Hillary's Drastic Move

Pete Souza, Official White House Photographer (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is like Al Gore breaking up with Bill Clinton in 1999. Bill Clinton's reaction was, I would not do those two things on one day. Al Gore denounced Bill Clinton (reference: Lewinsky) and announced he was running for president the same day.

Hillary has done the exact same thing. She has broken up with Barack Obama. And she also has basically announced she is running for president. This is positioning.

Barack Obama showed plenty of steel on Libya. And he is showing a ton of spine on Putin. So it is hard to throw mud on him on Syria. Syria simply is complex.

Hillary's words come as too strong. Also, were you not the Secretary of State? This is a Foreign Minister criticizing the president's foreign policy from when she was Foreign Minister! Go figure.

This is also a sign Hillary is feeling it that Iraq might end up the reason why she loses in 2016. Poll numbers from before you actually start contesting the primaries are not that relevant.

Without taking sides on Iraq (or thinking that I have a better solution) just on political terms, I think Hillary just made a bad move.

“The failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad — there were Islamists, there were secularists, there was everything in the middle — the failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled..... Great nations need organizing principles, and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle.”

With “respect to Syria,” said the president, the notion that arming the rebels would have made a difference has “always been a fantasy. This idea that we could provide some light arms or even more sophisticated arms to what was essentially an opposition made up of former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth, and that they were going to be able to battle not only a well-armed state but also a well-armed state backed by Russia, backed by Iran, a battle-hardened Hezbollah, that was never in the cards.”
 
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Was Syria Bait?

Vladimir Putin - World Economic Forum Annual Meeting Davos 2009 (Photo credit: World Economic Forum)

Barack Obama: An American Portrait (Photo credit: tsevis)

Barack Obama showed flashes of political genius in his first speech that introduced him to America, at the Kerry Convention. He showed flashes of genius on the campaign trail. He showed flashes of genius in his first few years in office. Nailing health care reform after 50 years of trial and error, Wall Street reform. Getting Bin Laden was a flash of genius.

Immigration reform is in a ditch, and that is a sore point.

He took the right move on Libya. A dictator was toppled. But I was sore with him on Syria. How could he? How could he stand by?

But by now Syria feels like bait. It pulled Russia in. And by now Putin looks overstretched and brittle. Putin is a dictator. The Russian economy is the size of the Indian economy. It is not that big right now. And it is headed in the wrong direction. As in, India will double and triple in size and Russia will stagnate.

Obama just might topple Putin. Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush -- none of them brought democracy to Russia. Obama might.

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Nitish, Laloo, Mayawati, Mulayam, Mamata, Left Coming Together

It is precisely the spectacular victory of the Modi-led BJP that has prepared grounds for the coming together of forces that did not see eye to eye for a long time, such is the emergent political arithmetic. Nitish and Laloo will come together in Bihar. Congress and the Left will join that bandwagon. Mayawati and Mulayam show no signs of seeing the writing on the wall. Mamata is strong on her own, but is observant of the fact that the BJP has displaced the Left as the principle local opposition.

Uttar Pradesh might be the trickiest. Right now the BJP is positioned to form the next state government. But the Bihar state elections will be held before the Uttar Pradesh state elections. And so UP has more time on its hands.

Nitish is obviously not finished yet.

Patnaik in Orissa and Jayalalita are already in good shape as it is.

Uttar Pradesh is the trickiest because Mulayam and Mayawati do not have what Nitish does, which is the development mantra. And without the development mantra you can't beat Modi just with alliance making.

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