This is a completion to a submission that somehow got away from me, and an attempt to explain that

Submitted by Ron Thompson (United States), Sep 14, 2013 at 23:10

Because it appears that nobody has taken Obama's semi-threat to use force seriously ….. except Putin and Assad, maybe we should hold off on the severity of condemnation for a little while.

This has happened before. I remember when nobody took Reagan's 'Star Wars' seriously …. except the men in the Kremlin. And look what that eventually produced.

It would be ironic and maybe even 'unfair' if Obama's stumbling approach actually led to a good result, but let's wait just wait a bit and see. After all, nobody wants to put partisanship before a good result for the country.

My own candidate for "worst" would be the man who came into office clueless about el-Queda, and after 8 months of continued indifference presided over the worst terrorist attack in American history, with 3,000 lives lost.

He then followed the fall of the Towers with the immediate statement that "Islam is a religion of peace", a statement which he has never since altered.

What trajectory has our national policy been on since he established that policy? Has that unchanged policy helped or hindered the infiltration of stealth Jihadist forces into the CIA, FBI, Homeland security, throughout our military, and police forces all over the country (except perhaps in New York City)?

And then he invaded Afghanistan, not merely to punish and eliminate the Taliban and el Queda, but then to stay and "nation build". However, because of failing to understand or proclaim that there was no hope whatsoever of accomplishing such a goal unless we also identified the religious/political/legal/military utterly amoral creed of Islam as our enemy and the fount of terrorist Jihadism, we have spent almost 11 years there, only to be on the verge of losing there, while also having markedly hastened the destabilization of nuclear-armed Pakistan

After if those three events were not enough, he than invaded Iraq, at an eventual cost of 4,000 more lives, the net effect of which was to give Iran the opportunity to become the regional superpower and attain nuclear weapons.

And of course we are also watching Iraq in the grim process of coming apart at the seams.

The effects of the Iraq decision are far from over, either fiscally ($1 or $2 trillion dollars wasted, with more to come for decades with maimed veteran costs), in terms of empowering Iran, and of course that penultimate Bush decision also explain the reluctance of the American people to approve even a limited operation against Assad.

So with that record of George Bush behind us, with its effects so powerfully continuing, perhaps we should leave the jury out just awhile longer before deciding on the "worst in modern times".

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