30 August, 2013

Obama Is About to Undermine His Mideast Doctrine - Bloomberg

Obama Is About to Undermine His Mideast Doctrine - Bloomberg: The crucial first lesson of the Bush presidency for Obama was simple: Disentangle the U.S. from Iraq, and then Afghanistan. He has pursued this policy of disentanglement with great vigor, even in the face of obvious evidence that U.S. withdrawal from these nations could well have consequences that will one day force America to re-engage. Short-term, and particularly domestically, these policies have been successful.

The second prong of the Doctrine of Disentanglement is to avoid new entanglements.

Obama was tempted to try to make peace between Israelis and Palestinians, but quickly thought better of it (the peace process now taking place in fits and starts is the secretary of state John Kerry’s idea, and largely John Kerry’s problem, should it fail.) Obama participated (from behind, of course) in the liberation of Libya only because it seemed at the time like a clean mission, but, again, he soon learned better: He did not receive the thanks of a grateful America for helping to defeat Muammar Qaddafi, and he suffered personally and politically because of the subsequent attack on the American mission in Benghazi.