Obama’s Stalled Handling Of ISIS Is Emblematic Of The ‘Analyst In Chief’…(All By Design,Muppets…)
David Rohde and Warren Strobel
BusinessInsider.com
Oct. 11, 2014
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Throughout 2012, as signs mounted that militants in Syria were growing stronger, the debate in the White House followed a pattern. In meeting after meeting, as officials from agencies outside the executive residence advocated arming pro-Western rebels or other forms of action, President Barack Obama’s closest White House aides bluntly delivered the president’s verdict: no.
“It became clear from the people very close to the president that he had deep, deep reservations about intervening in Syria,” said Julianne Smith, who served as deputy national security advisor to Vice President Joe Biden. “And the likelihood of altering those views was low, very low.”
This summer, events overwhelmed the status quo. In June, the radical group Islamic State, after seizing wide swaths of Syria, conquered Iraq’s second largest city and threatened Baghdad as the Iraqi army collapsed. The insurgents beheaded two American journalists, increasing U.S. public support for military action. Finally, U.S. intelligence agencies detected foreign jihadists who they believe had moved to Syria to plot attacks against the United States and Europe.
The radicals had undermined the administration’s argument it had successfully ended the war in Iraq and were threatening Obama’s record of defending the homeland. The jihadists, said Smith, “turned the debate on its head.”
On September 18, Obama reversed his three-and-a-half-year opposition to military action in Syria and ordered open-ended airstrikes against militants. It wasn’t his first U-turn on Syria. In August 2012, Obama had warned President Bashar Assad that using chemical weapons was a “red line” Syria dare not cross; when evidence emerged that Damascus had gassed the rebels and civilians, Obama opted not to respond with force.
The bombing campaign, which could last for years, is a major course correction for a president with a famously cautious foreign policy.
Obama’s handling of Syria – the early about-face, the repetitive debates, the turnabout in September – is emblematic, say current and former top U.S. officials, of his highly centralized, deliberative and often reactive foreign policy.
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