"There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. The man who is wrong still retains some respect for the truth, if only by accepting the responsibility of choice. But the man in the middle is the knave who blanks out the truth in order to pretend that no choice or values exist…In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.” Ayn Rand
September 11, 2013
By: Linda Case Gibbons
Appearing visibly frightened, overwhelmed and actively hedging every bet he has ever made, there was Obama, on TV everywhere, at the G20 summit in St. Petersburg, at a press conference in Stockholm -- the man who represents us.
The man whom UK reporter Peter Foster described as "sounding both hurt and baffled…at Congress’ decision to leave him so embarrassed,” after Obama delivered his Tuesday night speech on Syria.
In the days that followed we watched as he didn’t issue a strike against Syria, didn’t rescue children being killed by poisonous gas there, contradicted his Secretary of State, called on Congress to vote approval of a Syrian strike, then backed off and called off the vote.
We watched as he didn’t mention the Christians who were being killed in Syria and as he neglected important business in our country.
We listened as he talked, and talked, and all I could think was, "Please shut the heck up.”
The angst about Syria went on too long. We saw too much of John Kerry and John McCain. Obama talked too much. So did Kerry. And McCain always does.
And now, the world, which already hates America, sees Obama doesn’t have what it takes. And they’re loving it.
Luckily the president stepped in and solved it all.
He brokered a deal with Syria which required President al-Assad to turn over the chemical weapons al-Assad had been accused of using against his own people, women and children alike.
This reprieve allowed a relieved Obama to go back to diplomacy and move away from empty threats and red lines.
But the problem was that it was never proven that al-Assad was the one who used these weapons, so his agreement could actually be meaningless. Essentially President Assad would be agreeing to stop doing something he never did.
But Obama just wanted to be able to check off the box that says there is a deal in place and that he did something.
What’s that you say? Oh, yes, that’s right. It wasn’t our president who brokered the deal, it was the president of Russia, the ex-KGB guy, the one Obama was in a snit about, the one he wouldn’t talk to at the last world meeting, the meeting at which Obama said he and Putin discussed a solution for Syria…
But there were problems with the deal. First, al-Assad agreed to turn the weapons over only to Russia, Russia, a staunch ally of Syria and, second, speaking on Russian TV, he said he’d give up his weapons if Israel would, too.
Obama and U.S. threats, he maintained, had nothing to do with his decision to give up these weapons.
And there was more.
"When we see that the U.S. genuinely stands for stability in our region, stops threatening us with military intervention and stops supplying terrorists with weapons, then we will consider it possible to finalize all necessary procedures and they will become legitimate and acceptable for Syria.”
Hardly a "slam dunk.”
The bad news is that Obama was so anxious to make the deal, he didn’t bother to read Russia’s fine print.
The other bad news is that he was so anxious to get off the hook he had placed himself upon that he jumped on a plan that is largely untenable because of the difficulties of implementing Putin’s proposal.
There is no good news.
Then add in that Basha al-Assad has a history of non-cooperation with international peace efforts and you’ve got a mess. Putin knows it. Obama doesn’t seem to.
But the plan allowed Obama to save face. He said it was the United States’ face and Congress’ face that was being saved, but it was his.
Unfortunately, this plan provided the "perfect storm- opportunity” for Iran to order militants in Iraq to attack the U.S. Embassy and other American interests in Baghdad, if the Obama administration carried out a military strike against Syria.
It’s tragic, but the world realizes Obama has handed the power over to President Putin. Even though this might just be another game of "distraction” that Obama and his cohorts like to play with the American people, it isn’t a game for Iran. It isn’t for al-Assad, and it isn’t for Putin.
The community organizer is playing with the big boys and he doesn’t know how to do it.
But Obama has finally gotten that for what he has wished.
Obama has lobbied all his life for America’s demise. He has spoken about it in every country he’s visited, he has stated it in every speech he has given and in each of his books, hammering home America’s shortcomings and transgressions, telling us how unexceptional America and her people are by telling us we didn’t build anything.
And now the world agrees.
So when he tried to dial back his disdain for America’s greatness in his speech on Syria on Tuesday, in an effort to ingratiate himself to the American people, it did not ring true to anyone who had ever heard him speak.
In the speech Obama said for the very first time that America was exceptional. He said "when…we can stop children from being gassed to death…I believe we should act. That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional.”
It was transparent and self-serving. And Putin chided him on it in an op-ed piece in the New York Times, telling Obama it was "extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional whatever the motivation.”
And he can chide him because he and al-Assad came out okay by adopting "Obama’s plan,” or was it Putin’s plan, or maybe Kerry’s?
I can only think, who else but Barack Hussein Obama and his team of merry men could have created such a mess?
So we are left to wonder: Was all of this sheerly for the purpose of distraction, perhaps to take our attention off the launching of problem-beleaguered Obamacare in a few weeks?
Could be. Or is all this turmoil which Obama created in the Middle East just another of his "unintended consequences?”
Either way, this time Obama may have bitten off more than the world is willing to chew.
Hold the line, America.