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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsObama's Fateful Syrian Choice
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/09/18/obamas-fateful-syrian-choiceThere is an obvious course that President Barack Obama could follow if he wants to lessen the crises stemming from the Syrian war and other U.S. regime change strategies of the past several decades, but it would require him to admit that recent interventions (including his own) have represented a strategic disaster.
Obama also would have to alter some longstanding alliances including those with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel and correct some of the false narratives that have been established during his administration, such as storylines accusing the Syrian government of using sarin gas on Aug. 21, 2013, and blaming the Russians for everything thats gone wrong in Ukraine.
"Given the severity of the crisis as the refugee chaos now spreads into Europe Obama doesnt have the luxury anymore of pandering to the neocons and liberal interventionists. Instead of talking tough, he needs to act realistically."
In retracting false allegations and releasing current U.S. intelligence assessments on those issues, the President would have to repudiate the trendy concept of strategic communications, an approach that mixes psychological operations, propaganda and P.R. into a soft power concoction to use against countries identified as U.S. foes.
Stratcom also serves to manage the perceptions of the American people, an assault on the fundamental democratic precept of an informed electorate. Instead of honestly informing the citizenry, the government systematically manipulates us. Obama would have to learn to trust the people with the truth.
Whether Obama recognizes how imperative it is that he make these course corrections, whether he has the political courage to take on entrenched foreign-policy lobbies (especially after the bruising battle over the Iran nuclear agreement), and whether he can overcome his own elitism toward the public are the big questions and there are plenty of reasons to doubt that Obama will do whats necessary. But his failure to act decisively could have devastating consequences for the United States and the world.
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Obama's Fateful Syrian Choice (Original Post)
eridani
Jan 2016
OP
EdwardBernays
(3,343 posts)1. Presidents have been the source of "devastating consequences" for decades
No chance it'll change anytime soon. And there's even less of a chance that Obama will shake us US foreign policy to such a radical degree.
AZ Progressive
(3,411 posts)2. America often seems to be like a bull in a china shop n/t
newfie11
(8,159 posts)3. You bet
Sadly I don't see any changes to stop it either.