A review of the movie The Final Year – about the Obama Administration’s, well, final year – reveals more between the lines than in the actual script, according to Kyle Smith in NRO.
Pullquote:
The Obama foreign-policy masters see their three accomplishments as the Paris Climate Accord, the opening to Cuba, and the Iran deal. Given that the former wasn’t presented to Congress for approval, was nonbinding, and was later dumped by President Trump, while the other two amounted to making concessions to American foes in exchange for virtually nothing, this is a bit like bragging that you suckered the Franklin Mint into giving up a souvenir Elvis plate for only $34.95. But to understand why Rhodes and Obama are so pleased with their foreign policy, you have to understand the way they think. The documentary is revealing about that.
A contest to determine the worst Secretary of State of the past fifty years between Madeline Albright, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry would be a spirited one indeed.
While not as incompetent as the three mentioned, I’m not real impressed with W’s Secretaries of State, Powell and Rice, either. Both were silent and/or complicit in the Iraq invasion which was a huge mistake. One for which I regret having supported at the time and for which those two should’ve known better.
jdm,
Every time I look at the decision to go into Iraq, I keep coming back to the same things;
1. Saddam had used gas on the Kurds
2. He was a brutal dictator
3. With the intel that the administration had, they concluded that it was a credible threat. As an aside on this, the Dems had access to the same intell, so their constant blame game towards the GOP, makes them look like the feckless buffoons that they are.
BH, I don’t discount any of those things. Everything you say is true. Saddam was a bad person who got what he deserved. And the Dems were (and continue to be) feckless buffoons. But I have two problems.
One, there are other regimes that are nasty and colluded with Islamic terrorists, Pakistan, for example. Do we invade them too? Finally realizing and rejecting this group on the right, the so-called neo-cons, who seem to be obsessed with being the world’s policeman was liberating. Even tho’ I bought into it for years.
Two, how do we know if/how/when we won? Invading Iraq was easy (and for the militarily minded, fun) with tanks and stuff roaring about shooting at stuff, but then came the “peace” and The Big Shoulder Shrug. And 10s of young Americans dying and being shot at, for what?
I apologize if this turns into a thread-jack. It wasn’t my intention.
JDM wrote:
“Do we invade them too?”
What would be the justification for invading a hostile country other than Iraq?
We weren’t at peace with Iraq in 2003. We had a cease fire agreement with Iraq, and Iraq had violated nearly all of its provisions. The reasons for taking military action against Iraq are given in HJR 114: https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/house-joint-resolution/114/text
steering us back on-track
Yes, the most worthless administration of modern times, bar none. Worse than Carter’s and that is saying a lot. But if you look at ancient times, still not as bad Woodrow’s. But 0bumbler sure did try! Give him another term and he surely would have ceded ALL US policy making to UN, completing Wilson’s legacy.
Boy, that is fierce competition, but I think Soetoro’s SOSs win by a mile because of one simple fact. Other Presidents did their damage mostly within the Constitutional framework; Barry abandoned it as much as he could get away with it.
Agreed, BB.