O-buma is seen both at home and abroad as a weak president. That it is easy to pierce his ponderously large ego exposes his weakness; he is dangerous because his ego requires constant gratification. This president mirrors predecessors who were also weak, vain, and dangerous. JFK and Jimmy Carter seem to be O-buma’s models.
Kennedy tripled American troop levels in Vietnam in 1961 and again in 1962. With Kennedy still smarting from his Vienna embarrassment, an emboldened USSR installed missile systems in Cuba with enough range to hit US cities. The Cuban missile crisis followed shortly afterward in 1962 and brought the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation. A weak, egotistical US president invites disaster.
A feckless, inept, and naïve Jimmy Carter believed Leonid Brezhnev’s assurances of a peaceful outcome in Afghanistan, that is until the USSR invaded. Jimmy’s response to Soviet aggression and treachery was to punish US amateur athletes by boycotting the 1980 Olympics. That Soviet offensive was stopped in its tracks with significant American support for the Mujahideen.
The USSR was forced to turn tail and hustle back home during our militarily robust and globally influential Ronald Reagan era. It was also Reagan who convinced Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall—the one that was built in the Kennedy era. The O-buma era is increasingly resembling Kennedy’s impotent attempts to compensate for weakness by projecting US power and by Carter’s feckless ineptitude.
Shortly after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, Obama sent an additional 30K troops to Afghanistan following campaign promises to end American involvement there almost immediately after taking office. Now he has unilaterally initiated talks with the Taliban that seem likely to produce dividends as disastrous as those resulting from the Paris Peace Accord. Expect that the Taliban and Al Qaeda will, soon after our departure, occupy all of Afghanistan and threaten Pakistan.
O-buma has sufficiently alienated Pakistan that they are now embracing a China that is increasingly belligerent toward the US. Pakistan is currently seeking to buy weapons from them. We are countering by courting India with arms deals of our own. Disengaged by the US, an American power vacuum in Afghanistan/Pakistan leaves Al Qaeda to threaten Russia with jihadist violence, inviting yet another Russian invasion.
As though the US were not stretched thinly enough, NATO member and American ally Turkey is threatening to invade Syria in order to create a buffer zone inside Syria for refugees from their civil war. Syria is a former Soviet Union client and current Russian ally, and Moscow has been warning the US to stay out of Syria. If the US helps Turkey in Syria, will Russia help Iran move against Israel? Would the US use its significant military assets in Iraq to protect Israel from Iran? If not, could the prospect of an unwinnable two-front war make Israel go nuclear?
Has O-buma’s constant embarrassment of Pakistan goaded them not only into the Chinese camp but encouraged them to save face and, with Chinese help, move against India in the Kashmir region to avenge past losses? Significant Pakistani losses could invite direct Chinese intervention, and this could trigger US action. Four nuclear powers at war in such a densely populated and strategically vital area is a recipe for global nuclear extinction.
O-buma’s poll numbers spiked with the death of bin Laden. He seems willing to sacrifice short-term leftist support knowing that they will return to the fold by November 2012. The president seems to be prematurely and unilaterally starting troop withdrawal from Afghanistan; perhaps he has ulterior motives and wants to send seasoned combat forces elsewhere.
At 17 months out, the time would be just about right to begin moving military assets to a staging area, somewhere such as Iraq, from which to launch a major offensive against a contrived enemy. Liberal icon David Broder almost advocated it. This gambit could help O-buma acquire significant support from badly alienated political moderates, and even some conservatives, in the run-up to the 2012 election.
It is [in] foreign affairs where we have the most to fear. Vietnam, of course, was not JFK’s only foreign policy adventure. He called Khrushchev’s nuclear bluff in Cuba, and got lucky. Let’s hope Obama doesn’t take his fawning lackeys too seriously as he searches for foreign distractions. The Soviets were absolutely rational compared to the crazed North Korean and Iranians, who would love to be provoked by the president who bows to all.
This could be a win-win situation for the O-bumites. Even a devastating US military loss would re-vitalize progressive support for this administration and possibly win some moderate support among those weary of our protracted wars. Does O-buma have the temerity to take such a gamble? Maybe he believes that he is protected by a divinely ordained right to a second term.
May your gods be with you.
