Fear of showing weakness is itself a weakness

Why is President Obama arming proxy armies in Syria to fight against the Islamic State (ISIS) and the Assad government, despite warnings from his advisers that such policies have not worked in the past?

I think he is following in the footsteps of American presidents for the past 50 years, who have waged war and sponsored covert operations not to protect the American people and not in all cases to further the interests of U.S.-based corporations, but to avoid the appearance of seeming week.

Take the Vietnam Conflict.  Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson are now known to have had misgivings about military intervention in Vietnam.  What they feared was the effect on American prestige of suffering a defeat, and the effect on their own popularity of having “lost” a country to Communism.

When Richard M. Nixon was became President in 1969, he inherited the Vietnam War, he was not responsible for the hopeless situation, yet he kept on fighting nevertheless.  What was wanted, according to Henry Kissinger, was to save the USA and the Nixon administration from humiliation by having a “decent interval” between the withdrawal of the last American troops and the triumph of the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese.

Our country would have been better off if Presidents Kennedy and Johnson had never committed the United States to defending South Vietnam, or if President Nixon had wound up the war quickly.  Our nation would not have been so divided, our military would not have been demoralized and our leaders would not have been preoccupied for the next 40 years with wiping out the humiliation of that defeat.

Or take the 35-year cold war waged by the United States against Iran.  I see no inherent conflict of interest between the governments of Iran and the United States.  In fact, Iran and the USA share common enemies in Al Qaeda and its successor, the Islamic State (ISIS).  But for the United States to reconcile with Iran would seem weak, after the humiliation suffered by the taking of U.S. embassy personnel as hostages by Iranian radicals in 1979.  It is that, more than any public interest or business interest, that prevents the United States from seeking peace with Iran.

The greatest liberal reformer since FDR?

Some White House insiders and commentators have said that President Obama’s legislative accomplishments make him the greatest liberal reformer since President Franklin Roosevelt.

President Obama

President Franklin Roosevelt

They forget a certain President of a generation back. This President created affirmative action in its present form. He responded decisively to an economic emergency by imposing wage and price controls.  He proposed a Family Assistance Plan which would guarantee a minimum income for all Americans, and a Comprehensive Health Insurance Act which would have provided a public option as an alternative to private health insurance.  He endorsed the Equal Rights Amendment for women.

The Comprehensive Health Insurance Act was rejected by Congress. So was the Family Assistance Plan, but the Earned Income Tax Credit was enacted as a substitute and compromise.

The President did sign into law the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Air Act.  His administration established the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration and the Council on Environmental Quality.

On the world stage, this President negotiated with leaders of a nation which was a sworn enemy of the United States.  This country financed anti-American insurgencies all over the world, including a country in which the United States was bogged down in a quagmire war.  Previous Presidents had responded with economic sanctions and non-recognition, but this President and his Secretary of State were able to reach agreement.