Oh! This is what Lem was talking about back there about Assad and Russia making a deal that might end up having Obama come out smelling like a rose. I couldn't make sense of it, there is no rosy possibility visible.
No link, it's all over the place, Kerry offered the United States could hold off if Syria turned over its chemical stockpile to the International community.
(The International Community that exists in Kerry's mind. In Obama's own version of this IC Obama himself is mouth. But these are matters of psychology. There actually is an International Community and one concerned about chemical weapons but the presumptuousness of evoking those things as if one's office confers them as spokesperson for all is remarkable and remarkably comical at the same time akin to the movies where the teenager attacks a vampire by holding up a cross and speaks in the name of Christ.)
It's a great idea.
Truly great. And it could work. Struck with its brilliance I'm reminded again why I'm unsuited for diplomacy.
Then he withdrew it.
Why?
Timid. He did that already and was contradicted and it caused problems, and rebuffed he knows he needs approval first so he backed off from his own great idea that would work. Work to make Obama look good having made the red-line remark about calculus that caused everyone who listens to the man to fly into hyperactivity.
Man, that would be like Thomas Jefferson backing off from the Louisiana Purchase because he didn't have the authoritah of his boy king, except Thomas Jefferson probably didn't make the offer to buy all that political cover, I mean geographical territory.
30 comments:
It's gone from a pin prick punishment, or something resembling punishment just short of calling it that, to disarmament.
From 'no boots on the ground' to slippers or flip flops... maybe.
Kerry, once again, seemed to be for something before he is against it.
This would have been a decent proposal months ago, but not after accusing Assad of being a war criminal. Assad still has no way out.
At first blush most 'analysts' seem to think Assad (& Putin) will use this as a delaying tactic before backing out entirely. I think Assad and Putin might be a little smarter than that. Hand over some of the weapons (after a suitable delay, of course) and then stop handing them over. Cause even more delays.
Delay, delay, delay!
But in any event, it's another case of an important person in the Administration opening their mouth and saying ill-considered things. Or things that hadn't been considered at all, because it's someone saying whatever first comes into their mind.
What a colossal failure of an Administration....
Also, more George Zimmerman fun on the way.
The news orgs are going to have a tough time figuring out what to do tonight. Keep pushing the Syria story because the President is going to make an 'important' speech tomorrow night, or try to cover the whole thing up by non-stop George Zimmerman coverage.
It seems immediately like a great way to save his boss's butt. It actually could have done that. All other serious considerations aside, all geopolitical ramifications to the side, and looking only at making O appear consistent and retain any trace of narcissistic sanctimony, looking at that most important of all things, it could have worked.
It'll be interesting if Lurch or Choom have anything to say about the rebels threatening to behead an entire town of Christians if they don't convert. Will they sit idly by why our allies commit an atrocity?
He was for it before he was against it.
Nothing new here.
I'm wondering who is controlling Kerry? Or perhaps no one is controlling Kerry. Kerry gone rogue?
Obama doesn't give a shit about Christians getting beheaded.
He is just pissed that the Russki's are being mean to the gays. That's the most important foreign policy issue around that requires his leadership.
Sharpen up dude.
That's the key to figuring out what is likely to happen.
Whatever makes Obama look good.
Putin knows how to play that game.
Kerry gone rogue?
Lol.
Pull back Kerry as the face of, whatever it is they plan to do, and put in Joe Biden.
Of course Kerry wears rouge. He is French after all.
The Democrats have given us some gems for secretary of state.
Madeleine Albright literally running after Arafat, begging him to pretty please come back to their meeting.
Hillary having a good laugh with a reporter after Qaddafi had been killed with "we came, we saw, he died."
And now Kerry, with an "unbelievably small" war.
No surprise.
Choom needs to see himself as being master of events; he wants to hit Syria, but Lurch must have pulled a Barry and actually spoke without ValJar telling him what to say and was told to go out and take it back.
This makes him/them look even more foolish
I'm wondering who is controlling Kerry? Or perhaps no one is controlling Kerry. Kerry gone rogue?
No one is controlling him or Obama. They're both lacking in discretion, judgement and self-control. What a great pair to head up the nation's foreign policy!
Seriously, how is it that the junior staffers at State and the WH have to keep walking back the statements of the men at the top of the org chart?
Thanks a lot, Obama voters, you picked real winners.
Kerry and Obama are threatening to push Assad off a Chemical Weapons Cliff.
What is a chemical weapons cliff you ask?
It's simultaneously retching up talk of air strikes, appearing tough, assembling a coalition of Albania, Astonia and Honduras.
While asking for congressional permission to do the mildest of surgical air campaigns, perhaps next week, next month, or, ultimately, should it prove too costly according to the congressional budget office and should Ramadan interfere with the weather window, the attack will be waived at the last minute.
Did you hear the latest sound bite from the administration?
They have stopped talking about the fact that Syria has violated international Norms.
Now they are claiming they are violating international Cliff Clavin's.
Keystone Kops time:
Hillary Clinton embraces Kerry's Syria proposal
While..."an administration official earlier on Monday called [Kerry's proposal] a 'major goof'.”
Norm!
Keystone Kops time:
I disagree. I think it was a good move on Hillary's part to embrace that suggestion.
Remember, she's out of the Obama administration now and trying to position herself for 2016. Advocating a comparatively sensible alternative to bombing -- even if *Obama* rejects it -- helps her.
And the flip-flops continue. Now Obama states that he WILL take Kerry's off-the-cuff proposal seriously. Which is to say, they're walking back the walk back.
It's like they never heard of Aerosmith. You'd think the President would have at least been familiar with the RUN-DMC version.
So, what came first -- Hillary having her say, or Obama thinking, hmm, why not?
Oy, the spinning.
The Senate's delaying its vote - Choom looks to go down in both houses.
What he says Tuesday may be interesting, after all.
Choom is getting the good stuff from Woody in the back room and Dr. Crane thinks they are all frickin' crazy.
Putin and Lavrov doing high fives.
Putin and Lavrov doing high fives....
... over Obama's back.
Keystone, you say, I was thinking slapstick.
Like the Three Stooges movies. There is a lot of the diplomatic equivalent of slaphappy children in spirit.
My younger brother admitted openheartedly to a room full of strangers to him that as children he would cut a wide swath around us, me, because he knew at any moment one of us would reach out and grab him and interfere with his movement, our amusement so much more important than anywhere he would be going.
We'd grab him in a head lock and scrape his scalp with our knuckles, punch him in the arm, poke him, grab his clothes, crush his body, pull something over his head, depants him, pull his shirt over his head, blow air into his belly, pin him down and drizzle spit over his face then release him, basically the Three Stooges all over the place for the poor kid, but we loved him so.
That's what it's like. Slapstick. Boink, conk, crunch, double eye-poke, stomach punch, hit on the head with a board, doused with a bucket of fish, sprayed with seltzer from an unfathomable cocktail seltzer sprayer, whoever sees those? cream pies from nowhere, burning coals down their pants, pulled up by the hair, three men slapped at once, clothes set on fire. That is what foreign policy is like.
IIRC at my age doubtful--The Saudis met with Putin several months ago and proposed a KSA-Russian cooperative agreement. Should the Russians assist in defusing Syria, the Saudi's would assist Russia in the international energy market. Looks to me like that may be coming to fruition. Both the Saudis and the Russians have realized the Americans are fucked up. The Saudis are going with strong horse. The American administration cannot get their heads out of their ass.
This country is truly fucked.
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