Obama Foreign Policy Maxim Actually Not Bad

According to Hillary Clinton, the Obama administration’s guiding maxim for foreign policy was “Don’t do stupid shit.”

But if that was their lodestar, why did they ever hire Hillary as Secretary of State? Hillary would also have been disqualified for that job if the Obama team relied on Google’s (former) motto: “Don’t be evil.”

If the Obama administration had actually followed the “stupid shit” maxim, they would have avoided almost all the disastrous interventions that have occurred since 2009.  Karzai would not have been propped up in Afghanistan, Maliki would not have been supported in Iraq, and the U.S. would not have bombed Libya. Nor would it have provided aid to Syrian rebels that was used to propel ISIS – the group that Obama began bombing last week.

Hillary offered a different diagnosis for the latest debacle” “I know that the failure to help build up a credible fighting force [in Syria] . . . left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled.”  Some experts predicted this would be the result as soon as the U.S. began propping up the opposition in the Syrian civil war.   Hillary has thus far avoided the castigation she deserves for pushing U.S. intervention in Syria.

Washington Post cartoonist Tom Toles nicely captured the stupidity of U.S. Mideast policy.   The Post editorial page would be vastly improved if this guy was writing their editorials, as opposed to their usual “bombing cures all” line.

cartoon toles color version arms stolen tt140812

14 thoughts on “Obama Foreign Policy Maxim Actually Not Bad”

  2. If they're given away they can't be stolen so the holistic and natural solution is to give the weapons away before they can be stolen. The whole problem immediately ceases to be.

    Think outside the box.

  3. "But if that was their lodestar, why did they ever hire Hillary as Secretary of State"

    I know this one because I watched TV that day, the US needed her as she was uniquely gifted and had the skills and passionate sense of duty to serve her country in its hour of need, and her noble President asked her to step to the breach and save the Republic.

    No, really, I'm paraphrasing but that was the gist of it, no one was even laughing at that point.

  4. Yes, it is a good maxim. Now we just need to find one US "leader" with the gumption to live up to it.

  5. Wow, an entirely new political dynamic could be unfolding. "Don't start nothing won't be nothing." Coupled with "don't do stupid shit" and America has a political manifesto that just might bring down the house.

  6. If the Syrian war was not started by Saudi mercenaries sent to Syria, if USG didn't helped the Syrian "rebels" of all kind to become ISIS then the development of a regional cooperation in terms of economic, political and cultural between Lebanon, Iran, Iraq and Syria would flourish, a new kind of democratic cooperation between these allies would grow. Libya was supportive, China, India and Russia and so many other nations were supportive of the outcome.

    Those who wouldn't like the idea was going to be Israel, Saudi Arabian barbaric regime, the Qatari, the Kuwaiti, the Turkish Erdogan government and rest of the reactionaries in the region+ USG/EU governing buddy and the Neo fascism governments from Sweden to rest of Europe they already had ok'd the pentagon plan for regime change is Libya, Syria, Iraq and Iran.

    If the cooperation and the unity between the Lebanese, Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian nations was to develop Israel wouldn't be able to even use the word democracy, they would have admitted to the fact that their regime and its governing system is based on part apartheid and part fascism as some EU governing system consist of, like Sweden.

    ISIS become ISIS due to USG/English/EU/Turkish Erdogan government wanted too. ISIS is their tool to create an geographical/strategical catastrophe for the people of Syria and Iraq. ISIS mission is take the time back into dark ages in Middle East where Israel still be recommended as THE only "democracy" in the region while Saudis and UAE barbaric but rich regimes will give their oil to Europe and US oil companies knowing that in the end it is them that are in charge of ISIS political and economical income no matter the source. Is is Iraqi oil there is always chevron, BP, Exxon and others are in line, if is the Syrian gas or oil is the same story, while Saudis, Kuwaitis and other UAE are either share holders of these companies or majors projects investors.

    People of Middle East are not going to thank their believed to be a false hero, Barack Hussein Obama but surly the Saudis, Qatari, EU Neo fascism, Erdogan religious but corrupt a NATO puppet regime are very thankful for what the US Democratic Party, once again, done to a bright, democratic and prospers feature of the middle eastern people. This is the nature of USG/English/EU/their puppet regimes vulture capitalism, they are always hunting for what is the right of people and for people to have, a functioning democracy for the people and by the people.

  7. just clear out the whole oval office and leave a desk a chair,
    and a huge solid gold plaque that reads “Don’t do stupid shit.”

  8. Obama should have never went along with the clean break strategy. He is damned if he does, damned if he doesn't with the war party. If he didn't support mayhem in Libya and Syria, nor went along with the lie that Iran is producing nuclear weapons he wouldn't be in this mess. If Obama very publicly supported the factions against Syria/Iran even more than he did he would have been blamed by the war party for arming radicals. He can't win by starting military adventures to appease the war party because there will be unintended consequences to his actions that both wings of this party will use against him. They are using him as a scapegoat in order to argue for more involved interventions with Empress Clinton leading the way. We shouldn't let them get away with their flawed argument that things turned out this way because Obama didn't warmonger enough. It was because they wanted chaos and violence by overthrowing stable regimes and that is what they got. They cry because it didn't go like the idealized images they had in their heads. Empress Clinton is offering an idealized image of how things would have worked perfectly had she been President to the war party and they are eating it up.

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