Pantywaist

President Obama is a pantywaist.  He has emphatically said that, if Bashar Assad were to use chemical weapons on his people, it would be a "game changer" and he would have crossed a “red line" (see: Economist Story).  Now, even his recently-appointed Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, has confessed that, “with some degree of varying confidence,” this has happened (see: NY Times Story).  And what does Obama do?  He equivocates.  "We must have irrefutable proof."  "We will ask the U.N. to validate this charge."  "We need more time."

Now I am not advocating that the U.S. send troops to Syria … neither do the vast majority of the American populace. But then again I don’t believe that we want a pissant President.  (There are a multitude of other options). If Obama was not going to do anything significant if Assad dumped sarin or chlorine gas on the people of Aleppo, then he should have kept his threatening words to himself … and not made an ass of himself once again on the world stage.  He has sent a strong message to the Iranian and other world leaders that “red lines” are in the eyes of the beholder … and they are nothing that a little Visine can’t cure.

President Pantywaist

President Obama is acquiring a new nickname (as indicated) and, to me, this is not inappropriate. This morning he, with his typical cool, measured terms, spoke in Pittsburgh at the G20 meeting indicating that Iran has been building a secret second nuclear enrichment facility in direct violation on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Agreement. His requested action item was that Iran needs to allow the UN's IAEA to inspect this facility in the near future. However he did not threaten additional near-term sanctions against Iran ... as did France's Sarkozy in more bellicose comments that followed Obama's. The informative moment in this revelation is that the U.S. has known for almost two years about the construction of this facility and, I'm sure Obama has also been informed of this for at least nine months.

Wow! Even with knowledge of this duplicity, Obama has still cozied up to Iran by his willingness to meet with them without preconditions ... and to wait days before he condemned, in the mildest terms, Iran's national election farce and its subsequent brutal crushing of the Iranian public demonstrations over the results. And he has canceled our stationing of anti-missile defenses in Eastern Europe much to Iran's glee. Obama's clearly new Downey-soft approach to international relations has, so far, produced little national benefit ... other than blown kisses to Obama from a raft of European appeasers. To me, Obama needs to cowboy up and start pursuing with more vigor the U.S.'s national interests ... even if this risks his rock-star image abroad.