We’re seeing the fruits of Obama’s weakness in Russian
adventurism in Ukraine. This isn’t the
first time a weak Democrat president has led our enemies to believe that they
can conquer without consequences.
Few people remember that while the US won a public relations
victory in the Cuban missile crisis we lost the actual fight.
Quietly after the press moved on to other issues the US
removed
its nuclear-armed missiles from Turkey as the Soviets wanted us to do.
Further Kennedy agreed to commit the US to
not invade Cuba, another Soviet demand.
Additionally it’s mostly forgotten that Kennedy’s weakness at his Vienna
meeting with Khrushchev led Khrushchev to believe that Kennedy wouldn’t do
anything significant in response to the placing of nuclear armed missiles in
Cuba.
Kennedy’s weakness led the US to the
brink
of nuclear war with the Soviet Union because Khruschchev believed that Kennedy
would not stand up to the Kremlins missiles in Cuba.
We’re seeing a repeat of that now with the Ukraine situation.
By all accounts Obama fails to project an image of strength when meeting with
foreign leaders.
Certainly his laughable
bowing to the leaders of third rate countries didn’t give Putin any reason to
think Obama has the guts to go toe to toe in defense of liberty.
Obama saves his heroic and confrontational rhetoric for his American political
opponents and the governments of allies such as Israel.
Obama’s actions reinforce the image of his weakness. Obama made a big deal of
his “red line” on the use of chemical weapons in Syria and when confronted with
Assad calling his bluff Obama let Putin waltz in and set up a deal that turned
the tide of the war against the democratic resistance.
Similarly an American ambassador was killed in Libya and Obama blamed a US
produced movie rather than sending in troops to find and prosecute the
terrorists.
The problem with Obama’s weakness is that it is combined with a typical liberal
desire to do whatever it takes to be elected; or in this case make sure that
Democrats don’t lose the Senate in the 2014 elections.
As a result if Obama’s polling data indicates
that he has to be “tough” on Ukraine Putin may get more pushback than he
expected.
While that may sound good-- after all it’s better for Obama to do the right
thing even if it’s for the wrong reason than to do the wrong thing right?—the
reality is that presidential unpredictability can lead the US into a major war.
If Khrushchev had known how Kennedy would react there would have been no near
nuclear war.
Similarly if Kennedy had
rolled over and publically agreed to what he privately promised Khrushchev
without the naval blockade of Cuba and the related military show there also
would not have been millions of Americans wondering if they would be obliterated
in a nuclear holocaust.
It was Kennedy
suddenly developing a spine that lead the world to the edge of a nuclear
precipice.
Obama’s weakness has placed the US in a similarly dangerous situation today.
Putin, like Khrushchev, is not a nice person but he is not a
fool. Putin invaded Ukraine knowing that
it could lead to war only when he thought that Obama would not do anything that
would make Russian actions too costly.
While all out nuclear war is not as likely over the Ukraine as it was over Cuba
no matter what Obama does America faces the very real threat of involving
America in a war with either Russia or China.
If Obama can manage to get NATO to agree to use military force-- an unlikely
event given the basically liberal, ie cowardly, nature of most European
governments—we may end up in a land war with Russia.
If however Obama only uses words and some mostly for show economic
“punishments” he risks getting us in a war with China.
China has been making increasingly aggressive
claims to the ocean
hundreds of miles from China but very near to countries such as the
Philippines. In fact the head of US naval intelligence in the Pacific has
said
that the Chinese military is training to be able to rapidly seize the Japanese
Senkaku islands.
If Chinas leadership
believes that Obama is a paper tiger then they will be more likely to make
aggressive moves to seize islands claimed by other countries that could lead to
a war with China.
Would Obama be willing to risk a nuclear Japan and Taiwan by letting the
Chinese use military force to claim huge swaths of the ocean? Because if Obama
fails to respond to Chinese aggression both Japan and Taiwan would see that
they couldn’t count on the US nuclear umbrella and develop their own nuclear
deterrents.
But if Obama calls the Chinese bluff and commits US military forces we’ll be in
a war with China.
The only thing that prevents countries like China and Russia from using their
military power to grab whatever they want is the fear that the US will stand
against them.
Obama’s public weakness, his obvious lack of concern or knowledge about foreign
affairs, and his continual support of American enemies—ranging from Iran to the
Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt—make it easy for the leaders of America’s enemies
to assume that America under Obama can be pushed around.
When Obama acts like a weakling and then turns around and becomes unpredictably
aggressive when he thinks his political interests are threatened by foreign
actions it sets the stage for an unintentional slide into war.
Obama is following in Clintons footsteps in making America
unsafe. Remember that bin Laden thought that he could get away with 9/11
because of how Clinton
ran
from Somalia.
Democrat presidents who are more concerned with buying votes with food stamps
than with defending America inevitably increase the risk that foreign
miscalculation will lead to the US being involved in a war.
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