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Washington Post
Obama lifted his Syria
speech from Bush
By Marc A. Thiessen
September 11
President Obama never
misses a chance to “blame it on Bush,” and last night’s address
to the nation on Syria was no exception.
The reason Obama has failed
to win support military action in Syria, the president declared last
night, is not because he has failed to lay out a coherent strategy —
it’s because of “the terrible toll of Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Obama further slammed former president George W. Bush for presiding
over “a decade that put more and more war-making power in the hands
of the president and more and more burdens on the shoulders of our
troops, while sidelining the people’s representatives from the
critical decisions about when we use force.”
Put aside the fact that
Congress explicitly authorized the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,
while Obama did not seek congressional authorization before launching
his war in Libya — or that dozens of nations joined us in Iraq and
Afghanistan, while in Syria we have . . .
France.
If Bush was so bad, then
why did Obama lift so much of his speech making the case for military
action in Syria from Bush’s speech making the case for military
action in Iraq?
In his address Tuesday
night arguing that the United States must hold a Baathist dictator
who used chemical weapons against his own people to account, Obama
said: “I know Americans want all of us in Washington — especially
me — to concentrate on the task of building our nation here at
home. . . .
It’s no wonder then that you’re asking hard questions. So let me
answer some of the most important questions that I’ve heard from
members of Congress and that I’ve read in letters that you’ve
sent to me.”
He then went on to pose a
number of questions raised by critics about the need for military
action, and answer them: “First, many of you have asked, won’t
this put us on a slippery slope to another war? . . .
Others have asked whether it’s worth acting if we don’t take out
[Syrian President Bashar al-]Assad. . . .
Other questions involve the dangers of retaliation.. . .
Many of you have asked a broader question: Why should we get involved
at all in a place that’s so complicated and where, as one person
wrote to me, those who come after Assad may be enemies of human
rights? . . .
Finally, many of you have asked, why not leave this to other
countries or seek solutions short of force?”
Hmm, that sounded familiar.
In his October 7, 2002, speech in Cincinnati, making the case that
the United States must hold a Baathist dictator who used chemical
weapons on his people to account, Bush declared: “Many Americans
have raised legitimate questions: about the nature of the threat;
about the urgency of action. . . .
These are all issues we’ve discussed broadly and fully within my
administration. And tonight, I want to share those discussions with
you…
Read the rest of the
article at Washington Post
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