Israel Matzav

Who's da' Boss?

It's important to try to defeat Chuck Hagel and John Brennan's nomination, but at the end of the day, I'm not convinced it matters. One person makes all the decisions in the White House (okay, maybe Michelle has a say too), so it doesn't really matter who is else is in charge. Case in point: The Syrian rebels.

In congressional testimony on Thursday, US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, who is retiring, and General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, both said they supported a plan last year by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and then-CIA Director David Petraeus to provide weapons to the rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Their comments before the Senate Armed Services Committee came in response to a question from Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, who has been a leading critic of the Obama administration for failing to do more to help the Syrian rebels who are heavily outgunned by Assad’s forces.

Their response to McCain’s question about whether they supported the Clinton-Petraeus plan was direct and terse.

“We do,” said Panetta. “We did,” said Dempsey.

That means the White House was presented with unified support for sending arms by the top members of Obama’s national security team outside the White House staff.

Asked about disagreement over whether to arm the rebels, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters at a briefing today that she won’t comment on “internal policy discussions.”

Administration officials, such as Nuland, have said that the US assistance to the Syrians is limited to humanitarian aid and non-lethal equipment for the rebels, while some other nations may be providing weapons.

The point of this post isn't to determine whether or not the US should arm the Syrian rebels. I have my doubts on that question as well, mainly because I don't believe it's possible to arm the rebels without arming al-Qaeda and other Islamists.

The point of this post is to tell you that - unsurprisingly given the size of his ego - there is only one decision maker in the White House and his middle name is Hussein. Oh - and he's not an expert in anything military or anything involving US national security. And he loves Muslims.

What could go wrong?

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, David Petraeus, Free Syrian Army, Hillary Clinton, Leon Panetta, Martin Dempsey, National Security, US foreign policy

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:33 PM