The Dithering Commander in Chief
Barrack Hussein Obama is the example of what happens when the mightiest nation on earth elects a politician whose worldview is to naively make the world a level playing field.
America goes into reverse and “leads from behind.” He goes on An apology tour to the Muslim folk and tell them America is out of there, and they are free to conduct their own business, free of American interference. No more good side or bad side. Let’s push the “reset” button with Russia. Assad is “a reformer” and the world is “a global village” according to his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. “Bin Laden is dead, General Motors is alive, and Al-Qaida is on the run.” There is no such thing as Islamic terror. Let’s throw Mubarak under the bus to give Egyptians democracy and, just to show our good intentions, let’s invite the Muslim Brotherhood into the White House. Let’s set red lines in Syria and if they use their chemical weapons again our response will be, according to John Kerry, “incredibly small.”
Always the charmer, Obama has been out-charmed by a smiling Rouhani face that disguises an Iranian on-going pursuit of nuclear missiles. Replacing Ahmadinajad abusive rhetoric with a Tehran grin has lulled the Obama Administration as the Iranians run down the clock to breakout time.
America has a president that has been shackled by an early presentation of the Nobel Peace Prize which was given more as a warning than an award for peacemaking. Received gladly, it now weighs heavy on the thin chest of a lightweight president.
So when Russia invades Ukraine, Obama manages a verbal bluster and nothing of substance. Releasing some of the worst Islamic terrorists from Guantanamo to plan and wreak havoc on the West was a kind-hearted gesture that the world will live to regret.
We are already regretting the Obama insistence of pulling US troops out of Iraq. Leading from behind in Libya and Syria, and putting a misplaced faith in a Shiite Maliki government in Iraq, has left a vacuum that has been gruesomely filled by an Islamic horror the world has never known since the brutal days of Mohammad, who slaughtered his way across the Arabian and Jewish worlds.
Let’s be honest, the brand of terrorism we are witnessing was unleashed by the wealthy fat cats of today’s Islamic world from Iran to Qatar, from Turkey to Saudi Arabia who set Wahhabism, the Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Qaida, and ISIS on their path of mayhem and murder in the name of Allah and Mohammed.
Some of these exporters and sponsors of Islamic terror are now fearful of the monster they have created. The Saudi king warned that Islamic extremists would attack Europe and America within months if there was not a robust international response to the advance of ISIS. Yousef al-Otaba, the UAE Ambassador to America said, “Islamic extremism is the most destabilizing and dangerous global force since Fascism. Now is the time to act!” That’s rich coming from the part of the world that incited, exported, and financed this radicalism. It is time to act, and it’s up to the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and others armed by America with highly sophisticated military hardware and US-trained forces to get into the fight, and not leave non-Muslim Westerners to die on a battlefield of their making.
It is wrongly claimed they say that it was Western interference in Muslim areas of conflict that inflamed impressionable people to join radical Islamic terror armies and carry out atrocities across the globe. So let the concerned Muslim nations take the lead. The battle against the Islamic State of al-Bagdhadi is one where the West should lead from behind. Let the world see that, at last, the Muslims are fighting against the evil they have created.
This, however, does not release Obama from the feckless leadership he has displayed, a fecklessness that truly endangers Western, non-Muslim, countries. His flip-flop attitude to the rising power of ISIS is of grave concern. He is trapped in his own deluded worldview.
Obama, like so many progressive wishful thinkers, is a man whose vision of the world has turned out to be a mirage. According to Brit Hume of Fox News, a Senator Obama once told someone close to him “Wouldn’t it be great for the world if I were president.” Senator Obama, in a televised address on November 21, 2007 said, “If I’m reaching out to the Muslim world they understand that I’ve lived in a Muslim country. I may be Christian but I also understand their point of view.” He continued, “I think this world will have confidence that I am listening to them and that I will make us safer.”
Obama has totally misread the ingrained religious hatred and ambition that goes back to the days of Mohammed, an ambition that will not be quenched with anything less than the total victory that a global Caliphate will bring.
Obama’s delusional world came crashing down with the Islamic knife that beheaded Americans James Foley and Steven Sotloff, a knife that is braggingly pointed at the White House. These gruesome murders followed the bloody killing of Ambassador Stephens and three other Americans in Bengazi by other radical Islamic terrorists. Obama’s and Clinton’s delusional world put the blame for this attack on America was an amateur video. They were in denial then. He is in denial now.
Obama is confronted with a world as it really is and not a world he thought it should be. Sadly, Obama is unable to adjust.
He is a metaphor for too many liberal free thinkers who impose their faulty worldview with a certainty that is frightening, insulting, and leave us exposed to greater risks and dangers caused by their hallucinatory visions. Israel finds itself victim to the Two-State vision doggedly pursued for over forty years by these parched and thirsty travelers who think they can see a wonderful oasis, unable to face the truth that there is nothing there; that their goal is an unobtainable mirage, tempting them to ignore other alternative sources of hope, and forcing Israel to jeopardize their lives and security to these free-thinking whims.
So it is with an Obama who has built his political career on a vision that is falling apart both at home and abroad. He is finding out that good things don’t happen when America steps back.
The rise of ISIS was part of the President’s daily briefings for a year before they grabbed substantial territory. Yet, on January 19, Obama called them a JV team, downgrading the perception of ISIS as a major terror threat. This was after they flew their flag over Fallujah and just before they captured Mosul. In a knee-jerk response to the criticism of his remark, Obama blamed his intelligence team even though they had been giving him regular updates. The basic problem with Obama was that they were telling him something he didn’t want to hear.
It is impossible for him to take vital policy decisions because they clash with his political views. He has allowed himself to become prisoner to his stubborn refusal to face reality.
Into September, Obama told the world “we don’t have a strategy, yet.” He not only doesn’t have a strategy, he doesn’t even have an objective when it comes to ISIS, or Islamic terror anywhere.
Under pressure, we see Obama flip-flop over ISIS. On the day of the beheading of the second American, Steven Sotloff, by ISIS, Obama started by saying that beheadings “would not intimidate America,” followed by a statement threatening to “degrade and destroy ISIS” but, by the end of the same day, the president had reduced that to “shrinking its sphere of influence…to the point that it’s a manageable problem.”
His Democrat allies are speaking up in exasperation. Lanny Davis, a close friend and staunch Obama supporter said on Fox News, “he needs to inform us of the grave danger that we face.”
The vacuum left by the president’s inability to confront a serious threat was filled by the bluster of Vice President Joe Biden’s words, “We will pursue them to the gates of hell until they are brought to justice!”
Pursue them to the gates of hell, Mr.V.P.? How do you do that when your boss won’t let your troops out of their barracks?
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Barry Shaw is the Consultant on Delegitimization Issues to The Strategic Dialogue Center at Netanya Academic College. He is the author of ‘Israel Reclaiming the Narrative.’ www.israelnarrative.com