American Politics Thread: Orange is the new POTUS

[nik-]

Someone in the press pool should print out that election is over tweet and hold it up every time he mentions Crooked Hillary.

[oldschoolcalgary]

Originally Posted by direwolf

Trump having a hissy fit this morning over the "tax march" protests that took place yesterday. Of course a Trump meltdown just wouldn't be complete without mentioning his Electoral College win for the gazillionth time. What a petulant child.

except he was the one who promised to release the tax returns if he won...

pretty sure he's one of the only nominees, much less presidents, that haven't made their tax returns public in the last, oh, ever....?

catchy jingles, like "Drain the Swamp" have much more currency when those promoting it are not corrupted like those they vilify...

but hey, EMAILS

[DuffMan]

Originally Posted by nik-

Obama has the Iran deal, but he also has a misguided minimalism in the middle east which, while sounding ideal in the election cycle and was popular, came at a critical time for the region and wasn't really adjusted. Then when it was, it was done on a minor scale and too late.

For the 50th time, in your opinion, what should have he done?

[nik-]

Originally Posted by DuffMan

For the 50th time, in your opinion, what should have he done?

Acted faster on the solutions that were proposed by his advisers. Decide to who support and get the support in right away. Humming and hawing out of fear that everything was going to turn into Iraq basically brought it from a point where it might have helped to a point where it was too late and only the extremists had any power in the fight against Assad. The no-fly zone that was proposed by his advisers ... that one is a little more sketchy. Tactically it was a mistake to not do it, but there is a lot more international problems that would have come from that. Iraq he needed to at least attempt to work out an extension. He may not have been able to but you have to at least try. Popular and right aren't necessarily the same thing. Basically indecisiveness cost. Everyone understands why he was indecisive and hesitant, but at some point you need to act on time.

Maybe all the hypotheticals don't make the area any better. However the actually executed plan for sure didn't. So we're stuck with speculation.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by edslunch

I'm not taking sides on the Obama argument but this statement doesn't ring true. During his administration both Libya and Syria became disasters and ISIS rose to prominence. I'd have to say the Middle East is in worse shape than when he started.

Completely unavoidable though by any President with any response, the removal of Saddam took the lid off a thousand year old feud that was only barely being contained by the British and French empires in the 19th and early twentieth century and the subsequent imposition of Baathist Marxist rule in the 1950's.

The fall of Saddam was the final lifting of secular control that had been building since the Shah fell in Iran and the Taliban defeated the Soviets.
Now we will probably just have to watch as the Iraq Syria border is redrawn creating majority Shia and Sunni states at the cost of millions of lives.

Mission Complete eh!!!

[AltaGuy]

I am and was critical of Obama's handling of Syria (the human cost has been incredibly large), but also have no idea whether any of the other options early on would've resulted in less of a morass. Biggest thing was that Obama and his advisors really believed in the Iranian deal, and openly supporting the rebels in Syria would have torpedoed that deal which was unfortunately simultaneous with the window of opportunity.

Remaining in Iraq would have done nothing in my view. It's another failed state like Afghanistan, and will probably be revisited in a serious way in our lifetimes - I strongly believe Obama made the right call there.

I also don't believe Obama was a great president on foreign policy - which he was on domestic - but I cannot see any reasons to call him a bad president on foreign policy. More like a mediocre one. After Bush II's foibles, however, the US needed a great domestic president more than a great statesman.

[FlamesAddiction]

Iraq and the spawning of ISIS is on the Bush administration. Period.

[DuffMan]

Originally Posted by nik-

Acted faster on the solutions that were proposed by his advisers. Decide to who support and get the support in right away. Humming and hawing out of fear that everything was going to turn into Iraq basically brought it from a point where it might have helped to a point where it was too late and only the extremists had any power in the fight against Assad. The no-fly zone that was proposed by his advisers ... that one is a little more sketchy. Tactically it was a mistake to not do it, but there is a lot more international problems that would have come from that. Iraq he needed to at least attempt to work out an extension. He may not have been able to but you have to at least try. Popular and right aren't necessarily the same thing. Basically indecisiveness cost. Everyone understands why he was indecisive and hesitant, but at some point you need to act on time.

What solutions exactly?
Get the support in, as in what? Troops? Equipment? How many/much? About the same as Iraq?
No fly zone could very easily lead to war with Russia, you're ok with that?
How do you know he didn't try to work out an extension? Pretty sure Iraq was adamant about US leaving as was previously agreed upon by the previous admin.
In amongst all of this, how much support did he have from Congress?

You're kind of big on blunder, but short on workable specifics, like a lot of other people and the current POTUS, imo.

[nik-]

Did I not specifically mention that the no-fly zone was a problem?

Are you reading?

You're also acting like supporting rebels in Syria was my idea lol. It was the plan from advisers in his administration. He delayed.

[DuffMan]

The no-fly zone that was proposed by his advisers ... that one is a little more sketchy. Tactically it was a mistake to not do it, but there is a lot more international problems that would have come from that

Not exactly sure what you're saying, other than Obama was wrong about it.
He should've done it, but.........

[afc wimbledon]

The problem with Syria is that, just like in Iraq, the closest thing to a good guy is Assad, and he's a genocidal thug, Iraq and the world would be better off with Sadd still in charge and Syria would probably be better if Assad wins.

There is no 'reasonable' opposition in either country, the choice is one of a theocratic despot that kills anyone of the wrong faith or a secular despot who just kills enough people to stay in power.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

The problem with Syria is that, just like in Iraq, the closest thing to a good guy is Assad, and he's a genocidal thug, Iraq and the world would be better off with Sadd still in charge and Syria would probably be better if Assad wins.

There is no 'reasonable' opposition in either country, the choice is one of a theocratic despot that kills anyone of the wrong faith or a secular despot who just kills enough people to stay in power.

That's logical if they had decided to support no one and gave this is the reason. But they did pick a side. They just took so long to implement anything, and then did it in such a small scale, it was too late. So effectively it's the worst of both.

[oldschoolcalgary]

the problem is Syria is basically to Russia what Israel is to the US... an anchor in the middle east to project power from...

Add to that Iran's connection to Assad and it becomes much more problematic.

it was a civil war: there's no real mechanism to go in unilaterally. Zero. So what are the options really?

The GOP wasn't going to support any substantive military action.

Funding the rebels was one idea, that gets brought up a lot... except, who the hell were the rebels? No one had any idea what those guys were all about, especially in the early part of the civil war...

A) it would be absolutely mind boggling to supply large scale weaponry to an "ally" you have no idea about.... it's like when Ferris Bueller handed over the keys to that Ferrari to that parking garage attendant...

B) you over play that hand and you also draw external actors deeper into the conflict, specifically Iran and Russia, that would see advanced hardware tipping the balance, and then would supply more weapons to tip it back, which leads to a deepening feedback loop. Which is basically what happened with Russia's increased involvement when the balance was turning against Assad

C) people realize that the rebel side is working with ISIS right? and that helping topple Assad (and his Sh ii te government) actually helps ISIS (sunni) as well as the rebels?

Its a damn civil war...How many civil wars have happened in Africa and no one has said a damn thing about all the people dying there?

Arguably, US foreign policy (both democrats and GOP) of surreptitiously toppling governments through clandestine support of internal opposition forces, from south america, central america and the middle east has destabilized countries long term as opposed to helping them.

Sometimes, the Enemy of my Enemy is still your damn Enemy... except now he has a shtload of advanced weapons that you gave him...

And now Turkey might become a problem too... is the US supposed to intervene there too?

[Snuffleupagus]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

Iraq and the spawning of ISIS is on the Bush administration. Period.

Debatable, al Qaeda in Iraq was basically defeated under Bush, ISIS was reborn under the arab spring and civil war in Syria, Obama armed the rebels against al-Assad thus arming ISIS giving them the power to grow. Obama also just watched as so called U.S. allies Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey handed money and arms over to ISIS. Turkey who's a friken member of NATO allowed ISIS to make over $500 million in 2015 in oil sales across it's borders.

Obama was weak and may go down as one of the worst foreign policy presidents in modern history. From ISIS to the Iran nuclear deal, N-Korea and the wonderful "red line"(I could go on ) Obama has set this planet up to be much more dangerous.

P.S. One could go all the way back to the first gulf war to blame a Bush.

[AltaGuy]

The vast majority of ISIS arms flowed from Iraq not from arming rebel Syrian groups. If anything, Obama was far too careful about arming Syrians for fear of repeating the Afghanistan/Al Qaeda problem of the 80s.

ISIS's weapons are on Bush 2.

[DuffMan]

Originally Posted by Snuffleupagus

Obama was weak and may go down as one of the worst foreign policy presidents in modern history. From ISIS to the Iran nuclear deal, N-Korea and the wonderful "red line"(I could go on ) Obama has set this planet up to be much more dangerous.

Ok, and what exactly would you have done, if you were him?

[PepsiFree]

Trump must be doing a fantastic job if we've been talking about Obama for a day.

[oldschoolcalgary]

Originally Posted by Snuffleupagus

Debatable, al Qaeda in Iraq was basically defeated under Bush, ISIS was reborn under the arab spring and civil war in Syria, Obama armed the rebels against al-Assad thus arming ISIS giving them the power to grow. Obama also just watched as so called U.S. allies Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey handed money and arms over to ISIS. Turkey who's a friken member of NATO allowed ISIS to make over $500 million in 2015 in oil sales across it's borders.

Obama was weak and may go down as one of the worst foreign policy presidents in modern history. From ISIS to the Iran nuclear deal, N-Korea and the wonderful "red line"(I could go on ) Obama has set this planet up to be much more dangerous.

P.S. One could go all the way back to the first gulf war to blame a Bush.

there's a difference between going latent and being defeated. ISIS can be directly connected back to the original actions of Bremer... there's not a lot of debate about that from everything i've seen or read

the prison camps that were set up in the wake of the Iraq invasions basically became recruitment and education centers for ISIS.

so, ISIS was always there in some form...

Arming the rebels was one of the only options that was available to Obama, outside of escalating a internal civil war into a larger regional conflict... really caught between a rock and hard place: he gets criticized for not helping the rebels; while there was zero congressional support for any large scale intervention; but by helping the rebels, it also benefits ISIS...

not a lot of good options really.

As for the saudis, turkey and Qatar helping the rebels and ISIS in the fight to usurp al-Assad, that's true... not sure exactly how you would have proposed them to stop doing that however?

Those things are still happening now... i'll be interested to see how Trump deals with those allied nations who are helping ISIS.

Now, this might be a semantic point, but "weak" is the wrong term as it presupposes that if someone is "strong" then those problems will get fixed... Zero chance of that happening

While Obama's administration didn't do a great job there, anyone that has a general understanding of the complexities of that region understand that you can't just wave a wand and solve those problems either by being overly cautious or going in with guns blazing

[DuffMan]

I thought Trump was going to completely defeat ISIS in the first month. He does know more than the generals. What a failure.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Trump must be doing a fantastic job if we've been talking about Obama for a day.

I mean there's not a whole lot of point in discussing Trump at this point. He's a total clown but is going to be covered by hyper partisanship. Maybe in 2018 there can be some traction.