bmac32 Loc: West Florida

President Barack Obama does not like being criticized, particularly when it is criticism that he deserves.

Obama has had to spend an inordinate amount of time recently explaining to the press why his approach to the Syrian civil war in 2012 and 2013 was a sound strategy. The rise of ISIS in Syria, which is now fighting on fronts in at least three Middle Eastern nations, has prompted many prominent voices to second guess that policy.

And who could blame them? The president spent the first bloody year of the Syrian civil war simply hoping that geopolitical crisis would go away. He was forced to address that conflict its second year when it became characterized by the battlefield use of chemical weapons on rebel and civilian targets. Obama threatened the use of force against Syrian government forces for their egregious violation of international norms in August of 2012 and only began to make good on his threat the following year when it became clear that the combatants were flagrantly ignoring America’s warnings. Finally, loathe to back his threats of force with action, Obama took the easy way out when Vladimir Putin offered him a face-saving off ramp which would address the chemical weapons threat but keep Russia’s client in power. Obama declared victory while the crisis in Syria metastasized.

This policy of dithering and indecision has led to a crisis which is of an order of magnitude greater than the disaster in Syria which the world opted to ignore from 2011 to 2013. Not being critical of this dismal policy failure would be an exercise in intellectual dishonesty. But Obama’s role in the rise of the Islamic State is not so much being lamented by Republicans – they have never stopped being critical of Obama’s Syria policy. No, the ISIS crisis has induced the dam holding back Democratic criticisms of the president’s Syria policy to burst.

In just the last several days, a variety of former members of Obama’s administration tasked with crafting a Syria policy have undercut the president, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. “Great nations need organizing principles, and ‘don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle,” she said of Obama’s reactive foreign policy doctrine.

Many congressional Democrats with foreign policy chops and a hint of integrity have said the same. “I just don’t get a sense that we have a strategy,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Robert Menendez (D-NJ) lamented as early as October of last year.

“I cannot help but wonder what would have happened if we had committed to empowering the moderate Syrian opposition last year,” the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s leading Democrat Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) wistfully pondered in an interview with The New York Times. “Would ISIS have grown as it did?”

The deluge of criticism from Democrats is forcing members of the press to debrief Obama on his approach to the Syrian civil war.

Well, Obama has just had it with this Monday morning quarterbacking from his supposed allies. According to a report in The Daily Beast via Josh Rogin, Obama thinks all this criticism of his approach to that once localized conflict which conflagrated into the region-wide sectarian war in which Obama now has now committed the U.S. to intervene is, frankly, “horses**t.”

Just before the congressional recess, President Obama invited over a dozen Senate and House leaders from both parties to the White House to talk about foreign policy. According to two lawmakers inside the meeting, Obama became visibly agitated when confronted by bipartisan criticism of the White House’s policy of slow-rolling moderate Syrian rebels’ repeated requests for arms to fight the Assad regime and ISIS.

According to one of the lawmakers, Sen. Bob Corker asked the president a long question that included sharp criticisms of President Obama’s handling of a number of foreign policy issues—including Syria, ISIS, Russia, and Ukraine. Obama answered Corker at length. Then, the president defended his administration’s actions on Syria, saying that the notion that many have put forth regarding arming the rebels earlier would have led to better outcomes in Syria was “horseshit.”

White House officials confirmed the charged exchange between Obama and Corker but declined to confirm that Obama used the expletive. The interaction between Obama and Corker was a tense moment in the otherwise uneventful meeting.

In August alone, Obama has been forced to defend his snakebit approach to the Syria conflict to reporters with The New York Times and The Atlantic, neither of which caters to a particularly conservative audience. It is not the criticisms which are beginning to irritate the president, but the source of those criticisms. Obama’s allies are losing confidence in the president’s ability and instincts, and it’s getting to him.

http://hotair.com/archives/2014/08/12/obama-criticism-of-my-syria-policy-is-horsest/

cant beleve Loc: Planet Kolob

Hillary's criticisms are only to make her look good for election time. Watch how fast every one jumps ship. Distancing themselves from obamination. The dam will burst only problem is that its the one Isis captured in Iraq. I'm so tired of these guys who now take the moral high road. Now that our interests and people are in grave danger. I think that the middle east is a goner. And the WH is to blame. All of them have added fuel to the fire. This oil fire won't be capped.

L.E. Liesner Loc: New Mexico

Hillary is expecting the electorate to forget that she was Secretary of State and implementing the very same policies that she now criticizes. Why didn't she use the power of that office and implement policies that would have been good for our country? All she did was fly all around the world accomplishing nothing except trying to make herself look good. The best advice to her would be, go home and bake cookies, but she'd probably screw that up too. It's sad to say, but old liberals never die they just smell that way.

bmac32 Loc: West Florida

Oh this oil fire can be capped but it will take air and supply support of the Kurds for this too happen. As usual Obama is late to the game and my biggest question is will he supply the support needed?

Glaucon

Another Obama hater strikes a blow for ignorance.

Dave Loc: Upstate New York

Are we now calling Hillary Clinton an Obama hater?

Glaucon

I reread my comment and I don't see that I said Hillary is an Obama hater. Is there some reason you have been able to find that might suggest that she is? I have no reason, evidence or anything like that to cause me to even consider that Hillary hates Obama. "We" are not calling Hillary an Obama hater. I am not, are you?

bmac32 Loc: West Florida

I'm sorry you don't pay attention. Remember that RED line? It should never have been drawn!

bmac32 Loc: West Florida

Most of us are not the hater you claim we are, we hate his policies just like Hillary.

Former Secretary of State and all-but-announced presidential candidate Hillary Clinton offered her most public break yet from President Obama over the weekend, slamming his "don't do stupid [stuff]" foreign policy and suggesting he had not been aggressive enough in asserting America's role in the world.

Glaucon

Obviously not.

Dave Loc: Upstate New York

I don't call people who disagree with Obama as haters for disagreeing. For those of you who do, Hillary is now criticizing him - therefore she must too be a hater.

bmac32 Loc: West Florida

Oh so Hillary is not but the rest of are?

L.E. Liesner Loc: New Mexico

I don't think that "Glaucon" understands that everybody and that includes Clinton, that does not agree with Obama is also a racist. And hatred is what drives racism.

karpenter Loc: Headin' Fer Da Hills !!

The OP Merely Outlines That Democrats Can No Longer Ignore
The President's Head-Under-Water Ineptitude.

The Bi-Partisan Foreign Policy Pow-Wow
Is About 3yrs And Chump-Change Too Late.

So One Of Our Resident Geniuses Tries To Turn It Back On Bmac32
(Who Did Nothing But Post The Report)
With The Perpetual Argument...'Hater'

This Is Just Too Rich

Workinman Loc: Bayou Pigeon

I hope this idiot king doesn't screw the Kurd's over..but you know he is with the brain dead that back him...although many are running for cover from him.