By Dan Calabrese ——Bio and Archives--September 11, 2013
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Finally, many of you have asked: Why not leave this to other countries, or seek solutions short of force? As several people wrote to me, “We should not be the world’s policeman.” I agree, and I have a deeply held preference for peaceful solutions. Over the last two years, my administration has tried diplomacy and sanctions, warning and negotiations -- but chemical weapons were still used by the Assad regime. However, over the last few days, we’ve seen some encouraging signs. In part because of the credible threat of U.S. military action, as well as constructive talks that I had with President Putin, the Russian government has indicated a willingness to join with the international community in pushing Assad to give up his chemical weapons. The Assad regime has now admitted that it has these weapons, and even said they’d join the Chemical Weapons Convention, which prohibits their use. It’s too early to tell whether this offer will succeed, and any agreement must verify that the Assad regime keeps its commitments. But this initiative has the potential to remove the threat of chemical weapons without the use of force, particularly because Russia is one of Assad’s strongest allies.This is so rich. Obama has a "deeply held preference for peaceful solutions" - as if anyone doesn't - and yet he's the one who came out to the Rose Garden a week ago Saturday and said he had already made the decision to attack Syria, only to desperately look for a way out when it became clear he had no objective for such a strike, and that he had no congressional support. And he's the one who hilariously latched onto to Putin's "proposal" to pretend to relieve Assad of his chemical weapons after Kerry went off script and mused that this could all go away if Assad turned over his weapons - which he will not actually do but will be happy to pretend to do with the help of his biggest defender Putin. So where are we? Having declared that we must act, Obama will accept just about any way out of acting, even if it puts America's biggest strategic adversary firmly in the driver's seat. We all knew Obama was a rank amateur when he took office, but you might have thought that after nearly five years in office, he would have learned a thing or two. But you can't learn when you think you already know everything, nor can you learn when you just don't care. What a mess. Video via the Washington Post:
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