{"id":18740,"date":"2013-09-04T13:09:15","date_gmt":"2013-09-04T17:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=18740"},"modified":"2013-09-04T13:09:15","modified_gmt":"2013-09-04T17:09:15","slug":"obama%e2%80%99s-syria-policy-incoherent-at-home-and-abroad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/18740\/obama%e2%80%99s-syria-policy-incoherent-at-home-and-abroad\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama\u2019s Syria Policy Incoherent at Home and Abroad"},"content":{"rendered":"

McClatchy<\/a> news ran a piece yesterday describing how President Barack Obama\u2019s seeming indecision on striking Syria is being interpreted by Middle Easterners.<\/p>\n

\u201cObama\u2019s abrupt decision on Saturday to delay the strikes that seemed just hours away is being seen in the region as the latest confirmation of an incoherent U.S. approach of mixed messages and unfulfilled threats that have driven America\u2019s standing to a new low,\u201d the paper said, citing numerous interviews with Syrian rebels and others.<\/p>\n

The confusion wasn\u2019t helped during Secretary of State John Kerry\u2019s remarks to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. There, the Vietnam veteran and anti-war hero did an about-face. Without a hint of irony he argued that in asking for congressional approval to fire missiles at Syria \u201cPresident Obama is not asking America to go to war.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, the President was \u201casking only for the power to make clear, to make certain, that the United States means what we say,\u201d when the Commander-in-Chief threatens military force.<\/p>\n

But the fact remains that firing missiles into another country is an act of war, a fact that didn\u2019t escape Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) before heading into the hearing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the most serious policy decision any senator will make,\u201d reports the Daily Caller<\/a>. \u201cAuthorizing the use of military force is, let\u2019s face it, is a declaration of war against another country, no matter how limited it is, that\u2019s what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kudos to Senator Corker for saying the truth out loud. He understands the real world consequences of this decision, as do the Syrian rebels, Syrian President Bashar Assad and every other sentient being paying attention.<\/p>\n

So far, the Obama administration is doing itself no favors by pushing forward an ad hoc<\/em>, incoherent rationale for bombing a government whose actions \u2013 while immoral and deplorable \u2013 don\u2019t necessarily threaten America\u2019s national security interests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

McClatchy news ran a piece yesterday describing how President Barack Obama\u2019s seeming indecision on striking Syria is being interpreted by Middle Easterners. \u201cObama\u2019s abrupt decision on Saturday to delay the strikes that seemed just hours away is being seen in the region as the latest confirmation of an incoherent U.S. approach of mixed messages and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[143,4176,84,599,342,731,2414,750],"class_list":["post-18740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-barack-obama","tag-bob-corker","tag-congress","tag-john-kerry","tag-military","tag-national-security","tag-syria","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18740"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18750,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18740\/revisions\/18750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}