America Needs A Gunslinger As President Not A Bystander

Last time I checked, this was still America, but if I'm being honest, that was awhile ago...The Onion

During Obama's infamous Syrian"red line" screw-up, Michael Barone {Washington Examiner) summarized the Obama administration's Syrian policy this way: "Blunder after blunder. That's been the story of President Obama's policy toward Syria." But it's what Barone added that made that statement all the more prescient: "Undermining the power of even feckless president risks undermining the power of the presidency---and of America for years."

Barone could not have been more perceptive. Since the Syrian blunder, we've watched as this administration went on a tear in terms of foreign policy clusterf*cks. The outcomes of Obama's failed foreign policy are everywhere including, but not limited to, the following:

• The Obama administration was warned that Putin had to be stopped from invading the Ukraine or we would be paying a price later. We and the West are paying that price now. Putin is not a fool. He knows Obama is weak in foreign policy. He also knows the EU is even weaker both economically and devoid of any political will. And while the downward spiral of oil prices are hurting even Russia,  I contend he's not as much interested in taking over the Ukraine as much as he's interested in demonstrating the West is feckless and spineless. In other words, he feels he has nothing to fear. Rich Lowry reiterated this claim when he recently wrote: "If we don't provide military material to Ukraine now, we deserve the contempt with which Putin regards us."
• In my previous post, I pointed out the open hostility of the Obama administration towards Israel even though Israel is surrounded by over 20 nations who would like to see it removed from the global map. And many of those countries harbor our enemies. In Syria, Iran keeps propping up Assad. Hezbollah in Lebanon just murdered two Israeli soldiers last week.  We now know Yemen provides training for a multitude of terrorist groups. And Iran keeps making inroads into Iraq and Western Afghanistan.
• ISIS, Boko Haram, al-Qaeda and its many affiliates keep murdering innocents.

But you don't even have to take my word for it. Recently several retired generals proclaimed the foreign policy of this administration is a mess. Gen. James Mattis, who headed the U.S. Central Command, testified to a Senate committee that the U.S. is not adapting well to the changes going on in the Middle East. Gen. Jack Keane, who testified with Mattis, reported that al-Qaeda continues to grow and dominates many countries. And retired Gen. Michael Flynn, formally the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency told a conference he was attending: "You cannot defeat an enemy you do not admit exists." He of course was referring to the administration's inability to refer to Islamist terrorism. (NY Post. Daily Beast and Peggy Noonan).

Even Leon Panetta, the former CIA director and Secretary of Defense under Obama, wrote in his own memoir that Pres. Obama "avoids the battle, complains and misses opportunities.

So it should be no surprise that Pres. Obama appears to be more of a bystander than taking direct leadership in our nation's foreign policy. And quite simply, when our enemies (and even our own allies) perceive us as weak, that type of behavior invites tyrants to do very bad things. We're watching that being played out today on a global scale.

Postscript: The murderers who Obama called a JV team just burned the Jordanian pilot alive. Guess empathizing does not work too well either---right Mrs. Clinton?
Today, Brussels was hit by Islamist terrorist. Obama chose to remain in Cuba and catch a baseball game.