Let us get this straight: We were going to bomb Bashar Assad, but then decided at the last minute not to. But then we were going to help the Free Syrian Army. But then the administration did not, and later dismissed its forces as amateurs and a “fantasy.”
Rewarding vicious conduct is a sure-fire method of generating more of it. And wrongly blaming an ally for provoking young men and women to join your brutal adversary is an excellent recipe for harming friends and strengthening enemies. Yet in the struggle against Islamic extremism, the Obama administration has adopted both of these profoundly counterproductive tactics.
Congress and the scientific community need to review and revise the nation’s research priorities. We are wasting money on trivial or poorly-conceived projects while life-threatening illnesses are shortchanged.
In the lead article to this series, I noted that success in Afghanistan will be determined by five critical variables: Political Transition and Reform, Afghan National Security Forces, Regional Diplomacy, Economic Progress, and initiation of a substantive Peace Process. This article will focus on Political Transition and Reform.
WASHINGTON — In taking office during two overseas wars and the Great Recession, President Obama set out to restore society’s frayed faith in its public institutions, saying that the question was not whether government was too big or small, “but whether it works.” Six years later, Americans seem more dubious than ever that it really does.
