Well-Known Right-Wing Rag Calls Iran Deal a Disaster

Call the deal what it is with a headline of "Obama’s Iran deal falls far short of his own goals."  So, yeah, even by his own stated standards.  Compare and contrast.

By the way, I was being sarcastic in the post title.  Nowadays I can never tell if people understand what sarcasm is.  

Oh, and the Onion nailed it 2 whole years ago.

Obama, ISIS, and the Bush Doctrine

What say you?

Best Commentary Yet On Obama's Messy ISIS Speech

"This speech is supposed to be about ISIS but idk Wtf I'm doing there so lemme talk about the economy and Ebola" #whatobamameant
— Emily (@EmilyChanda) September 10, 2014

@derekahunter "we are all dumber for having heard that"
— Mike Nelson (@mikenelson586) September 11, 2014

"No Longer Even 'Leading From Behind'"

The ongoing mess in Libya.

Quote of the Day: "Unprecedented Disarray"

Hope and change. Well, change, anyway:

If anything, the international situation Obama faced when he assumed the presidency was, in many respects, relatively auspicious. Despite the financial crisis and the recession that followed, never since John F. Kennedy has an American president assumed high office with so much global goodwill. The war in Iraq, which had done so much to bedevil Bush’s presidency, had been won thanks to a military strategy Obama had, as a senator, flatly opposed. For the war in Afghanistan, there was broad bipartisan support for large troop increases. Not even six months into his presidency, Obama was handed a potential strategic game changer when a stolen election in Iran led to a massive popular uprising that, had it succeeded, could have simultaneously ended the Islamic Republic and resolved the nuclear crisis. He was handed another would-be game changer in early 2011, when the initially peaceful uprising in Syria offered an opportunity, at relatively little cost to the U.S., to depose an anti-American dictator and sever the main link between Iran and its terrorist proxies in Lebanon and Gaza.

Incredibly, Obama squandered every single one of these opportunities. 

Squandered or, in some cases, "threw away with both hands."

Don't Read This Unless You Want To Be Depressed

Obama's top 10 foreign policy disasters.  Number 1 is Syria because:

This is a blunder that arguably sums up every one of Obama’s weaknesses in conducting foreign policy.  ...

Syria has shown us the many faces of Barack Obama.

First we had Obama the deer in the headlights, doing nothing for a year after the revolt against Bashar al-Assad broke out in April 2011 and people started dying—a period when there was a real opportunity to shift the balance of forces in the Middle East.

Then we had Obama the redliner in August 2012, promising swift action if Assad used chemical weapons against the rebels … then doing nothing when they were used.

Then came Obama the unilateralist, deciding he had to take military action so he wouldn’t look like a prevaricating poltroon. This was immediately followed by Obama the devious, leaving ultimate responsibility for the decision to Congress.

By then, of course, half a million people were dead and Al Qaeda was left to take over leadership of the  rebellion against Assad.

Then came Obama, president of the Vladimir Putin fan club, gratefully taking up the Russian leader’s offer to broker the handover of Assad’s chemical weapons stash because it got Obama off the hook for military action. It also taught Putin that if he wanted to start reassembling the broken bits of the old Soviet Union, starting with Ukraine, Obama wouldn’t raise a hand to stop him.

Quote of the Day: US Foreign Policy in the Middle East

Or, more accurately, lack of it:

While other administrations have shown weakness or had failures in the region, “This is the first administration to see the region as inconsequential.” Believing our “real” interests lay elsewhere (e.g. Asia) has led to a lack of focus and engagement in the Middle East. We continue to appear unserious because, in essence, we are.

YOU DON'T SAY!

Quote of the Weekend on Iraq

From the Wall Street Journal's blistering editorial:

The possibility that a long civil war in Syria would become an incubator for terrorism and destabilize the region was predictable, and we predicted it. "Now the jihadists have descended by the thousands on Syria," we noted last May. "They are also moving men and weapons to and from Iraq, which is increasingly sinking back into Sunni-Shiite civil war. . . . If Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki feels threatened by al Qaeda and a Sunni rebellion, he will increasingly look to Iran to help him stay in power." 

We don't quote ourselves to boast of prescience but to wonder why the Administration did nothing to avert the clearly looming disaster. 

Best Foreign Policy Analysis In 140 Characters or Fewer

US respnse 2 Syria,Russia,Iraq: 1)Huh? 2)We're watching this closely 3)With concern. 4)Hey, stop- 5)We won't tolerate that! 6)Mmm. Whatever.
— Rosa Brooks (@brooks_rosa) June 13, 2014

Brooks is currently a Georgetown law professor. She worked in the Department of Defense from 2009 to 2011.

March Madness, Putin Style

Foreign Policy's School of Hard Knock ... -Knock Jokes

Blah Blah Blah: Useless White House Rhetoric on Ukraine

This is pretty much spot on. 

I add this reaction gif:

While we're at it, here's the Tweet of the Day by none other than Rob Lowe:

“@BBCBreaking: Obama:"Russia on wrong side of history" in #Ukraine http://t.co/B2LQAJHUtJ” Perfect. Guilt trips always work on Putin.
— Rob Lowe (@RobLowe) March 3, 2014

Kerry on Syria: "Transparently Futile ... Profoundly Wrong"

The WaPo editorial board rips into the hapless, hopeless Secretary of State.  The guys at the American Interest add a piquant comment of their own:

Future Presidents and Secretaries of State should take note: This is what happens when your foreign policy dies and goes to hell. Later, historians will rake your bones over the coals.

Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fungus ... Er, FONDER

Sorry I've been away, darlings!  Life, you know.  School.  Work.  Responsibilities and such, plus trying to freeze to death here (where new snow falls even as I type)!  I'll try to be back more often with the usual supply of frivolous sundries and occasional lapses into serious looks at foreign policy ... but mostly frivolous sundries because our foreign policy is pretty much too horrible to contemplate.

2013's Biggest Winners and Losers in Foreign Policy

Winners and losers.  No surprises.

Top 3 winners:

1. Vladimir Putin and Russia
2. Iran
3. Assad

Top 3 losers:

1. The Muslim Brotherhood and democratic Islamism
2. The EU
3. The Obama Administration

Hope, Change, and the Iran Deal

Dignified Rant considers the deal.  The conclusion?  "We are so screwed."  I concur.

PS: Peace in our time, yo! Sarcasm, aside, though, consider this, which gives us the quote of the day:

 This Administration in its record on the Middle East appears to have a unique ability not to see the approach of danger. 

You don't say!  Well, none are as blind as those who refuse to see.  I repeat this previously voiced sentiment.  Oh, and keep your eye on the Israelis, who are disgusted with this deal "historic mistake," and I can't blame them.  Ummm ... dude?

Quote of the Day: Loose Lips Sink Ships ... of Fools

"We're conducting foreign policy by faux pas. This entire episode has been driven not by deliberate strategy but by slips of the tongue. Obama’s declaration of a “red line” on chemical weapons was a slip of the tongue. So was Secretary of State John Kerry’s offer to have Syria give up its chemical weapons. There is no plan, no coherence to anything this administration is doing on Syria." 

I can't resist adding an image:

Am I A Jacksonian?

A disgruntled one?

In Soviet Russia, Cards Play You

And, boy, have we been played.  Ugh.  The craptacular Russian deal on Syria is now officially a thing.  I don't even know what to say.  

What a total mess.  Hell, a fictional Starfleet engineer knows more about diplomacy than the clowns that we've seen lately:

How Assad will now regard any attempt to stop him:

Meanwhile in the Kremlin, this is the look on Pooty-Poot's face:

And this is what is happening to America's standing in the world:

Oh, and this is me ... and maybe you too:

Quote of the Day: Mark Steyn on Putin

Pretty much, yeah:

Putin has pulled off something incredible: He’s gotten Washington to anoint him as the international community’s official peacemaker, even as he assists Iran in going nuclear and keeping their blood-soaked Syrian client in his presidential palace.