This is always Obama's dilemma. There is a demand he do more every time there is terrorist attack, though he is doing everything he can.
"The terror attacks in Brussels on Tuesday pose the worst kind of foreign policy dilemma for President Obama, pitting his instincts, which tell him that he’s doing all he can to defeat the Islamic State, against intense political pressure to do more."
"Obama has been making the case for months that his strategy to defeat the Islamic State and protect Americans at home is slowly working. White House aides speak repeatedly of the 40 percent of the Islamic State’s territory taken back from the group in Iraq and the 20 percent wrested away in Syria. They cite the impact of more than 11,000 U.S. military airstrikes, which have killed more than 10,000 front-line fighters."
"More quietly they strike cautionary notes. “This may be the most complicated conflict of our generation,” said a senior administration official, who was granted anonymity to speak frankly.
"The reality —as Obama learned in the aftermath of the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif. — is that impressive battlefield statistics and reasoned calls for restraint mean little in the climate of fear generated by terror strike."
"That “climate of fear” doesn’t just exist, it’s fed by those who shout every day that we should be more afraid, and and that if we aren’t bombing somebody, whether that would accomplish anything or not, then we’re being “weak.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/03/22/happy-hour-roundup-820/
Actually, this is the virtue of Hillary. Her foreign policy positions are similar to Obama's-indeed 'she helped write much of it' but she is in someways better able in terms of rhetoric to enunciate the fears of the nation. Hilary was criticized for her AIPAC speech yesterday but she in no way breached Obama's foreign policy, just tried to schmooze the Israeli lobby.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2016/03/why-hillary-pissed-off-gop-with-her.html
"The terror attacks in Brussels on Tuesday pose the worst kind of foreign policy dilemma for President Obama, pitting his instincts, which tell him that he’s doing all he can to defeat the Islamic State, against intense political pressure to do more."
"Obama has been making the case for months that his strategy to defeat the Islamic State and protect Americans at home is slowly working. White House aides speak repeatedly of the 40 percent of the Islamic State’s territory taken back from the group in Iraq and the 20 percent wrested away in Syria. They cite the impact of more than 11,000 U.S. military airstrikes, which have killed more than 10,000 front-line fighters."
"More quietly they strike cautionary notes. “This may be the most complicated conflict of our generation,” said a senior administration official, who was granted anonymity to speak frankly.
"The reality —as Obama learned in the aftermath of the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif. — is that impressive battlefield statistics and reasoned calls for restraint mean little in the climate of fear generated by terror strike."
"That “climate of fear” doesn’t just exist, it’s fed by those who shout every day that we should be more afraid, and and that if we aren’t bombing somebody, whether that would accomplish anything or not, then we’re being “weak.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/03/22/happy-hour-roundup-820/
Actually, this is the virtue of Hillary. Her foreign policy positions are similar to Obama's-indeed 'she helped write much of it' but she is in someways better able in terms of rhetoric to enunciate the fears of the nation. Hilary was criticized for her AIPAC speech yesterday but she in no way breached Obama's foreign policy, just tried to schmooze the Israeli lobby.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2016/03/why-hillary-pissed-off-gop-with-her.html
I have to say I spoke to my Mother this morning and I was shocked. She was crying over the Belgium attacks and was convinced that Obama has somehow brought this on by his lack of doing something.
She's not a Right winger-she's voted for Obama twice. But I take this as kind of indicative of what Obama is going through. If she is blaming Obama then what are all the true Right wing Obama haters saying?
I personally like Obama's 'professorial style' but it does seem a lot of people seem to need more breastbeating at times like this.
While Hil is often knocked for not being a natural politician-she's taken to saying she's not a natural one herself-it may be that foreign policy is the one area she is better at politically than Obama.
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