Today’s Examiner has an editorial complaining about President Obama’s “incoherence” when it comes to his foreign policy stance regarding events in Libya and Syria.
Incoherent foreign policy seems to be going around these days. For example:
Here’s Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) telling the Washington Examiner’s Byron York a few days ago that it’s time for the US to step up the bombing campaign against Colonel Gadhafi’s forces and help the Libyan rebels oust the dictator from power.
Now here’s Senator McCain saying the US and NATO ought to stay out of Syria, as that country moves closer towards a Libyan-style civil war.
Sorry, Syrian protestors – you are out of luck. The Straight Talk Express will not be making any stops in Damascus.
You can’t say the difference between McCain’s stance on Libya vs. Syria is because the senator is suddenly a convert to pacifism. Here he is in Britain’s Daily Telegraph, being described as numbering among those Western political figures calling for Gadhafi’s assassination.
Some may want to read some Machiavellian posturing into McCain’s apparent contradiction, and believe that what the senator means is no bombing of Syria – for the time being. (As in: “Hold on, Damascus – NATO’s on the way!”)
But rather than speculate on why McCain wants more bombing runs over Libya and none over Syria, we can leave it to him to provide an explanation when a reporter presses him on the apparent contradiction later this week. (Who am I kidding – he’ll probably call a press conference to condemn those malicious rumors of his alleged hypocrisy as “vastly exaggerated.”)
If you are on the side that hopes the US can avoid getting bogged down in costly military operations either in Libya and Syria (which, after you count up the deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the US drones flying around Pakistan, would become the US’s fourth and fifth current wars in Muslim countries), then all this incoherence isn’t so bad.
At least the incoherence and indecision means the US still has a chance to steer clear of more foreign wars. As an anonymous US Air Force wit once put it: turbatio est solutio ut licentia (“indecision is the key to flexibility”).
