Obama Rejects Candidates' Ideas For Solving Crisis In Syria

[Purveyor]

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

Oct 3, 2:13 PM EDT
JULIE PACE
AP WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama is accusing White House hopefuls of concocting "half-baked" ideas for solving the crisis in Syria, appearing to even dismiss his former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's call for a no-fly zone before later clarifying his view of the Democratic front-runner.

The idea of a no-fly zone - a region of Syria that the United States would protect from bombing to create a safe corridor for refugees - has emerged as a favorite option for Democratic and Republican candidates. It's a plan that allows them to stake out a more aggressive military posture than Obama, while stopping short of the kind of large-scale combat troop deployments the U.S. engaged in for years in Iraq and Afghanistan - and of which voters have wearied.

Obama, who opposes such a move, said Friday that he'd like critics of his Syria policies to be asked, "Specifically, precisely, what exactly would you do?" He told a White House news conference, "Typically, what you get is a bunch of mumbo jumbo."

Pressed about whether his comments were directed at Clinton, Obama said he didn't think her approach to international issues was "half-baked." But he pointedly added, "There's a difference between running for president and being president."

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-rejects-candidates-ideas-solving-crisis-syria-070933841--election.html

[geek tragedy]

1. Unless it's Bernie, his successor will be a big step backwards. nt

[virtualobserver]

2. she made a tactical error

Obama was nice about it

[jfern]

3. Hillary can't help but be a warmonger

[sabrina 1]

8. Or ending up on the same side as Repubs.

[Geronimoe]

4. Hillary's half baked plan of drawing a line in the sand

When Putin crosses the line, and we all know he will, then what?

Just like Iraq, she panders instead of considering costs and consequences.

[trillion]

11. Most people don't remember it but I remember the last year of her tenure as secretary of state, she

kept trying to sell us on a war with Iran.

[elleng]

5. "There's a difference between running for president and being president."

Sure is.

And Martin O'Malley says: "Let me say this, there is a big difference between the saying and the doing."

[Comrade Grumpy]

6. I'm not a big fan of Obama's Syria policy, but it could be much worse.

He let the CIA do one of their cowboy operations training and equipping Syrian insurgents, and then supplanted that with the fiasco of the open training program just cancelled.

He let the Saudi-Qatari-UAE monarchies and Turkey get away with turning heavy-handed repression of protest movements into a civil war that has destroyed the country. Civil wars don't happen just because people are unhappy; they happen when somebody pays for them. In this case, foreign interlopers, including us.

On the other hand, he walked away from bombing Syria in 2013 and got the destruction of chemical weapons in return.

And he isn't being pushed into worse-than-stupid ideas like the no-fly zone.

I kinda feel sorry for the guy. He got stuck with two intractable messes in Afghanistan and Iraq, and he, and we, are still digging our way out.

[JDPriestly]

7. Bernie is the exception. He agrees with the president on no to a no-fly-zone in Syria.

Our policy in Iraq, Libya and Syria has gotten us into big trouble. And Hillary was in charge when that policy to destabilize the area even more than we had to was crafted.

And Hillary voted for the Iraq War that started the whole thing.

[lsewpershad]

9. That's right Mr President

Running and being two very different things.

[trillion]

10. Thank you Mr. President. You have been the voice of reason this term.