Recognizing Neocon Failure Shows Obama Has Come To
His Senses
By Paul Craig Roberts
October 12, 2015 "Information
Clearing House" - Tyler Durden of Zero
Hedge and others are misinterpreting Steve Kroft’s “60 Minutes”
interview with President Obama. They see weakness and confusion in
Obama’s responses and conclude that Kroft shredded Obama.
What I see is entirely different. Steve Kroft is
either a neoconservative or he is inculcated into the neocon
mind-set that the US must prevail everywhere. Kroft’s view is that
weakness and indecision on Obama’s part is the reason the US is not
prevailing in Syria. Kroft’s purpose is to embarrass Obama and push
him into escalating the situation.
However, Obama is too strong for him. I read the
interview as Obama saying that the neocon program has turned out not
to be in America’s national interest. At the end of the Syria
section of the interview, Obama says: “If in fact the only measure
[of US strength] is for us to send another 100,000 or 200,000 troops
into Syria or back into Iraq or perhaps into Libya, or perhaps into
Yemen, and our goal somehow is that we are now going to be, not just
the police, but the governors of this region, that would be a bad
strategy. If we make that mistake again, then shame on us.”
The interview shows me Obama’s strength in
recognizing and stating the failure of the neocon program to which
his administration was hitched by policymakers in the government.
There is hope in this demonstration of strength that in his final
year as President he will pull back from the crazed, insane
neoconservative agenda of US world hegemony.
Those who dislike Obama, and those inculcated by
years of propaganda into the neocon view that America must always
and everywhere prevail, will see what they want to see. They will
not see the hope.
To prevent the neocon policymakers and the neocon
press from squashing this hope, we must do what we can to support
Obama. It is the neocon policy that has failed. In recognizing this
failure, Obama is trying to take America off the neocon road to
failure and more war. This is a very lonely and dangerous position
for Obama to take in Washington.
Here is the part of the interview that is about Syria:
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was
Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and
associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for
Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate.
He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have
attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books are
The Failure of Laissez
Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West
and
How America Was Lost
