Just Politics

[ForReal]

Quit with the excuses already. That was an Obama Cop Out.

Trump did not ask anyone for permission to do what was necessary. He is the Commander in Chief, as was Obama. It was Putin that gave Obama an out by promising that Syria would dispose of all chemical weapons if Obama would not use air strikes.

The plot took an abrupt twist on Aug. 31, when Obama startled the world — including many of his own advisers — by announcing he would ask Congress to authorize a strike beforehand. Critics said Obama was losing his nerve and passing the buck for his own red line.

But it was Clinton who had the direct role in the saga.

When she arrived at the White House on Sept. 9, she found Obama’s national security team scrambling.

Two weeks earlier, Obama had threatened airstrikes against Syrian government forces to punish them for using chemical weapons — a violation of a rhetorical “red line” Obama had drawn months earlier.


Obama was wary of entanglement in Syria. Hours before Clinton’s arrival, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave him an escape hatch. Putin offered to force his ally, Assad, to surrender his chemical arsenal if Obama promised not to bomb.

Clinton had not spoken publicly on the subject since Obama’s initial threat, drawing snarky jibes for a two-week silence on Twitter — though she had already been advising Obama and his aides behind the scenes. Now she found herself meeting with Obama in the Oval Office, huddling with top White House officials, and hastily revising her planned remarks before the media to include a public statement on the Russian offer, in which she called Putin’s plan “an important step.”

Obama accepted the Russian proposal a few days later; there would be no U.S. airstrikes. But Obama traded a military conflict for a political one. On the right, the phrase “red line” has become mocking shorthand for weakness and indecision.


Obama was nothing more than an indecisive gutless wonder as Commander in Chief.


https://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/obama-clinton-syria-red-line-228585