In its summary of Obama's address to the U.N., the NYT says the president "laid out a forceful new blueprint on Wednesday for deeper American engagement in the Middle East, telling the United Nations General Assembly that the Islamic State understood only 'the language of force.'"
I, for one among billions, have no problem with deploying the "language of force" against ISIS. No sane person would. The Islamic State is no mere foe; it's an unfeeling, inhuman plague on humanity that, like all plagues, invites its own extermination. No one will grieve over the slaughter of ISIS. On that much, we in the rational world can agree.
It is, rather, the lead-in to "language of force" that troubles: "a forceful new blueprint ... for deeper American engagement in the Middle East."
This, as the world knows, is precisely what Obama spent six years avoiding--for excellent reasons, all of which the world knows as well--and yet suddenly he commits to not only a deep, but a prolonged, engagement in the Middle East. No member of the international community would have begrudged the United States its launching of punitive strikes against ISIS. Not after Foley and Sotloff. Indeed the world would have wondered, had such strikes not come. Obama's dramatic and even radical turn to the deep and prolonged, though, is both astonishing and dismaying. Aside from the Barbary Wars two centuries ago, has American military engagement in the Middle East ever earned us anything but grief?
The NYT's coverage nonetheless offers some hope: "it remained unclear whether Mr. Obama’s speech represented a fundamental reconsideration of his policy or a reluctant response to the threat posed by the Islamic State." I'm rooting for vintage Obama--that is, reluctance.
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On CNN just now (4:10 pm Eastern), Bill Kristol finally got to quote his old man: Obama "has been mugged by reality," he said of the president's speech--and Billy couldn't be happier.