Obama 'The Worst US President Since WW2'

It is Independence Day tomorrow so time for an American story. It is official, in a poll done by Quinnipiac University 33% of US voters registered Obama as 'the worst US President since WW2'. Not like we needed a poll to say that anyway.

Obama is having a very bad time at the moment with dodgy international decisions over the current situation in Iraq and mixed messages coming for the US economy. This news should not come as any surprise at this moment in time then. In the same poll Obama was given a -15% rating on 'handling the economy', -10% on 'foreign policy', -18% on 'healthcare', and -7% rating on 'terrorism'. At least he is doing better than Ed Miliband.

Even worse for President Obama is that 45% of American voters said that it would have been better if Mitt Romney had won the 2012 elections, with 38% disagreeing. Furthermore, 54% of voters do not believe his 'administration has been competent in running the country'. Although Obama has to stand down in 2016, I'm sure he is very pleased to know that those voters who put him over the line in 2012 now believe they made a terrible decision. I wonder what people would say of all those 'hope' posters now?

Other Presidents of the United States that received a lot of votes for the title of 'worst US President since WW2' were George W. Bush, with 28%, Richard Nixon, with 13% of the vote, and Jimmy Carter, with 8%. 

However, in more positive news, the late Ronald Reagan looking down upon the world must be very happy with his legacy. 35% of American voters think Reagan was 'the best US President since WW2'. Clearly ending the Cold War and running a decent economy during the 1980s still goes down well with American voters. Nut this should come as no surprise as Reagan carried 49 out of 50 states in the 1984 US Presidential elections.

I'm sure Obama is very pleased with these results. Maybe history will look kinder on him. Maybe.

Weekly Poll Lowdown

Well it seems again that the voters in the #ThingsElliottSays poll are broadly representative of the nation. Just over 2/3rd of you don't want any form of intervention to take place in Syria with the remainder who favoured war preferring a No Fly Zone to be present. You may ask why I did not include a tactical strike by missiles as a punitive measure? The reason for this is that the missile idea was not at all publicly on the table till around Wednesday morning, indeed there was discussion of troops on the ground as a plausible move by Western Governments.

What is to be done in Syria?

We can't do anything more without causing more harm.	68%
We should supply weapons to the Syrian Opposition.	5%
We should set up a No Fly Zone.	23%
We should put troops on the ground.	5%

Total votes: 22

My views on Syria is quite strong and it is that we should not get involved in a situation where we could not meet any of our objectives and make the conflict worse. But considering our decision not to intervene has already been settled and that I have talked about the intervention itself till the cows came home I will not touch upon it again at this time. What is interesting now is what is going on in the United States. 

 Are the US going to war with Syria?

Looming war with Syria arose because President Obama said on the 20th August last year to a journalist, after some erring, "A red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilised. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation." This on the spot arbitrary decision without any consultation made by President Obama is example of the terrible foreign policy which we have witnessed during his time in office. 

Let's just say Obama hasn't been great with Foreign Policy, especially in the Middle East.

No wonder that this rather peculiar few sentences from the President has caused so much chaos in his government for we have been constantly unsure of whether the US is going to go to war or not. This whole week we have been waiting for imminent missile strikes by the USA, yet this hasn't taken place. Because of this we get John Kerry, who is a terrible Secretary of State, saying there are "decisions that must now be made" on Syrian Intervention. Then the next day we get a softening feeling from the President on intervention. 

Do you remember John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential Elections? I do, just. He ran his campaign as being against the war in Iraq however he had voted for it several times and then conveniently changed his mind when chosen as candidate.

Obama is either too weak to decide or too weak to control his government. It is likely that both of these are happening. Obama has shown weakness before in deciding foreign policy, just look at Libya where the US barley fired the odd cruise missile yet were supposed to be running the whole operation. Also, senior Pentagon people are not at all keen to fire a single bullet into Syria for the strategic mess which it would create. These people are fighting their corner and the President isn't doing well in fighting his.

The Republicans, rightly, and often use this phrase to describe Obama. Who do I use this phrase for? Comment below and the correct answers receive a prize of pride in knowing.

But at last now Obama is letting Congress take the decision of whether to go to war or not. I think this is about time as this is the only appropriate constitutional way for the US government to take military action. It is good in a democracy for the people's representatives to discuss and debate issues especially ones as serious as going to war, taking full account of what their constituents feel. Also they will be able to decide exactly what the approach should be, unlike the President himself. We'll just have to keep watching Congress. 

 It is now up to Congress to decide to go to war, as it should be.

Chaotic, ill-thought out, and weak seems to be the watchword of President Obama's foreign policy, or indeed President Obama himself. I'm a great advocate of the US-UK alliance, it's one that has worked very well before. But I am no advocate of blindly following a President of such a low calibre as Obama. Bring on the 2016 elections. 

Vote in the New Poll on the Sidebar.

The Noes Have It- What Next?

So Dave lost the vote in the House of Commons. What does this mean for the future of the 'Speacial Relationship', Red Ed, Parliament, David Cameron and of course Syria?

Is the 'Special Relationship' over, as Menzies (what an odd spelling) Campbell essentially said to the news. Well Menzies is quite mad and he can keep dreaming on. On foreign policy we have had several major gulfs with the Americans and yet we're still allies. At Suez the Americans sided with Russia over our invasion of the Sinai. In Vietnam we refused to help America, also the French helped the Americans. During the Falklands America didn't want to give any support because Argentina was an ally against Communists in South America. We have differed a number of times and yet we have always been pretty close. What will happen is a lot of shouting behind closed doors at most and nothing else.

Menzies Campbell speaking out of his arse for not the first time.

If our Special Relationship is coming under strain it's because of President Obama. This is the man who waged war against British Petroleum (not the name of BP). Hates the UK because his links to Kenya and the oppression we used there, of course forgetting that the side he takes in the Mao Mao Rebellion was far worse in killing people. This is also the President who has worst foreign policy ideas of any American President since time in memoriam, this whole debacle on Syria shows that up clearly. Even he is having problems in America about this, 50% of the US public oppose action in Syria. Congress is screaming to have a debate on this issue, but unfortunately for them the President has more executive powers. Obama is weary however and now looks like he is stalling on Syria. It's not just the British, he shouldn't have set the red line of chemical weapons.

 President Obama has messed this Syria issue up so much, i'd resign if I was him.

And speaking of the Executive, this was the day when the UK PM lost the ability to go to war without the consent of Parliament unless it is in defence of the realm or needed action at very short notice. This is a good thing, the fact that Parliament (which is elected by the people) can decide when to go to war is a sign of a healthy democracy. David Cameron wants this too saying in 2006 'the Crown Prerogative — that constitutional quirk that gives whoever is in No 10 the powers of a medieval monarch — needs to be changed.' His respect for Parliament last night showed that the Prime Minister was prepared to do what the demos thinks and not what he believed to be right. The people, or more strictly their representatives, are right. Those MPs who were pushing for a recall deserve a good deal of praise because this is about the only historical thing that has come from this vote.

 Parliament is Sovereign.

There were many good speeches in Parliament but remember one well. George Galloway lied when he said that he did not say Israel supplied the chemicals for the Syrian sarin attack (see  http://thingselliottsays.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/george-galloway-blames-israel-for-syria.html). I hope this disgraceful man is kicked by the electorate at the General Election, his views are disgusting.

What of the leader of Labour, Red Ed? Was he and Labour being party political? Yes. The calls to resign from the PM and Jim Murphy, the Shadow Defence Secretary saying, how much this was a defeat for David Cameron because Tory MPs rebelled against him show this. But Red Ed didn't have much of a choice actually because of his own party pulling at him. If he had supported the Government motion last night it may have gone through, but this wouldn't have been the case next week. The majority of Labour MPs would not support going to war over Syria and combined with the 80+ Conservatives who do not agree with arming the rebels there would have been no majority for war. Red Ed after a summer of disconnect would have not wanted to look weak or ask MPs to back something they vehemently opposed, especially after threats of his leadership. 

 Ed during the debate.

Does this do anything for him? Well his celebrations last night were very over the top because if he tries to make David Cameron look weak by rubbing his face in this defeat he's going to find himself on the most dodgy of grounds because he is making fun over an act of war and the deaths of Syrian civilians. It will be very bad for him if does that. Red Ed has however shown he can advert political disaster which does show some political skills. But overall Ed must stay quiet and not make any gains after this Government defeat. 

David Cameron may have suffered government defeat but in factual senses this shouldn't affect his Government or leadership. This was a vote to go to war, not on government internal policy. Conservative MPs voted with their conscious against the Government because they don't agree with war, they will still support government bills. He also respected Parliament's decision greatly. 'I get that' David Cameron said just moments after the results of the vote was read out. 

But in reality Dave will face damage because nobody wanted this war in the public and he did. His sense of what is actually the right thing to do is clearly a little bit off. His short term rush and lack of political shrewdness is shown, at least he bears this collectively with the government. He must not however go around blaming the opposition for his defeat or saying 'they're a succour to Assad'. The best action is to keep calm and carry on. Hopefully he thinks things through better next time because this was  a bad decision for Syrians to go to war (see http://thingselliottsays.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/war-with-syria-was-bad-idea-thats-why.html).

For the people of Syria there is no relief however because, although a little bit less now Parliament has not backed war, the US could start an attack over the weekend. The striking of missiles is not the greatest worry in itself for the Syrian people. The after results of retaliation by Assad, from an increasing involvement in Iran and more Islamists flocking to the area is going to make their lives shorter and worse. Because of the chaotic state of the opposition diplomacy and aid are the best ways to stop the killing and obtain a better Syria.

I thus urge you to donate to the Syrian Crisis Appeal. I've made a donation to the British Red Cross to make sure they save more lives in the area. I've also collected a lot of charity links so you get wider choice in who you give your money to. If anything good comes out of this debate it is the exposure to the UK again of how terrible it is for the people of Syria. 2 million people are refugees (1 million are children), 100,000 have died and the majority of people are unable to even feed themselves. It's all very upsetting and sad. War would not help Syria but it doesn't stop us giving help to this war torn country. 

Please Donate.

British Red Cross http://www.redcross.org.uk/Donate-Now/Make-a-single-donation/Syria-Crisis-Appeal

Disasters Emergency Committee http://www.dec.org.uk/node/3181

Save The Children http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/about-us/emergencies/syria-appeal

Oxfam http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what-we-do/emergency-response/syria-crisis

Action Aid http://www.actionaid.org.uk/donate/syria-crisis-appeal

UNICEF UK http://www.unicef.org.uk/landing-pages/donate-syria/

UNHCR http://donate.unhcr.org/syria

Islamic Relief http://www.islamic-relief.org.uk/current-appeals/syria-appeal/

Western War in Syria?

Well it seems that the war in Syria has reached a decision point for the West over whether it should intervene or not (we are already probably doing this with spooks in minor ways but that is not a big game changer). President Obama and the Foreign Office made the mass use of chemical weapons a point of no return. It looks like they may do this soon. We have set ourselves up however for a near impossible task and one which is unlikely to end well. The Syrian people are the only ones that can bring about democracy.

 It's only decision time for the West because we set a rather arbitrary decision point of chemical weapon use by Assad.

We are about to fight a three way war in Syria against Assad and against Islamists which are fully entrenched in the Syrian Opposition forces. The Opposition has no clear objectives other than to bring down Assad. There is no clear side and this it is impossible to differentiate on the battlefield. Who is going to bring about a liberal democracy and who is out for a Islamist dictatorship? We don't know. If we intervene we'd have to fight off Assad then weed through the Opposition and take out the Islamists. Essentially our task would be either to stage an invasion of Syria. Or to end the civil war going on now and then fight another one. 

 Opposition forces wanting a Islamic State are not the sort of people democracies should back.

Militarily our fight would also be impossible. We will be fighting enemies that are being armed by Russia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Iran. Assad's force would be the hardest to win against because of the strong air power he possess. Furthermore, if he is willing to use chemical weapons against his own people he will almost certainly use them against any interventionist forces. These forces would have to be composed of ground troops as well as planes based in Cyprus. A Syrian style air umbrella and the occasional weapons drop will not work because the Opposition forces are much weaker than in Libya and Assad's army is much stronger than Gaddafi's. It's very unlikely we could win, so the conflict would just continue.

Gaddafi for political reasons kept his military very weak. Assad for political reason has made the Syrian army and air force very strong.

And speaking of the outcomes, what are our objectives? Is it to protect civilians from dying? If that was the case we should have intervened at least one and half years ago when it was clear this was going to become a civil war. Nor is our intervention going to stop more deaths because more people are going to die in the future whether Assad or the Opposition win. If Assad win's he will ruthlessly oppress Opposition supporters. If the Opposition win there will be a split and another civil war, or at the very least mass civil disturbance for years. 

There is also the risk, which is greatly underplayed, that this whole civil war could spill over. In its simplest form this could be because of the mass movement of refugees into Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan. The war could follow the Syrian people when Assad get's desperate. It is worth remembering Assad attacked Turkey. 

 Intervention in Syria is going to be like putting a match in the tinder box of the Middle East where a Cold War already rages.

But when looking at the Syrian war it is clear to see that this is a proxy war going on between Saudi Arabia (and co.) against Iran. These countries having been involved in a serious Cold War for a number of years as to who controls the Middle East. Intervention in that fight is likely to cause a conflict that would seriously implode the region. This will put the safety of our allies in the democratic Iraq, Israel and NATO ally Turkey at serious risk. We too will not escape this war as in defence of our allies we'd have to fight Iran who would respond on the battlefield as well as in our streets. It is clear such  problems would occur because Turkey hasn't set up protection zones in Syria or gone to war with Assad when he attacked them. This Turkish inaction is caused by the realisation of very likely Iranian attacks, despite intervention in Syria being fully discussed and having many advantages for the Turks.

 We do not want to act in Syria just to save lives. We want to act in Syria to bring about democracy.

What we really want and what the Syrian people as a whole want is to have a new democratic government in Syria. If that is the case it would be pretty stupid to gamble, with loaded dice against democracy. The Opposition may choose to appoint a new Assad. What has to happen in the Opposition, if they wish to win this war, is they have to become organised and that involves an internal power struggle where we will find out whether the Opposition is going to be made up of liberals backing democracy or Islamist Terrorists backing a dictatorship.

It is for the Syrian people to decide of what type of government they want after Assad has fallen. This decision should have been taken early on in the formation of the Syrian Opposition if they wanted a chance of winning and forming a government after Assad's downfall. This chance now seems to be fading away.

But there is another opportunity with this new turning point of mass use of chemical weapons. Gas attacks show to the Syrian population that Assad is becoming more desperate not because a over 1,000 people died. Bear in mind that over 100,000 people are sadly dead already. The Syrian people will be more so looking for an alternative to Assad so an organised and clearly democratically motivated Opposition would get support that could crumble the regime. This move is one for the Syrian people to make whether they are civilians or in the Opposition. It is not one we can help with either, and certainly we cannot help by intervention.

This was the most important move made in Libya with the setting up of the National Transitional Council as it showed clearly that a Libya without Gaddafi would be one of democracy. Our intervention did save the city of Benghazi, but it was the Libyan Opposition that spilt blood and did the fighting. Our light touch still caused some problems in the new democratic Libyan Government. It didn't allow for the sorting out of tribal differences that a longer period of war may have allowed for. Overall however this is not an unsolvable problem and Libya, unlike Syria, is likely to have a successful form of democracy. 

People need to free themselves. Syria is only solvable by the West if it intends to invade and set up a proxy government which it intends to defend. This of course completely disregards the fact that militarily this scenario is impossible. If we could defeat Assad we'd be in there for a much longer period than Iraq. Oh and as an added bonus we could cause a regional war with Iran. It's the people of Syria's choices, both civilians and those in the Opposition, that can bring about a Syrian democracy. 

The choice to have democracy can only  be brought about by people fighting hard for it themselves.

#ObamaOnTour

It's official 1/8 of my viewers are Americans. Hello conservatives over the pond, but don't say your Republican here you'll find yourself in a room with the SWP and all those other monarchist haters. So let's have an American story for our friends over the Atlantic.

Barack Obama has decided after a 5 year wait to visit Israel, which is a very long time considering Israel and America have 'an unbreakable alliance'. However I'm not surprised.

Obama doesn't like the Israeli's. To him they are just a nuisance as they come with the whole Palestine issue. Despite going there on a mission to try end this problem Obama hasn't done anything about it, despite all the talk that he gives to the subject. Nor does Obama like that Israel are constantly being attacked because it means that America has to support them. It's not like Israel is an island of true liberal democracy and every other country around it is ruled by despots in the area. Obama's own hand on Iran is also very weak and the Israeli government is constantly showing him up by taking a hard stance against Iran's nuclear weapons programme, which consequently forces the hand of the President to do something.

Obama has never been hot on foreign policy. In some ways he has just continued off from Bush with drone strikes and the like. But in others he seems to have no real idea of what to do like with Iran, Israel, Egypt, Syria and so on. The whole Middle East is a problem triangle and no one expects him to solve it, although from the hype about his first election you would have expected so. However, he is not really defending America's actual interests very well. It seems Obama wants an easy life not getting involved in areas he should. This coupled with his personal hatred of his 'real' allies like Britain and Israel means he is not very good at having friends on the world stage, it seems like us and the Israeli's support the US out of tradition rather than for the President now.

In other news Obama has a new TV career as the Devil. I wonder where he gets the spare time?