From Capitalism Institute
The last 24 hours, however, have been surreal. Even liberal rags like the New Republic admit that Obama is getting played like a fiddle. It’s so bad, it would be amusing if this wasn’t a life or death issue for thousands of people.
Essentially, John Kerry made an offhand comment yesterday that Putin jumped on. He used it to destroy support for Obama’s congressional campaign… and will use it to control Obama going forward. Confused? Read on.
John Kerry Accidentally Changed Everything
Yesterday, John Kerry was asked a hypothetical question about foreign policy, and he made the rookie mistake of answering it. You never, ever, answer a hypothetical question like that off the cuff, but being clueless, he had no idea that you shouldn’t. So he did.
He was asked what Syria could do to stop the attack. The answer is that apparently Obama’s administration didn’t have an answer — they apparently hadn’t thought about that or something. That in itself is revealing, but Kerry decided to make another blunder: he invented a policy answer on the spot, completely off the cuff. Here was his answer:
Assad can “turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week. Turn it over, all of it, without delay, and allow a full and total accounting for that.”
The funny thing is that this actually contradicts the idea of a “red line”. A red line is when you decide to bomb a country because of XYZ — in this case, because they allegedly used chemical weapons. That red line doesn’t vanish if Syria decides to be “good” in the future. So this “new policy” made no sense, contradicted theearlier red line, and wasn’t approved by Obama. It was a completely horrible idea.
Putin Jumps on His Opportunity
Russia, however, saw this as a massive political opportunity. Putin realized that if Syria and Russia take Kerry up on the “offer”, then they could destroy support for an attack on Syria… and have the leverage to just go back on their promise in the future. This would humiliate Obama, save Syria from possibly being attacked, and make Putin look like a “peace maker”. There is no downside for Putin.
So within 2 hours of Kerry’s “goof”, he had Syria say that they were very open to the idea.
It worked. By last night, Obama himself was admitting failure and talking about how horrible of a job he was doing. Putin was winning. It was almost entertaining.
In the future, Syria might give up the weapons or they might not. The point is that the power structure of the world just shifted. Obama refuses to stop meddling and intervening, and so our enemies worldwide continue to grow. His “red lines” no longer have any legitimacy. Putin’s influence grows every day.
Now, Putin says “no deal” unless Obama abandons the threat of force. In other words, Putin is going for his throat. This is total defeat we’re talking about — in public.
Obama is still demanding war powers, of course. He realizes that he needs them to “force” Syria to give up the weapons… but that probably won’t happen. That’s the entire point. He’s going to lose no matter what happens, and every day it looks like it’s worse than the day before.
Obama loses. Putin wins. The US government is humiliated.
Welcome to Hope and Change, everyone. Rather than follow a simple policy of “mind your own bloody business”, Obama is intervening everywhere and failing everywhere. It’s humiliating and pathetic.