President Obama: Idealism Adrift

Right From the Start

The Islamic terrorist attacks in Paris, Mali, Egypt, Cameroon (and the list goes on forever) have heightened criticism of President Barack Obama and pressed a demand that the United States take a leadership role in combating ISIL in Iraq and Syria. While I think that is necessary, I am absolutely opposed to the United States taking any combat role in either country under this president. Quite frankly, were I the leader of any other nation seeking to combat the Islamic terror network, I would resist strenuously any leadership role by the United States under this president.

The reason is quite simple. Mr. Obama will not fight to win a war. At best he will go through the motions of half measures in order to not be blamed for losing a war. In this regard he resembles former Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon and Bill Clinton. Add to that Mr. Obama’s duplicity in providing assistance to those who will fight to win. He denied weapons and intelligence to the Kurds and the Free Syrian Army. He has withheld weapons, intelligence and supplies from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, the Ukraine, and Israel. He basically destroyed Libya by ousting Muammar Gaddafi and denying any significant military and financial aid to the succeeding government.

In aid of the French in the aftermath of the brutal attacks in Paris, Mr. Obama agreed to “share intelligence.” What we have learned is that Mr. Obama gave the French information on targets that he himself has refused to allow the United States military to engage.

It was disclosed last week that President Barack Obama had imposed two major obstacles to inflicting any significant damage on the Islamic State (ISIL) – Da’ish now for the foreign service snobs in the State Department, including Secretary John Kerry. First, he refused to allow attacks on the tanker trucks that transport stolen oil from the fields now controlled by ISIL to the black market. According to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy that profits ISIL nearly $350 Million per year. The reason given by Mr. Obama’s apologists is that any such attacks may injure the truck drivers. But the public disclosure of this has forced Mr. Obama’s hand and so he authorized the dropping of leaflets warning the drivers and then he destroyed several of the tanker trucks. The question is whether Mr. Obama will continue such regular attacks on ISIL’s economic lifeline? Past history indicates that he did the first one’s for show and there will be precious few hereafter. If any further attacks are to be made it will be by the French and now the English who have agreed to join France in the efforts to destroy ISIL.

Second, Mr. Obama refused to allow attacks on ISIL headquarters in Ar-Raqqah, Syria. Mr. Obama justifies this by alleging that he fears injuring prisoners that might be held there. However, that type of hand wringing has not deterred the French or Russia in launching massive missile and air attacks on Ar Raqqah. A brief search on the internet does not reveal any such attacks on ISIL’s putative “capital” by the United States.

God know what other restrictions Mr. Obama has placed on our military forces in their attempt to combat this malevolent branch of Islam.

So what drives a man like Mr. Obama to sacrifice lives in a fight he refuses to win? There are some that claim Mr. Obama is a secret Muslim and that he will not challenge the rise of Islam, including the monsters who profess Sharia law in justification of rape, torture, and massive killing of innocents. I doubt that is true since Mr. Obama is by and large agnostic in practice of any religion. (And somehow I don’t see Michelle Obama, who has embraced a lavish lifestyle as First Lady, succumbing to donning the hijab and living a near cloistered life.)

There are others who claim that Mr. Obama secretly hates America and is intent on destroying its position as a superpower. That rationale is “based” on Mr. Obama’s feeling of repression as an African American in a white society. Nice try, but Mr. Obama is half white and more Arab than African. According to the left leaning Snopes:

“Barack Hussein Obama is not half black. He is the first Arab-American President, not the first black President. Barack Hussein Obama is 50% Caucasian from his mother’s side and 43.75% Arabic and 6.25%  African Negro from his father’s side.

“While Barack Hussein Obama’s father was from Kenya , his father’s family  was mainly Arabs.. Barack Hussein Obama’s father was only 12.5% African  Negro and 87.5% Arab (his father’s birth certificate even states he’s  Arab, not African Negro).”

More importantly, Mr. Obama did not have much experience of “being Black in America” since he was raised by his white upper middleclass grandparents in Hawaii and attended private schools and prestigious colleges – all bastions of white guilt-ridden liberalism.

The most likely explanation is the Mr. Obama is simply a rigid adherent to the brand of effete liberalism that is prevalent in academia and government where the world is viewed as it should be (at least as they think it should be) and completely ignores the reality of everyday humankind. Such adherents tend to intellectualize all that confronts them. And their naivete is boundless. It permits them to find excuses for the beasts that confront them. It permits them to salve their conscience by providing others the tools they need to perform dangerous acts that they will not do – as if that detachment absolves them of involvement.

It allows people like Mr. Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry to sniff disdainfully when Russia invades Crimea that such actions are just inappropriate in the 21^st Century. It allows Mr. Obama to rationalize that if he is accommodating to the mullahs of Iran that they will end their support of international terrorism and the annihilation of Israel. It allows Mr. Obama to embrace the Muslim Brotherhood as champions of peace and transparency when they took over Egypt from Hosni Mubarak despite having been previously identified as a terrorist organization and then to criticize the Egyptian military when it rescued the nation from the repression that symbolized Mubarak’s successor, Mohammed Morsi.

It plays out in domestic policy where Mr. Obama is critical of success because it creates inequality. It drives his demand for income redistribution. He cannot differentiate between “equal opportunity” and “equal outcome.”

In doing all of this Mr. Obama ignores the reality that there are brutal people in this world hell bent on achieving domination. He fails to understand that because we are different our achievements will be different – some smarter, some not; some stronger, some not; some willing to work harder, some not. He fails to remember that it was not the dons of Harvard and Yale that won independence or preserved freedom – it was that common man with a gun that is responsible.

In a recent exchange on FOX News, noted columnist and granddam of American politics, Peggy Noonan, declared that Mr. Obama was irrelevant for purposes of international affairs. She noted that he is not trusted by our allies and not feared by our enemies. Seven years of duplicity has brought us to this.

For the first time in history the world is best served by eschewing American leadership. For the good of peace and security in this dangerous world, Mr. Obama should remain irrelevant as we wait out the last thirteen months of his presidency. Looking to Mr. Obama for leadership or support is a fool’s errand and the world will be better served by relying on leaders such as France’s Francois Hollande, England’s David Cameron, Germany’s Angela Merkel, Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein.

For us in America, we should pray that the next thirteen months pass quickly and without incident.