Obama Deems Syria Situation “Troublesome”

23 Aug, 2013 by William Teach

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What’s probably “troublesome” is attempting to dig his way out making a pronouncement about their being a “red line” regarding the use of WMD. Which has been crossed. Several times. And Team Obama seems clueless as to what they’re supposed to do. New UN Ambassador Samantha Powers blew off an emergency meeting at the United Nations on the Syria crisis (remember that for a little later), and, as for Obama

(Politico) President Barack Obama called recent reports of violence in Syria “troublesome” but warned against “jumping into” the situation, according to an interview aired Friday morning on CNN.

“It is very troublesome,” he said. “That starts getting to some core national interests that the United States has, both in terms of us making sure that weapons of mass destruction are not proliferating, as well as needing to protect our allies, our bases in the region.”

In all fairness, he did say that they had a “grave concern” over the possible use of chemical weapons, without noting that this is not the first time, and that they were continuing to gather information. It is interesting that he changed the concern to proliferation, rather than use. He did go on to whine about Operation Iraqi Freedom in relationship to any proposed intervention in Syria

“What I think the American people also expect me to do as president is to think through what we do from the perspective of what is in our long term national interest,” Obama said. “Sometimes what we’ve seen is that folks will call for immediate action, jumping into stuff, that does not turn out well, gets us mired in very difficult situations, can result in us being drawn into very expensive, difficult, costly interventions that actually breed more resentment in the region.”

Interesting, because that was approved by the United Nation. President Bush left a plan to end our involvement, which Obama managed to screw up.

“When we take action there are rules of international law and if the U.S. goes in and attacks another country without a U.N. mandate and without clear evidence being presented then there are questions in terms of whether the international law supports it,” he said.

To reiterate, there was a UN mandate of the Iraq War. Second, his brand spanking new UN Ambassador, Samantha Powers, sent a low ranking State Dept employee with no experience in the Middle East to the emergency meeting. Where was she? Team Obama won’t say. Instead, they refer reporters over to the UN. Because at no time does Team Obama know what Team Obama is engaged in.

And while Obama is “gathering information”, France is urging military intervention. Gathering information seems to be a euphemism for “twiddling thumbs” with zero leadership

Senior officials from the Pentagon, the State Department and the intelligence agencies met for three and a half hours at the White House on Thursday to deliberate over options, which officials say could range from a cruise missile strike to a more sustained air campaign against Syria.

The meeting broke up without any decision, according to senior officials, amid signs of a deepening division between those who advocate sending Mr. Assad a harsh message and those who argue that military action now would be reckless and ill timed.

And where, exactly, was the POTUS? Where is the leadership from The Most Powerful Man In The World?

I will note that I do not support military intervention in Syria, beyond some possible airstrikes. Implementing a no fly zone is worthless, because this civil war is now between the Asad forces and Islamists. The time for helping an “Arab Uprising” is long past. Obama has put himself in a difficult situation with his red line comment. And now he’s trying to squish his way out and run out the clock.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.