Obama’s Russian Delegation in the Middle East
For more than forty years, the one constant in U.S. foreign policy had been the absolute resolve to prevent Soviet/Russian hegemony in the Middle East- a resolve that transcended both party and ideology. From the mid-1970s on, U. S. presidents were united in the construct that Soviet/Russian influence in that troubled region be minimized, if not proscribed, by an activist U.S. sphere of influence in that troubled region…
…and then, Obama happened….
Whether or not one agrees with the wisdom of U.S. intervention in Iraq during the administration of George W. Bush, it is a matter of fact that a), weapons of mass destruction (WMDs)- some 5,000 of them, according to a New York times article in April of 2013, were indeed present in Iraq under the regime of Saddam Hussein at the time the United States sent ground forces into Iraq; and b), following the 2007 surge of forces under General David Petraeus, on orders from President Bush, the war in Iraq was most definitely won and Iraq was, at long last, stabilized…
…and then, Obama happened…
Running for president in 2008, Barack Obama’s opposition to the war in Iraq was patently clear during his campaign for the presidency and, immediately following his election that November, he a), promised to “fundamentally transform the United States of America”; and b), went on a world tour to apologize for America’s transgressions, including our Iraqi intervention, and tell the world that the United States was no better than any other nation- for which he was dubiously awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. When he was inaugurated in January 2009, he reiterated his “apology tour” speeches, announced his intentions to withdraw from Iraq as quickly as possible, and close the U.S. detention facility located at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the “worst of the worst” terrorists were being held as de-facto prisoners of war- a war on terror that began on September 12, 2001, following the attacks which took place, the day before…
…and then, Obama happened…
Against strong advice to the contrary, from a wide array of expertise in both political parties, Obama began the systematic dismantling of U.S. presence in the Middle East, with a premature withdrawal of troops from Iraq- troops that would have provided the much-needed stability in Iraq, following the war, at a precious moment in time where such a presence- much like the post war presence in Germany and Japan following World War II, and South Korea, following the Korean War- would have provided the security and conduit necessary to establish a stabilized government and U.S. ally in the Middle East, just as we had done in Europe and Asia.
In doing so, it was Barack Obama who created a vacuum of power in Iraq, which summarily led to the rise of ISIS/ISIL , enabled the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad to wage genocide on his own people by Obama’s drawing a facetious “line-in-the-sand” about the use of chemical weapons against them, and summarily allowed the continued atrocities being levied against Christians and non-compliant Muslims, by not even being willing to identify the culprit as “radical Islam”. His thorough disengagement from all presence in the region, not even providing requested weaponry and assistance to the one ally fighting against ISIS/ISIL- Jordan and, along with the unequivocal farce of his ”deal with Iran”, reveals his absolute intent to allow radical Islam, which words he dares not say, take over an entire region.
Perhaps even worse, Barack Obama has allowed and abided the entry of Russian military forces into Syria by creating a void which Russian President Vladimir Putin was oh-so-happy and willing to fill. Today, it has been announced that Putin has ordered, ORDERED the United States to cease and desist from the very limited and targeted air strikes which have occasionally been taking place, in lieu of meaningful military action which could, if utilized without hand-wringing by the Obama administration, otherwise destroy both ISIS and the Assad regime.
In other words, while Barack Obama has absolutely no intention to oppose Russian aggression in the Ukraine, he is willing to allow Russian hegemony, and thereby delegated to Vladimir Putin the authority to lord over an entire region in the Middle East, where all of his predecessors had committed themselves to preventing such a thing from happening, in the first place.
When the day arrives in which an emboldened and resurgent Russia has the wherewithal to order the United States to “cease and desist” from doing anything at all, that day marks the beginning of the end for the United States as a world superpower, and the void which is then filled by a not-so-benevolent and oh-so-calculating Russian federation will no doubt usher in a scenario ending in the next world war…
…yes, Obama happened…
-Drew Nickell, 30 September 2015
©2015 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved