NYT: Rebutting Critics, Obama Seeks Higher Bar for Military Action

[Scuba]

The smartest speech he's given ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/29/us/politics/rebutting-critics-obama-seeks-higher-bar-for-military-action.html?_r=0

WASHINGTON — As President Obama listens to assessments of his foreign policy these days, he grows deeply frustrated. Syria? Ukraine? Afghanistan? What more do his critics want him to do? Get into another war? Keep fighting one that has already become America’s longest?

After more than five years in office, Mr. Obama has become increasingly convinced that while the United States must play a vital role beyond its borders, it should avoid getting dragged into the quicksand of international crises that have trapped some of his predecessors. It is time for an end to what he called “a long season of war.” To his critics, mainly on the right but also some on the left, this is a prescription for passivity, an abrogation of decades of bipartisan leadership on the world stage. Stung and irritated, Mr. Obama used his commencement address to West Point cadets on Wednesday to mount a sustained rebuttal and to define an approach to foreign policy that he believes is suited to a new era and that he hopes will outlast his presidency.

...

Mr. Obama framed the debate on his own terms at West Point, presenting himself as the steward of a reasonable balance between isolationism and unilateralism. He tried, as he often does, to capture a middle ground of sorts. He even played to both sides with his language, using the phrases “indispensable nation,” a favorite of Democrats during the Clinton administration, and “American exceptionalism,” a favorite of Republicans ever since. But the commander in chief who in his first term waged a relentless drone campaign against terrorists and dispatched the Navy Seals who killed Osama bin Laden seemed more intent on setting the bar higher for future use of force.

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n the future, when the United States is not directly threatened, “the threshold for military action must be higher,” Mr. Obama said. He presented the choice in binary terms, suggesting that his critics want to use force to solve many of the world’s troubles.

[TwilightGardener]

1. Obama finally has cast off most of the neocon dead-enders in his administration.

Bob Gates, gone. Hillary Clinton, gone. Leon Panetta, gone. David Petraeus, gone. So the critics are losing their shit because they believe the only way to conduct American foreign policy is to threaten military action everywhere, whether vital to our interests or not, and overthrow regimes who are too weak to fight back.