I borrowed this style from the
movie character Forrest Gump (played by Tom Hanks) who popularized the phrase ‘stupid
is as stupid does’ in the movie of the same name, Forrest Gump.
I think the first time I heard the phrase ‘pompous ass’ used
was when I was in high school. If so, it was in freshmen English class when we
were reading something by Shakespeare. Not my favorite author by any means. I
have no idea who Shakespeare was calling a pompous ass nor do I care but I know
that I got the meaning of that phrase.
In fact most of the stuff we read or attempted to read that
year was not my favorite and was not of interest to me at all. Until I and some
others who were in the same position heard the phrase ‘pompous ass’ we were
bored. When we heard the words we looked at each other and smiled and realized
that Willie S was an ok guy even if we couldn’t understand anything else he
wrote.
You might wonder why I bring up pompous ass now.
If you have been following the situation in Syria I think President
Obama is putting himself in the position of being a pompous ass.
Originally I think he believed he had the upper hand in
Syria regarding chemical weapons and decided to go to Congress for support to attack.
His motivation, I believe, was to stick it to the Republicans by requesting
Congress to take a vote. He was cruising to what, in his mind, was another
victory and he wasn’t going to let the Republicans or the rest of us forget it.
He even sent Secretary of State John Kerry to try to drum up
some support (which turned out to be potentially limited) from other countries,
mainly our allies, even though the majority weren’t interested in assisting the
US in an attack on one side or the other or both. I’m still not sure which it
is?
Ultimately Vladimir Putin, Russian President, played Obama
by offering a way out for Obama but by keeping Syrian President Assad in power
and not allowing the US to do anything in Syria. But hundreds and thousands of
Syrians continue to die daily on each side whether by conventional or chemical
weapons.
The results to this point: no changes in Syria (Assad is
still in power and Islamists are still fighting on the other side and one or both sides have chemical weapons) and the reputation
and credibility of both the US and Obama have been reduced drastically. How
about Putin and Russia? Their image and credibility have been greatly enhanced and
their effectiveness in the entire Middle East has been and will be significantly
improved if Obama and the US don’t get their act together.
I don’t know about you but I grew up during the period
called the ‘cold war’ and there was an amount of insecurity to life every day
during that time. We weren’t sure if we were on track to go to war with Russia (Russia
at that time was much larger and stronger than today as it had taken over many
Eastern European countries after World War II and was referred to as the USSR) or
if we would be attacked or whether we would live another day. In school we even
used to have air raid drills where we would hide under our desks or go down to basement
hallway thinking we would be protected in the event of a conventional or
nuclear attack.
I haven’t had those feelings of insecurity in a long time.
But I have them now. With Obama at the helm and his lack of leadership and resolve I do wonder much
more about what is going to happen.
A weak leader puts his nation and his people at significant risk.
Obama’s pomposity, thinking he is smarter than all of us and can talk his way
out of this, puts us all in jeopardy.
For more see: Obama Is Lost in the Mideast Bazaar,
by Fouad Ajami
Mr. Ajami, a senior fellow at Stanford's
Hoover Institution, is the author, most recently, of "The Syrian
Rebellion" (Hoover Press, 2012).
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