Just about Exasperated with Barack Obama
Published in Die Welt
(Germany) on 17 February 2015
by Lord Weidenfeld (link to original)
(Germany) on 17 February 2015
by Lord Weidenfeld (link to original)
Translated from
by Thomas Johnson.
Edited by Danielle Tezcan.
There have been few American presidents who neglect how foreign policy operates as much as Obama. He defers almost all areas to others. He also trusts the wrong people!
In the struggle for succession to Lenin, Stalin ridiculed his opponents Trotsky and Bukharin as "acrobats with artificial muscles." A diplomat returning from Moscow reported that Vladimir Putin has put this barb to use against Barack Obama and Europeans. Obama's absence at Ukrainian peace efforts is striking, considering that he was the one who so prominently presented Putin as a partner to Syria and Iran. Putin ensured Assad's military survival after his poison gas attacks and achieved a cessation of further attacks on Assad and his henchmen.
Obama is also not making a good name for himself in the Iran conflict. He was apparently convinced that Iran's President Rouhani, who has better manners than his predecessor, would be more amenable to negotiators. In truth, Rouhani is a more fanatical domestic policymaker than his predecessor – the number of executions and amputations has risen since he came to power.
Obama's instability in the fight against the Islamic State unsettled Middle Eastern allies and European state officials. It is clear that the barbarian hordes cannot be defeated by airstrikes alone. The brave Kurds demonstrated in the Battle of Kobani that not only can one defeat the Islamic State group, but also that ground troops and airstrikes in conjunction with ground troops are necessary to transform isolated successes into permanent and definitive results.
Is the Islamic State Really Comparable to the Christian Inquisition?
By the way, the victory of the Kurds is even greater when one considers that it occurred with little outside help, since Turkey was afraid to provide any assistance. Ankara fears that a Kurdish victory could eventually lead to Kurdish statehood.
But back to Obama. One is almost at the point of exasperation with him. He said in a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast shortly after the assassination of American aid worker Kayla Mueller that there were also Christians that burned heretics. The president was alluding to the Inquisition in Spain. However, he forgot to mention that this era was half a millennium ago. Can one really compare the zeitgeist of the Christian Crusades and the Inquisition so nonchalantly to the 21st century? Obama .... Oh, Obama ....
In the struggle for succession to Lenin, Stalin ridiculed his opponents Trotsky and Bukharin as "acrobats with artificial muscles." A diplomat returning from Moscow reported that Vladimir Putin has put this barb to use against Barack Obama and Europeans. Obama's absence at Ukrainian peace efforts is striking, considering that he was the one who so prominently presented Putin as a partner to Syria and Iran. Putin ensured Assad's military survival after his poison gas attacks and achieved a cessation of further attacks on Assad and his henchmen.
Obama is also not making a good name for himself in the Iran conflict. He was apparently convinced that Iran's President Rouhani, who has better manners than his predecessor, would be more amenable to negotiators. In truth, Rouhani is a more fanatical domestic policymaker than his predecessor – the number of executions and amputations has risen since he came to power.
Obama's instability in the fight against the Islamic State unsettled Middle Eastern allies and European state officials. It is clear that the barbarian hordes cannot be defeated by airstrikes alone. The brave Kurds demonstrated in the Battle of Kobani that not only can one defeat the Islamic State group, but also that ground troops and airstrikes in conjunction with ground troops are necessary to transform isolated successes into permanent and definitive results.
Is the Islamic State Really Comparable to the Christian Inquisition?
By the way, the victory of the Kurds is even greater when one considers that it occurred with little outside help, since Turkey was afraid to provide any assistance. Ankara fears that a Kurdish victory could eventually lead to Kurdish statehood.
But back to Obama. One is almost at the point of exasperation with him. He said in a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast shortly after the assassination of American aid worker Kayla Mueller that there were also Christians that burned heretics. The president was alluding to the Inquisition in Spain. However, he forgot to mention that this era was half a millennium ago. Can one really compare the zeitgeist of the Christian Crusades and the Inquisition so nonchalantly to the 21st century? Obama .... Oh, Obama ....