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Posts Tagged ‘Bret Stephens’
September 6th, 2013 at 2:31 am
Syrian Resolution Looks Doomed to Failure
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Earlier today, Rick Klein, Political Director for ABC News, tweeted out that 217 members of the House of Representatives have gone on record “as likely to oppose authorizing military force against Syria,” giving those opposed to the resolution a majority in the lower chamber (if we have any pedants in the audience shouting about the fact that it takes 218 to reach a majority, note that Alabama and Massachusetts both currently have one vacant seat).

Now, “likely to oppose” isn’t the same thing as definitely voting no, but anyone who’s staking out territory this early in the process is disproportionately likely to to stick to his guns. And it’s clear that the momentum on this is all going in one direction — and it’s not the president’s.

That’s remarkable, but not particularly surprising. Sometimes you can get a member to vote against his political interest for the sake of ideology. Sometimes you can get him to vote against his ideology for the sake of his political interest. But when both are imperiled simultaneously, the whipping gets much harder. That’s precisely the case with a potential military offensive that polls terribly and hits intellectual pressure points for liberals and conservatives alike.

One dispiriting aspect of this debate is the chorus of conservative voices such as Jennifer Rubin, Hugh Hewitt, and Bret Stephens who’ve conflated opposition to feckless, limited airstrikes in Syria with “isolationism.” It may be fair to say that nearly all isolationists are opposed to taking action in Syria. It does not follow, however, that all who are opposed to taking action in Syria are isolationists. The scope of opposition is far too large to be constituted entirely (or even primarily) of those opposed to American action overseas in all but the most limited circumstances.

I suspect that there are a fair number of conservatives like me — as far removed from the reflexive international reticence of Rand Paul as we are from John McCain’s “anytime, anywhere, for any reason” school of intervention — who just don’t see the strategic payoff here, especially given the manner in which the Obama Administration would be likely to conduct the fight.

America has played too fast and loose with defining our national security interests in recent years. Doing so again — especially when it’s clear that the Obama Administration has no plan that will actually result in a change of circumstances on the ground in Syria — is an exercise in futility. The measure deserves defeat.

November 16th, 2010 at 5:27 pm
Obama: Air Guitarist in Chief
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Every so often, someone captures the proverbial lightning in a bottle.  Today, it was Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens and his commentary entitled “Obama’s Air Guitar.” Stephens’s weekly commentaries are always a must-read, but today’s perfectly portrays the growing sense among the American electorate, more sober observers and now world leaders that Barack Obama is simply in over his head:

His administration has now been chastised or belittled by everyone from the Supreme Leader of Iran to the finance minister of Germany to the president of France to the dictator of Syria.  What does it mean for global order when the world figures out that the U.S. president is someone who’s willing to take no for an answer?  The answer is that the United States becomes Europe.  Except on a handful of topics, like trade and foreign aid, the foreign policy of the European Union, and that of most of its constituent states, amounts to a kind of diplomatic air guitar: furious motion, considerable imagination, but neither sound nor effect.  When a European leader issues a stern demarche toward, say, Burma or Russia, nobody notices. And nobody cares.”

Since he first began flirting with a White House campaign, Obama has long created the impression that he considers the presidency a video game, or a pickup game of hoops with himself at point guard taking a three-pointer on every possession.  But now we have a description that perhaps captures the Age of Obama better than any other to date:  Obama as air guitarist.