While the attached headline for this Washington Post opinion piece by uber-leftist Katrina Vanden Huevel is technically linked to the piece, it might have been better to call it “Trump Did Something Good, And That’s Not Something Progressives Should Agree With!!!!!”
Syria strike follows Washington’s failed foreign-policy playbook
“There’s a playbook in Washington that presidents are supposed to follow,†then-President Obama said last year, defending his decision not to unilaterally strike Syria in 2013. “It’s a playbook that comes out of the foreign-policy establishment. And the playbook prescribes responses to different events, and these responses tend to be militarized responses. Where America is directly threatened, the playbook works. But the playbook can also be a trap that can lead to bad decisions.â€
Obviously, Katrina cannot place blame at Obama’s feet for 6 years of inaction, dithering, leading from behind, and general fecklessness. Nope. Trump
Last week, by impulsively ordering a military strike against a Syrian air base, President Trump both followed the playbook and fell into the trap. To be clear, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s apparent use of chemical weapons against civilians in the town of Khan Sheikhoun is a heinous crime. Almost six years of civil war in Syria have led to nearly half a million dead and millions more displaced, a humanitarian crisis worsened by the Trump administration’s cruel and senseless attempts to ban Syrian refugees. The human suffering has been horrific to watch. Yet despite the fervor of the bipartisan foreign policy establishment, which fetishizes the purported “credibility†that accompanies the use of force, it remains folly to think that Trump’s military action will help end the carnage.
A heinous crime, but, since Trump responded, and because he said something and attempted to do something to limit the people coming from a war torn area replete with ISIS members and Islamic extremists, it’s all his fault. Seriously, who was president the past 6 years? That’s what worsened the humanitarian crisis.
It is a testament to the absurdity of the presidential “playbook†that perhaps the most irresponsible act of Trump’s madhouse presidency has also been one of the most widely applauded. Suddenly, much of the same media and political establishment that has routinely portrayed Trump as an unstable and inept authoritarian are ecstatic that he decided to drop bombs in the Middle East. Airing footage of the assault, MSNBC anchor Brian Williams admired the “beautiful pictures of fearsome armaments.†Five major newspapers collectively published 18 pieces that endorsed the strikes or argued they were insufficient, according to media watchdog Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting.
Irresponsible. Obviously, it would have been better had Trump stated that Assad not cross the next red line, or used a strongly worded letter or a hashtag with a sad face.
But there is little evidence that the strike accomplished anything beyond a temporary popularity boost for a flailing president. If Trump’s goal was to punish Assad for using chemical weapons, the punishment was effectively nothing more than a timeout, as Syrian warplanes resumed use of the targeted air base less than 24 hours after it was hit. And if Trump has a coherent strategy for what happens next, he has failed to communicate it to the American people or the international community.
Maybe it’s better to not broadcast war-plans to dictators and wackjobs at the United Nations. Because Obama’s method of telling everyone his plans, then backing off those plans, hasn’t worked out so well. But, hey, Trump!
Katrina whines some more, using the same talking points as other Leftists who just can’t acknowledge that Trump do something good, ending with
Despite the clamoring of the bipartisan foreign policy establishment, the unfortunate reality is that their “playbook†does not contain a path to victory in Syria. Rather than agitating for more U.S. military intervention in a war that cannot be won, we should be calling on our government to lead a diplomatic effort to end the war once and for all. And for those who recognize that Trump cannot bomb his way to peace, it is time to revive and mobilize an antiwar movement to keep the United States from getting entangled in another Middle East war with no clear strategy and no end in sight.
Perhaps Katrina could illuminate us on how to go about ending the war diplomatically? What could the parties be offered? How to get to that peace? What are her plans? Bueller? You have the Assad regime, the regular folks of Syria, the rebels, and then the Islamic extremists, particularly ISIS. What does peace look like between the four?
And why didn’t Katrina’s god, Barack H. Obama, lead a diplomatic effort to end the war once and for all? He was the guy In Charge for the last 6 years, was he not?
Crossed at Right Wing News.
