With a Hint of Regret, Obama Describes New Kind of Endless Quasi-War by Greg Jaffe and Michael Birnbaum, Washington Post
President Obama, who had pledged to end America’s wars, described the landscape he was leaving to his successor as a state of quasi-war that could extend for years to come.
Obama, who was speaking Saturday to reporters at the NATO summit here, noted with pride that he has cut the size of the U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan from 180,000 troops to fewer than 15,000.
But U.S. drones and fighter jets are striking targets in seven countries on a regular basis, a span of geography that is virtually unprecedented in American history outside of major wars. U.S. Special Operations forces are still conducting dangerous raids in countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria…
Obama also said he will be working in his final months to leave behind “an architecture” for this new kind of military fight that mixes drone strikes with local training and efforts aimed at repairing fractured societies in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Such a position falls short of all-out war, Obama said. Instead, he called it “more of a hybrid approach” necessary to deal with “a different kind of low-grade threat — one that’s not an existential threat but can do real harm and real damage to our societies and creates the kind of fear that can cause division.”…
Comments
It is sheer arrogance to assume one can stop wars. Especially when you are willing to make unilateral "deals" with a rogue terrorist state like Iran.
President Obama's admission not withstanding regret is a poor substitute for a better policy based on something other than wishful thinking and unilateral decisions with the intention of making "peace". Peace is a whore. People greatly over rate "Peace" it is the new 'Asherah pole".
How can someone take pride in cutting the force in Iraq, most probably to advance rapprochement with Iran and advanced the goals of the Muslim Brotherhood, a terrorist group, under the guise of Arab Spring resulting in wide spread genocide of Christians and other minority groups and lied to the American public about the resiliency of Al-Qaeda and a passive approach that enabled even more radical products like the Islamic State. And Obama still resists any mention of radical Islam, scrubbed Marteen's phone so as not to reflect badly on Islam, and one terrorist event after another in the USA down graded to "work place incidents" or a problem caused by white Christian Conservatives and their obsession with guns.
President Obama's massive and epic fail has caused tens of thousands of deaths, a resurgence of Al-Qaeda and more violent expressions like the Islamic State and millions of refugees in Germany named RapUgees and elsewhere is a major unstated cause of the disruption of the EU.
One General after another has fallen victim to Obama's idolatry of Islam.
Unilateral peace making was doomed from its inception I hope we have a higher learning curve in the next administration and not just another cast of useful idiots.
Scowcroft Center @ACScowcroft
#NATO Summit Special Series: United States. By @KoriSchake in @NATOSource: http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/natosource/nato-summit-special-ser… …
Worth checking after reading the article.....
THIS is coming from a President that spun both the US MSM and Congress on his "Iran Deal" to strengthen so called "Iranian moderates" and who are now just as aggressive as is IS in the ME.....THEN both Obama and Rhodes gives interviews praising themselves for not doing "anything stupid"...
THIS is the same Obama/Rhodes WH that praised themselves that they did not listen to the DC FP "establishment playbook".......
THIS is the same Obama/Rhodes WH that did not want to do QUOTE "stupid shit" UNQUOTE......
THIS is the same Obama/Rhodes WH that has repeatedly failed to notify Congress of major Russian INF and Start Treaty violations......
THIS is the same Obama/Rhodes WH that stated publicly that humanitarian aid would be flowing to over 300,000 besieged Syrians...yet nothing happened....and starvation is a weapon of choice even now for the Russians.....
THIS is the same Obama/Rhodes WH that wanted to create a historical legacy that has basically fallen apart ie Syria, eastern Ukraine, Brexit that will haunt his "legacy" for years to come.....
THIS is the same Obama/Rhodes WH that stated in 2014...."we will judge Putin on his actions not his words"...and then ignored what he stated.
THIS is the same Obama/Rhodes WH that has repeatedly stated in the face of hundreds of Russian attacks on the Minsk 2 front line...the "ceasefire is largely holding"...same comments made in the Syrian "CoH".....
THIS is the same Obama/Rhodes WH that has been trying to pressure Ukraine into unilateral appeasement moves and conduct elections in Russian occupied eastern Ukraine in the name a "success" for his legacy....which Kerry again repeated might be possible before Obama leaves office....
THIS is the same Obama/Rhodes WH that gave the famous or infamous 2009 Cairo speech that motivated the Syrians to take an attempt at a peaceful change in their country and then he backed away from his own speech..as it was the trigger for a number of the "Arab Springs".
THIS is the same Obama/Rhodes WH that issued a "red line" in the use of CW that verifiably killed over 1400 men,women and children and the backed away because he took a walk in the Rose Garden.....
THIS is the same Obama/Rhodes WH that did basically nothing against genocide and war crimes...... that has resulted in over 500,000 killed Syrians, millions of Syrian refugees and IDPs and "thousands of disappeared".....
THIS is the same Obama/Rhodes WH that stated in WAPO that it was you and me that just did not understand his Syrian/IS strategy was highly successful and ALL you and I needed was "more messaging"....
THIS is the same Obama/Rhodes WH that has damaged massively US ME FP and basically retrenched out of the ME and regardless of what he has done recently and his Warsaw statements also retrenched out of Europe....
THIS is the same Obama/Rhodes WH that has had for eight years virtually no FP strategy on just about anything other than....NOT doing anything "stupid"....if that can be called a "strategy".....
THIS is the same Obama/Rhodes WH that was willing to violate the 2016 National Defense Budget in order to "work with Putin in Syria"......THEN wanted to share intelligence with a Russia that beat up a US diplomat......
So why should we pay attention to his admission that he basically failed across the board........since we have seen it hard at work for over seven years???
QUOTE:
Such a position falls short of all-out war, Obama said. Instead, he called it “more of a hybrid approach” necessary to deal with “a different kind of low-grade threat — one that’s not an existential threat but can do real harm and real damage to our societies and creates the kind of fear that can cause division.”…
THIS is the same President that just stated he should have been working a solid strategy against exactly what he just stated above??????
AGAIN notice the spin smokescreen....
QUOTE:
"one that’s not an existential threat but can do real harm and real damage to our societies and creates the kind of fear that can cause division.”…
In my world "an existential threat" is one that can do "real harm and damage"...notice how he sidesteps linking the two in "hybrid warfare" into a single point............
Because that is exactly what the 21st century will be seeing for decades to come.....
We are talking about the same President..right??...who did not want to do anything "stupid".......????