Will Obama handle the Syrian question like he handled Benghazi... nothing?
Or will he try to save face by launching a few ineffective cruise missiles? A really meaningful military response is to obliterate Syrian military airfields and planes! Syria has already moved weapons away from likely target areas. Either way Obama loses as the REAL enemy, Iran has more assurance that the US response for their projected nukes will be nil.
Is Obama making the middle east more unstable?
No. Democracy creates instability, especially in countries where people have been living under very stable dictatorships. The people in those countries revolted against the dictatorships. President Obama did not invade any country in order to practice nation building so in comparison to his Republican predecessor his actions in "making" anything have been extremely modest.
Putin thinks Obama is a joke?
Obama isn't a joke. He is weak and stupid, when it comes to foreign policy. He is a bully to his own citizens.
Had Obama been president, would he have done the 2017 Shayrat missile strike in response to the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack?
Obama walked a middle-path in Syria, as much as was possible. When Syria used chemical weapons last time, he both went to Congress for authorization to use military force, and went to Russia and Syria and put pressure on them to get rid of chemical weapons. He managed, for as long as he was in office, to dissuade Syria from crossing that line again. Which is obviously not unicorns and rainbows, but I’m not sure how he could have accomplished more without a military strike, nor what one military strike would actually do. The more Assad can claim the US is his enemy, instead of his own people, the better for Assad … it’s not an easy path to help civilians caught in the middle.If Obama was still in office, I doubt that he would have had people like Tillerson sending confusing messages about what the US was resolved to do. So we probably wouldn’t be here, at least not right now. I think a better question and better answer is not what we think, but what Assad thought: Assad thought that there were limits to what he could get away with, Assad thought the US under Obama would strike, and that the Russians would allow it or Obama would pay the cost in the aftermath of continuing chemical weapons usage, which is pretty clearly why chemical weapons hadn’t been used since the agreement.
Has the US officialy declared war on Syria? If not, how could Trump order a missle strike without Congress’ approval?
“How” he did it is obvious: he ordered the strike. He “most likely” consulted with experts on where exactly to send those few conventional warhead missiles. Only 50 armed with 1000 pound HE warheads. That’s only 0.025 kilotons of explosive.He attempted to reach Congress but Congress was occupied with proving itself incompetent to make important decisions. In fact, they were busy proving they are incapable of giving their approval - of a nominee to the Supreme Court. SOP for Congress.
Is it true that Putin has outsmarted Obama and Clinton as Trump claims?
Willingness to blow things up is not “outsmarting”Putin has been very aggressive. But outsmarted? I don’t think so. What he’s done is bully countries far smaller than him.And bullies tend to do badly when they get out of high school. We’re playing the long game. He’s not.He’s moved into Syria, which looks clever but in the long run will probably become a quagmire the way Afghanistan did. There are far too many groups to consolidate any power behind a single party.The only reason he’s making progress is because we haven’t chosen to directly confront him with military force. We’d win: Russian anti-aircraft and electronic warfare capabilities are intimidating, but we have the better professional army, a 10:1 advantage in aircraft carriers and a superior air force. But it would be idiotic.Putin’s brute-force approach is familiar: The USSR used it during the Cold War. But again, we need to play the long game.The Soviets lost the Cold War because they bankrupted themselves trying to occupy swaths of territory. They can build up their military, but don’t have the economic engine to support it. They can create more dangerous nukes, but the truth is we all have so many warheads that “more effective” warheads are like bigger hair on a dog’s back. It’s irrelevant, because everything’s already covered.Again: The long game.Putin hasn’t attempted action against NATO countries. He’s pursuing an all-or-nothing strategy in his own country where, if he fails to purge every opposition group, he’s eventually going to lose all power. If he doesn’t do that, then he’ll have to find a way to sustain what he’s built after he’s dead. How will he do that? Does he have a protege?What’s he doing to address the Russian economy? We dwarf their GDP by at least 5x.Yup: The long game.FinallyPutin supports Trump because he knows he can’t work with Clinton or Obama. If he really thought he could outsmart Clinton, why not support her?And, before we point fingers at the current administration: What we’re really dealing with, and will for decades, is the aftermath of the Iraq war. We destabilized the entire Middle East, which led to the rise of additional terrorist organizations, which led to civil war in multiple countries and complete fragmentation of political interests. We accelerated the fall of nation states, which left room for smaller groups who practice asymmetric warfare. Huge headache.But Putin? Outsmart Clinton and Obama? No.
Has obama cunningly lured vladimir putin into an endless quagmire in syria which will lead to putin's downfall?
is obama the brilliant chess master, playing out his secret plan to checkmate putin and bring about the downfall of isis, putin and the russian backed syrian dictatorship?