Bipartisan faliure

Submitted by Ron Thompson (United States), Feb 12, 2014 at 17:32

While I agree with Dr Pipes' long list of failures by the Obama administration (except for the drone strikes and the killing of bin Laden) it seems wise to bear in mind that both parties have made colossal mistakes, if the country as a whole is going to be receptive to a wise leader in foreign policy, if one should ever come along again.

Besides the mounting errors of Obama, especially regarding Iran and the Middle East, it is sobering to remember, in order to avoid excessively partisanizing his failures, how Bush junior set the stage for today's world. For it was Bush who set the tone of the world after 9/11 by immediately saying that Islam was a Religion of Peace and had nothing to do with the four attacks and 3,000 dead Americans. We hamen't even begun to recover from that statement and see clearly the world we live in today, even now over 12 years later.

By invading Iran with an inadequate policy goal, and without focusing relentlessly on the immediate purpose of getting bin Laden, we set the stage for the indeteminate and probably losing situation we face today. It seems likely nobody will have more reason to curse the United States, and Bush, in the future than the women and girl children of Afghanistan.

And then, if all this were not enough (and I'm leaving out the forgotten issue of the preventability of 9/11), Bush opens the door wide for the hegemonic ambitions of Iran by taking out their primary adversary and empowering the Shiite majority of Iran. At the same time he exhausted the American military in a costly losing war with no clear goal, which has understandably left the American people hostile and suspicious of further American intervention in the region, even if they have a far clearer view of Iran than does Obama.

So by all means, let's point out loud and clear the mounting and ominous mistakes of Obama. But also have enough modesty and sense of fair play to remember the equally colossal mistakes of his predecessor, for it is going to tax our intelligence and will, and require a bi-partisan effort, to recover from and hopefully triumph over both.

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