OPINION_ Rules of disengagement

Rules of disengagement

Obama's policy of willful nonintervention imperils chaotic world

By Augusta Chronicle Editorial Staff
Saturday, June 14, 2014
The Augusta Chronicle

A radical Islamist militant group calling itself the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria – ISIS – is taking full advantage of the security vacuum left by the last U.S. forces leaving Iraq.

We’re seeing two startling things here: a unilateral surrender by the winning side in the war on terror; and the swift emergence of a post-American world.

As of this writing, the northern Iraqi cities of Mosul and Tikrit have fallen to ISIS. Two more cities have fallen out of Iraqi government control in ISIS’ two-prong attack southward. The terrorists’ sights are set on the capital, Baghdad.

Imagine being a veteran who fought to free Iraq – and reading and watching the news now, witnessing it all unravel.

We understand being war weary. We’re there. But it’s clear Mr. Obama just doesn’t like projecting or even maintaining U.S. power in parts of the world where it’s most urgently needed. That absence creates a void eagerly filled by forces opposed to U.S. interests, and to the values for which we stand.

Our armed forces have toiled under some awful, constraining rules of engagement. But the administration’s rules of disengagement may be worse.

Let’s look at what Obama’s miscues and sluggishness have “accomplished” so far in the world of foreign affairs:

• Syria. That’s the nation that basically spawned ISIS. The U.S. response to Syria’s civil war was a failure. The only meaningful progress was scored by Russia, negotiating a chemical-weapons drawdown. But even that didn’t work – Bashar al-Assad’s regime is still blasting away at its civilians with deadly chemicals.

• Iran. The rogue state’s march to nuclear-weapons capability has crept forward virtually unabated by Washington.

• Afghanistan. The White House emboldened the oppressive Taliban by circling the date of U.S. troop withdrawal in the Taliban’s day planner, then releasing five of the group’s top field generals from Guantanamo Bay.

• China. The planet’s unfettered economic dragon is on the march – beefing up its military and hungrily laying claim to just about every natural resource on the planet.

• Russia. Vladimir Putin is using all the dictatorial tools at his disposal to reassemble the Soviet Union, as our president stands by clucking his tongue in disapproval. As if Putin cared.

And now Iraq.

The unraveling in Iraq calls into question, according to The (Washington) Examiner’s Brian Hughes, “whether Obama is quick enough to deploy U.S. resources that could deter instability abroad.”

Quick enough to deploy? He doesn’t seem inclined to deploy at all. That’s what he wants. It’s the very blueprint of his foreign policy.

And let’s give lie to the assertion that the White House somehow didn’t see this threat coming. This is from Dan Henninger of The Wall Street Journal:

“One might ask: Didn’t U.S. intelligence know something like Mosul could happen? They did. The February 2014 ‘Threat Assessment’ by the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency virtually predicted it: ‘AQI/ISIL (a.k.a. ISIS) probably will attempt to take territory in Iraq and Syria ... as demonstrated recently in Ramadi and Fallujah.’ AQI (al-Qaida in Iraq), the report says, is exploiting the weak security environment ‘since the departure of U.S. forces at the end of 2011.’ But to have suggested any mitigating steps to this White House would have been pointless. It won’t listen.”

Obama’s deadly string of foreign policy fiascoes has diminished the cause of human freedom across the globe – and is no doubt fatal for some.

Even with a pile of domestic disasters and scandals heaped at the president’s feet, history is likely to view his foreign policy of disengagement as his greatest failure.
________

What do you think?

***

Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc . 
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị . 



conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
14062014
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC