What ''Leading-from-Behind'' Looks Like in a Beige Suit !

Is Barack Obama the most useless president in US history?  I do not think Barack Obama is a closet sympathizer of Muslim Jihadists bent on our destruction, but God help me I suddenly understand how some have arrived at that conclusion. More on that in an up-coming posting on this blog site.

He was in a  taupe suit facing a dumb-founded press corps and to stand up to tell the world that America was going to do zero to help Ukraine and have no strategy to defeat ISIS is just insane.

This totally beige-moment was so shocking that the White House staff had to go into complete and total damage control afterwards is telling. But even their damage control was insufficient. They told Wolf Blitzer, anchor and journalist for CNN, the White House had a strategy, just not a strategy to go after them in Syria.

Here's Josh Earnest, current Press Secretary and Assistant to the President, doing damage control on CNN:
  ''The president was asked a specific question about what approach he was going to pursue when it came to possible military action in Syria against ISIL. That was the specifc question he was asked and the president was explicit, that he is still waiting for plans that are being developed by the Pentagon for military options that he has for going into Syria.''

How long has Syria been a problem?  The President addressed the nation, a year ago, on September 10, about Syria and the actions we would take. But he said he would not get involved outside of forcing Syria to give up chemical weapons. His military leaders have insisted America do more, but the President dithered, much like he dithered trying to save James Foley, and now Steven Sotloff.

And what of the strategy to defeat ISIS in Iraq?  Just words and a few tactical missile strikes. More from the White House Press Secretary:

  ''But when it comes to confronting ISIL, the president has been very clear for months about what our comprehensive strategy is for confronting the ISIL threat in Iraq. It starts with a unified Iraq government, that can unite that country to meet the threat that's facing their country right now.''

   ''Secondly, it includes strengthening our relationship with the Iraqi and Kurdish security forces, to make sure that they have the equipment ad training they need to take the  fight to ISIL on the ground in their country.'' 

    ''The third component of our strategy is engaging regional governments. It's certainly not in the interest of governments in that neighbourhood to have ISIL wreaking havoc and doing terrible acts of violence in their region.''

''The forth aspect of the strategy is engaging countries around the world in this effort.''

And then, of course, the fifth aspect of the strategy.....the fifth component, is the use of American military force.''

So to kill the bad guys the President has to let the Iraqis set up a new government, then Obama needs to rebuild relationships with people don't trust him (like Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey), then he needs to engage regional governments who've taken to launching  strikes in Libya without telling us, then we need to sing kumbaya with the world....... As usual Obama now belatedly does something but very, very little. He is being shamed to stop his dithering and show some balls this crisis demands.

The Way I See It.....the president wants....to stay out of Iraq for probably and also certainly for political reasons. His bragging that he ended the war in Iraq has come around full circle and bit him on his embarrassed ass. He also wants to defeat ISIS and wants to do both. And the problem is, if you try to do both, you are going to do both mediocrely. And that's basically what happened.

I just don't think you can do both. ISIS is a pretty impressive organization and they have taken over. And for America to say it's going to leave it to the Iraqis to take care of ISIS strikes me as probably not an option that's going to be on the table. Expecting the Iraqis to be able to beat ISIS on their own is going to take months and ISIS can do a lot of damage in those months. And so I think this split-the-difference policy the president has adopted of trying to be in and out at the time is not going to be tenable. I suspect he has to get his hands dirty, suck up his pride, and is going to have to go in a little further....he has no more time to dawdle! How many will die because of this President and his foolishness????