Doing Something

The editors of the Washington Post hale President Obama’s decision to bomb ISIS in Iraq:

PRESIDENT OBAMA was right to order military action to prevent a potential genocide in northern Iraq and to stop forces of the al-Qaeda-derived Islamic State from advancing on Baghdad or the Kurdish capital of Irbil.

but criticize his lack of a coherent strategy for the Middle East:

However, the steps the president authorized on Thursday amount to more of his administration’s half-measures, narrowly tailored to this week’s emergency and unconnected to any coherent strategy to address the conflagration spreading across the Middle East.

I don’t think they’re looking at the big picture. The president has a coherent strategy it’s just not a foreign policy strategy. It’s a political strategy.

The president is under intense political pressure from some quarters to do something. Bomb strikes against ISIS are something. He’s under equally intense political pressure not to do anything that might be effective, e.g. sending troops, and that pressure is coming from among others his political base.

Under the circumstances ineffectual bombing is probably his best political strategy.

2 comments… add one
  • ... Link

    Is the WaPo the most interventionist paper in the country, or is it the WSJ?

  • jan Link

    Obama’s “Mission Accomplished” moment, that has been muted by the MSM.

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