attempts to remain engaged with the opposition, or back down and expose that they had never actually meant anything they'd said to the people in Syria who were suffering. Of course, we all know where Obama stood on that. When the truth came out, it destroyed the FSA. Salim Idriss left the country in shame, and the FSA crumbled. A new Saudi project called the Islamic Front took in most of the defectors as the successor to the FSA, and the handlers of US provided aid in the country voluntarily turned everything over to the IF. Pro-Western sentiment among the opposition was decimated, and the ideological successor to "let's just do the right thing and eventually, the world will turn out for us" was "ALL you mother fuckers are with Assad." The effect wasn't just military. Activists who were building civil infrastructure within Syria were also devastated. Razan Zaitouneh, who's a heroic figure within Syria, felt particularly backstabbed. She cut off all ties with the State Department because she was so hurt over it. The US fostered trust among these people to benefit themselves, and when push came to shove, they abused the gently caress out of it. That entire strategy, despite being transparently morally bankrupt, was also counter-productive. We bred anti-American sentiment in August 2013 that went on to decimate the FSA, and their connection to the political opposition based out of Turkey, the SNC. Until recently, there was no replacement for that rebel to political opposition infrastructure, so for years, there was just chaos. And now, the replacement that has emerged is Saudi-aligned, and Islamist. In the vacuum presented by the destruction of such a huge subsect of the opposition, ISIS began their march early the next year. Believe it or not, ISIS propaganda actually pointed towards US inaction after Ghouta as well. ISIS' spokesman routinely discusses how the US doesn't give a gently caress about chemical weapons attacks or barrel bombings on civilians, and points to Obama's policies as examples of how the US doesn't care about the suffering of Muslims. He'll go on to chain this to Western crusades and all that type of bullshit, but the fundamental pillars of that propaganda are 100% true, which makes it that much more effective. If you ask any anti-Assad Syrian today if the US supports Assad, I'd bet 9/10 would give you some version of yes. It's ubiquitous among them, because they witnessed firsthand how little regard the Obama playbook held for morality. That undermined US goals, and the goals of people seeking human rights and a future for Syria, substantially. So to me, the biggest lesson we've learned here is that intervening or not intervening is not the core question that needs to be addressed in foreign policy, despite what has been said in the aftermath of Iraq. It's that whatever the US chooses to do when it comes to these sorts of uprisings and social dynamics in the Middle East and elsewhere, it needs to do it openly, honestly, and in good faith. If the US had stuck by these principles in Iraq, incompetence aside, Maliki wouldn't have been selected to lead the country based on his relationship with Bush. The Iraqi government would've been more oriented around sustainability and human rights rather than functionality as a US proxy, and the country would look a whole lot better. It's quite likely ISIS would've never been able to emerge from its ashes in Iraq like a phoenix, years after the US left. If Obama had stuck by them in Syria, he would've been better off trying to make friends among the opposition in the long run (provided the non-lethal aid was at a scale to have a noticeable impact on the quality of life for people suffering in Syria), since he would've never been caught in a lie with them. The rumors of US/Assad collusion would be a lot less prevalent since Obama would've never outed himself and the US as a very shady entity that can't be trusted, which would've undermined jihadist propaganda. And the pro-democratic opposition would've never tied themselves to the US in a strategy that was doomed to fail if it had been made clear to them exactly where the US stood, which would've bolstered their ability to gain public sentiment over rival jihadist groups moving forward. With that in mind, it's pretty clear to me where the problem with US foreign policy lies.
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Mar 11, 2016 04:30
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icantfindaname posted:You can absolutely blame him, because there's a slight, small difference between a limited air campaign and a full-scale, 100,000 strong boots-on-the-ground invasion, and the dude's a god damned idiot if he thought that they would end up the same And when the SAA collapses and an exciting hodge podge of various Sunni rebel groups roll into Alawite areas what will happen?
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Mar 11, 2016 04:39
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Anosmoman posted:And when the SAA collapses and an exciting hodge podge of various Sunni rebel groups roll into Alawite areas what will happen? They kill some civilians and do some ethnic cleansing, most likely on a scale far less than has been carried out by Assad and certainly no worse. See, this is the problem with using the "but but what if things ended up worse????" line of argument in a reality that's basically the worst case scenario already
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Mar 11, 2016 04:44
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Actually I think setting a precedent of assassinating heads of state we don't like is a worse outcome.
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Mar 11, 2016 04:46
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Anosmoman posted:And when the SAA collapses and an exciting hodge podge of various Sunni rebel groups roll into Alawite areas what will happen? Depends on how quickly it could've been done. The more massacres that were perpetrated by Alawite militias and by the regime, the more the tensions rose and the threat of reprisal killings grew. If your goal was the prevention of genocide, there's no question whatsoever that a quick and speedy resolution would've done the most to stop that. Turning our back on it was not the proper response to that because A. Your strategy empowered acts of genocide in the name of preventing genocide, such as the Bayda and Baniyas massacres that didn't happen until 2013, and B. Extremism on both sides is infinitely more entrenched now than it was in early 2012 when it was prime time to act, which has made genocidal massacres that much more of an inevitability. I know people tend to look at this position as the "realist" one, but it was never not dumb.
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Mar 11, 2016 04:49
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Volkerball posted:This is the thing that bothered me the most about Obama's breed of isolationism. When it comes to Syria, in hindsight everyone wants to talk about ISIS, and how complicated the situation was, and then look at Obama's decision not to intervene in the broadest way possible to describe it as the best course of action. I disagree with that assessment, but I can accept it, because Syria was and is complicated, and there was no magic button to save everyone and rebuild Syria into an oasis in the desert. But the issue is that US acted inconsistently with that doctrine on multiple occasions. They tried to play both sides, and playing both sides has been a fundamental pillar of how Obama does business throughout the world. I can't respond to this whole post, but I do want to make a few points. There's absolutely no question that Obama walking back that red line was a bad mistake, and Kerry even admits as much in the article, but it's not clear to me that the world would be better off if presidents felt pressured into going to war so they don't look inconsistent. I also don't think there was any deliberate deception. My reading of the article (and understanding of the situation from some people who've worked on the issue) is that the State Department/DoD/White House staff really did think the US was going to intervene on some level, and then Obama got cold feet. I truly believe that the statements that Ford and Kerry were making towards the rebels about the US supporting them were in good faith. I also think the US completely misunderstood the situation in Syria (and Libya and Iraq, but that's a broader topic). I think people imagined the regime (or at least Assad) would fall as Mubarak or Bin Ali or others did. They did not anticipate Assad being nearly as stable as he turned out to be, and once it became clear he wasn't going anywhere without a real invasion, the administration kind of washed its hands of the whole thing. Finally, on the broader topic of what the US strategy in the Middle East should be, I keep coming back to this point. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/us/politics/libya-isis-hillary-clinton.html posted:A cynical line would begin to circulate in Washington: In Iraq, the United States had intervened and occupied — and things had gone to hell. In Libya, the United States had intervened but not occupied — and things had gone to hell. And in Syria, the United States had neither intervened nor occupied — and things had still gone to hell. It's a little facile and certainly the US does not have the luxury of turning its back on the Middle East, but it's really tough to be optimistic about any sort of US engagement with the Middle East these days. Hell, it's tough to be optimistic about the Middle East in general these days.
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Mar 11, 2016 05:52
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Focusing on a slightly different part of the article, I was really fascinated Obama's thoughts on the US's traditional alliances.quote:To a remarkable degree, he is willing to question why America’s enemies are its enemies, or why some of its friends are its friends. He overthrew half a century of bipartisan consensus in order to reestablish ties with Cuba. He questioned why the U.S. should avoid sending its forces into Pakistan to kill al-Qaeda leaders, and he privately questions why Pakistan, which he believes is a disastrously dysfunctional country, should be considered an ally of the U.S. at all. According to Leon Panetta, he has questioned why the U.S. should maintain Israel’s so-called qualitative military edge, which grants it access to more sophisticated weapons systems than America’s Arab allies receive; but he has also questioned, often harshly, the role that America’s Sunni Arab allies play in fomenting anti-American terrorism. He is clearly irritated that foreign-policy orthodoxy compels him to treat Saudi Arabia as an ally. And of course he decided early on, in the face of great criticism, that he wanted to reach out to America’s most ardent Middle Eastern foe, Iran. I'm in absolute agreement with him on this, but I suspect it's an attitude that will die when he leaves office. It's difficult to imagine Clinton adopting the same approach.
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Mar 11, 2016 05:58
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The fact that he got cold feet, or that he didn't want to feel pressured into intervening, just means that the original statement of 'drawing a red line' was just rhetoric, and not actually based on substance. He wanted to look tough without having to follow through on it, and that's the mistake. If not intervening was the correct course of action, then that statement was premature.
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Mar 11, 2016 05:59
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Absolutely, he never should have said it.
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Mar 11, 2016 06:00
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I think actually that's the best way to characterize Obama's foreign policy. Remember the 'reset' with Russia? Or how about the 'pivot to Asia'? What did either of them actually achieve?
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Mar 11, 2016 06:02
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