Guess where I saw this? Please sit down before you read it:
"In the excruciating test that Egypt has become, the president has largely failed to live up to his own eloquently articulated standard. In the two years since his speech -- and most shamefully in the eight weeks since the army's coup -- America has seemed not just cautious (caution is good) but timid and indecisive, reactive and shortsighted, stranded between our professed commitment to change and our fear of chaos. One of the administration's most acute critics, Vali Nasr of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, goes so far as to suggest that United States policy is, whether by design or inertia, coming full circle: back to a pre-Arab Spring, Islamophobic, order-at-all-costs policy that puts us in the cynical company of Saudi Arabia and Russia. Is it any wonder that the generals in Egypt feel they can get away with murder -- or, for that matter, that Syria's Assad thinks he can call our bluff and poison his people with impunity? " (Bill Keller, NY Times)
Rush Limbaugh could not have said it any better. The left would call Rush a racist. What are they going to call Bill Keller?
The problem is that President Obama is not leading or even seems interested in leading. I understand that there are no pretty options in the Middle East. However, doing nothing and projecting weakness is always the wrong way to go.
My good friend Bill Katz (Urgent Agenda) shared something very important with his readers today:
"There is an old saying in international politics: "If you say you're going to take Vienna, take Vienna." The credible threat of force is often the greatest peacemaker. We lost our credibility in the handling of the Syrian crisis early on, and now we're paying a price. "
I guess that's why even Bill Keller is making the leadership argument.
Will the next NY Times editorial say that we need a president not a community organizer? Don't bet against it!
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