Some of those who defend Obama’s policy in Syria and the Middle East claim that he actually knows what he is doing, and that by referring from overt intervention he is allowing various enemies of the United States to fight on Syrian and Iraqi territories, which serves America’s interests, or so they assert. But the things to which these “experts” seem to be oblivious here is the impact of the alleged policy on the Syrian and Iraqi peoples.
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This column was ranked one of the five best columns for Monday August 25 by thewire.com.
It’s time for him to do the right thing by arming moderate rebels, imposing a no-fly zone and expanding military action beyond Iraq
Barack Obama is embarking on a global course correction, if not an outright reversal: the policy of “don’t do stupid stuff” – the non-interventionism so praised by the Farid Zakarias and Tom Friedmans of the world – is getting forced out, albeit in the typical Obama fashion of admitting nothing and never going fast or far enough.
Continue reading “Obama has ignored Syria for too long: it’s the rise of Isis, stupid – now help”
Stephen Walt wonders: “Is Barack Obama More of a Realist Than I Am?” While Stephen Kinzer praises his “canny anti-interventionism,” and Syrian prodemocracy activist, Qusai Zakaria, assails him for his failure to punish Assad back in 2013 for launching the notorious chemical weapons attack against the civilian populations in the Damascene suburbs of Moadamieh and Ghoutah.
Is it an ingrained American attitude: battling the symptom while embracing the disease? Creating beautiful façades behind which to hide something that is deeply rotten and festering? If so, if this is indeed the truth, what does it really say about America? More specifically, what does is say about America’s political, economic, intellectual and artistic elite – because no matter how democratic a nation is, it’s always this elite that is ultimately responsible for shaping its image and molding its moral fabric.
Continue reading “From Syria to Ferguson: battling the symptom while embracing the disease”
The Ammar Abdulhamid Archive 