President Barack Obama is set to speak tonight on his latest strategy for dealing with the terrorist threat ISIS presents to the homeland … feel safer yet?
The Washington Post reports Obama “is prepared to use U.S. military airstrikes in Syria” and doesn’t think he needs congressional approval to do it. Ok, great. But is that really worth a year’s worth of “thinking” about it? Is that he can, not that he will, really an advancement? Isn’t that the least he could do, aside from nothing?
The Post says, “The move to attack in Syria would represent a remarkable escalation in strategy for Obama, who has sought during his presidency to reduce the U.S. military engagement in the Middle East.”
Notice how the lawyerly word choices — “is prepared to” and “would” — are very vague, leaving a lot of wiggle room. Not that he IS going to, not that he WILL, just that, should he feel like it — or see an electoral advantage, more likely — he’ll consider it.
I hope this report is wrong, I hope it’s a misinterpretation of the President’s resolve to defend this nation and the world. I doubt it is, but hope springs eternal.
“The president is unlikely to lay out all the details of his plans to expand U.S. military engagement in the region during his Wednesday speech …” according to the Post. Good, he shouldn’t. Telegraphing punches, something he’s done repeatedly in the past, is always a mistake. I don’t blame him for that. I blame him for not having a strategy for a year as this threat, this “cancer” as he describes it, metastasized throughout the region.
A speech won’t matter on any level, outside of the political, if it’s simply more platitudes and prose. Pretty words may be able to change some minds, but only a resolve to defeat evil and the willingness to act on that resolve will defeat evil. We’ll know tonight which we’re getting, but given the last five years, I have my suspicions as to what we will get.