President Barack Obama speaks to a crowd of Marines, sailors and family members on Camp Pendleton, Calif., Aug. 7, 2013. President Obama visited the base to thank the troops for their commitment to the mission in Iraq and Afghanistan. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Michael Cifuentes
Michael Crowley, Politico: World War O
Obama took office vowing to end America’s wars. Now we’re in at least five, and U.S. officials are unsure what to do about it.
President Barack Obama’s expression of remorse on Thursday for the death of two hostages in a U.S. drone strike underscored one of the great frustrations of his presidency: His dream of extricating the U.S. from messy foreign conflicts remains just that.
Obama pledged in his 2013 inaugural address that “a decade of war is now ending,” but the numbers suggest otherwise. The U.S. takes regular lethal action in at least five countries. U.S. troops are deployed in three conflict zones. And America is directly involved in a pair of Arab civil wars.
Some administration officials fear that things will get worse before they get better, particularly in Ukraine and Iraq. But they are divided on how best to proceed, people familiar with the Obama team’s internal debates say — with top officials like Secretary of State John Kerry urging measures like arming Ukrainian government forces with Javelin anti-tank missiles, which can ostensibly be called defensive.
WNU editor: A sobering analysis on president Obama's war strategy/policy .... read it all.