The Nightmare Scenario � The Dish:
Obama – despite what he did with Syria, and despite his campaign pledges – wants to launch a new war in Iraq and
Syria on his own presidential authority. At a time when we desperately
need a careful consideration of a war’s potential unintended
consequences, a deliberative debate in the Senate on the pros and cons
of this new adventure in Arabia, Obama only wants a rubber stamp for a
war already underway. The Republicans, moreover, in ever more cynical
fashion, will be quite happy to let Obama take all the responsibility
and all of the blame for the next Middle East nightmare, while taking no
responsibility for the war themselves. That way, they can blame Obama
for failure, and claim credit for success, while never playing the
essential constitutional role they are supposed to play.
To recap: we are going to war with no clear exit plan; we are doing
so before the regional allies have been forced to take a stand; Obama is
shouldering all of the responsibility himself, based on a hysterical
public mood that could evaporate in a month’s time. To argue that this
is a reneging of everything Obama ran on is an understatement. Even Bush
went to Congress for a vote before the Iraq War. And the legitimization
of panic and fear and hysteria undoes so much of what Obama had
previously achieved in amending US foreign policy.
I will listen carefully tonight. I will give him a chance to persuade me. But this is such a bitter pill to swallow.