President Obama On ISIS: ‘We Don’t Have A Strategy Yet’

At a Thursday news conference, President Obama told reporters “We don’t have a strategy yet” in dealing with ISIS (The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), a Sunni jihadist group claiming authority over all Muslims worldwide.

Critics immediately pounced, stating Obama is weak and wavering on foreign policy. Because we all know the only way to be strong and unwavering on foreign policy is to shoot from the hip.

Am I the only one who finds this candor refreshing? I’ll admit that it is jarring at first to hear this kind of talk from the President of the United States, only because we are accustomed to bluster that serves only to muddy a situation further, not provide clarity. But history has shown us that Americans feel better when they have a cowboy in the White House, willing to shoot first, and ask zero questions later.

But I say it’s about time we had some honesty in high places, with an acknowledgment by this president that the “world has always been messy.” The problem is we have wall-to-wall media coverage of several unnerving situations around the globe, ISIS in Iraq/Syria, and Russian aggression in Ukraine, just to name two, and without any historical perspective.

But we kid ourselves if we think the time we are living in is subject to anymore hostility, violence, or chaos. I’m glad we have a president who recognizes this and doesn’t take advice from people like Bill Kristol.

“You know, why don’t we just [bomb?] We know where ISIS is. What’s the harm of bombing them at least for a few weeks and seeing what happens?” mused Kristol. “I don’t think there’s much in the way of unanticipated side effects that are going to be bad there. We could kill a lot of very bad guys!”

Well Kristol, one of the many unintended side effects of the West meddling in the Middle East is the very formation of ISIS. I’m not saying we blame ourselves for their outrageous and murderous behavior, but to suggest there are no side effects from bombing people is incredibly naive.

But back to the strategy or lack there of, I believe it is a much more egregious offense to go to war only to find out later there was no strategy. The same people trolling Obama’s honesty, had (and still have) no problem with Bush’s sans strategy invasion of Iraq.

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