What was *really* Obama's biggest blunder?
Incumbents do tend to show a proneness to self-introspection and reflection upon their (now almost finished) tenure. Obama is no exception. In a recent interview, when prompted to point out what he believes was the biggest blunder of his presidency, he cited the Libya debacle, more specifically the lack of an exit plan:
Obama Reveals His Biggest Foreign Policy Mistake
Some would instantly claim coyness, even disingenuousness here, I'm sure. I mean, was that his biggest blunder? Really? The US wasn't even the driving force behind that intervention. France and Britain were. As soon as Sarko's former buddy Gaddafi threatened to reveal some inconvenient secrets about the former's campaign donors, Sarko suddenly started to push for a military intervention and a removal of the Gaddafi regime. Even despite the threat that without anyone solid and ruthless enough in Tripoli to contain the migrant pressure from North Africa and the Sahel, Europe would be having a huge problem on its hands, once chaos inevitably started reigning in Libya. Which is what really happened. But nobody seemed to care at the time.
The point is, the US seemed reluctant to get involved there, and even after the intervention was a fact, it chose to stay somewhat in the background. So what's this "blunder" that we're talking about here? If the lack of a Plan B for Libya is a problem at all (which it was), perhaps it should be landed at Sarkozy and Cameron's feet, not Obama's. Might Obama be diverting attention from other, larger blunders, which he could "own" with more certainty?
It's not like there isn't a list of those anyway.
My challenge to you is to come up with a bigger blunder (in your opinion) - if any. Is it really going into Libya without a plan? Or spending months and a lot of political capital pretending to be working on fixing health-care? The economic recovery that could've gone way better than it did? The bank "reform" which saw bail-out money going into CEO coffers and being spent on bonuses for "a job well done" by Wall Street? The too-big-to-fail approach? Withdrawing from a number of geopolitical hot spots, thus creating a vacuum while trying to lead from behind? The Syrian mess, which neither the US nor Europe has managed to address in a meaningful way? Allowing Putin to set Russia on a resurgent geopolitical path and becoming more assertive?
Or would you rather say he has actually done a reasonable job as president, even despite the tremendous opposition he has faced in Congress? He sure does get a huge kick out of the fact that he pushes conservative buttons at every corner - but perhaps his biggest blunder is actually that he did not intentionally do so more often? What say you?
Obama Reveals His Biggest Foreign Policy Mistake
Some would instantly claim coyness, even disingenuousness here, I'm sure. I mean, was that his biggest blunder? Really? The US wasn't even the driving force behind that intervention. France and Britain were. As soon as Sarko's former buddy Gaddafi threatened to reveal some inconvenient secrets about the former's campaign donors, Sarko suddenly started to push for a military intervention and a removal of the Gaddafi regime. Even despite the threat that without anyone solid and ruthless enough in Tripoli to contain the migrant pressure from North Africa and the Sahel, Europe would be having a huge problem on its hands, once chaos inevitably started reigning in Libya. Which is what really happened. But nobody seemed to care at the time.
The point is, the US seemed reluctant to get involved there, and even after the intervention was a fact, it chose to stay somewhat in the background. So what's this "blunder" that we're talking about here? If the lack of a Plan B for Libya is a problem at all (which it was), perhaps it should be landed at Sarkozy and Cameron's feet, not Obama's. Might Obama be diverting attention from other, larger blunders, which he could "own" with more certainty?
It's not like there isn't a list of those anyway.
My challenge to you is to come up with a bigger blunder (in your opinion) - if any. Is it really going into Libya without a plan? Or spending months and a lot of political capital pretending to be working on fixing health-care? The economic recovery that could've gone way better than it did? The bank "reform" which saw bail-out money going into CEO coffers and being spent on bonuses for "a job well done" by Wall Street? The too-big-to-fail approach? Withdrawing from a number of geopolitical hot spots, thus creating a vacuum while trying to lead from behind? The Syrian mess, which neither the US nor Europe has managed to address in a meaningful way? Allowing Putin to set Russia on a resurgent geopolitical path and becoming more assertive?
Or would you rather say he has actually done a reasonable job as president, even despite the tremendous opposition he has faced in Congress? He sure does get a huge kick out of the fact that he pushes conservative buttons at every corner - but perhaps his biggest blunder is actually that he did not intentionally do so more often? What say you?