Barack Obama to reporters on ISIS: “we don’t have a strategy yet”

The leftist Washington Post reports on the story.

Excerpt:

President Obama said Thursday he has not decided on stepped-up military action against the Islamic State in Iraq or Syria, cautioning that he remains committed to a strategy that protects U.S. interests and builds broader partnerships to combat the threat posed by the militant group.

“We don’t have a strategy yet,” Obama said during a White House news conference, referring to increased military action. “Folks are getting a little further ahead of where we’re at. …The suggestions seems to have been we’re about to go full-scale on some elaborate strategy for defeating ISIL [the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] and the suggestion has been we’ll start moving forward imminently and somehow with Congress still out of town, they’ll be left in the dark. That’s not going to happen.”

And in other news, Russia has invaded more of Ukraine, and Obama responded.

Excerpt:

President Barack Obama refused to label Russia’s military action inside eastern Ukraine as an ‘invasion’ on Thursday, calling it an ‘incursion’ despite facing a reporter’s specific action about his choice of words.

Following a conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Obama told reporters that the two leaders agree ‘that Russia is responsible for the violence in eastern Ukraine. … Russia has deliberately and repeatedly violated the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.’

‘And the new images of Russian forces inside Ukraine make that plain for the world to see.’

He insisted that the Russian tanks filmed rumbling through Ukraine on Thursday are merely ‘a continuation of what’s been taking place for months now.’

[…]Arizona Sen. John McCain, the Republicans’ top dog on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, reacted angrily before Obama’s brief press conference.

‘Russia’s ongoing aggression in Ukraine can only be called one thing: a cross-border military invasion,’ he said. ‘To claim it is anything other than that is to inhabit President Putin’s Orwellian universe.’

‘A sovereign nation in the heart of Europe is being invaded by its larger neighbor,’ McCain declared. ‘This runs completely contrary to the civilized world that America and our partners have sought to build since World War II.’

Obama’s careful parsing was in keeping with State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki’s lukewarm refusal hours earlier, during an interview on MSNBC, to discuss varying ‘terminology’ related to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military moves.

Oh, I don’t think we have anything to worry about. It’s not an invasion, Obama says it’s not:

Baghdad Obama says: "There are no Russian tanks in Ukraine"
Baghdad Obama says: “There are no Russian tanks in Ukraine”

The nice thing about foreign policy is that when you screw it up, the consequences come quickly, so you know where the failure occurred. With the borrowing of the 7 trillion dollars, Obama’s managed to cloak his economic policy failures so far. But he can’t hide this foreign policy mess.

4 thoughts on “Barack Obama to reporters on ISIS: “we don’t have a strategy yet””

  1. Obama says: “and the suggestion has been we’ll start moving forward imminently and somehow with Congress still out of town, they’ll be left in the dark. That’s not going to happen.”

    So, for the first time in his presidency, since Republicans gained control of the House, our liberal fascist “president” is now going to wait on Congress to “help” him develop a strategy?!? Methinks he desires to find a political way to share the blame for the world falling apart on his watch.

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  2. “We don’t have a strategy yet” pretty much sums up Obama’s entire foreign policy.

    The West may have won the Cold War 25 years ago, but Obama is doing his best to reverse the victory.

    The liberal fantasy is that civilisation just happens without any work or effort. Unfortunately this isn’t true, US weakness is destabilising the entire world. My fear is that this is all heading for some sort of World War 3. Russia in Europe, ISIS and the Islamic Brotherhood in the Middle East, Chinese territorial claims in Asia; it’s all getting out of control.

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    1. Yes, and Putin reminded us all today that Russia is a major nuclear power. Whilst it takes a Carter to get a Reagan, it takes an Obama – to undo a Reagan. :-(

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