Rather than defend or explain these policy failures, the president chose instead to attack critics, real and imaginary. He challenged “critics who think military intervention is the only way for America to avoid looking weak,” though no one actually thinks this. He rejected as “naïve and unsustainable” any “strategy that involves invading every country that harbors terrorist networks” despite the fact that there are no advocates for such a strategy.
My sympathy for the president is directly related to how long it has been since I heard him speak on an issue. The longer the time, the more I sympathize.
The dishonestly of his defense of refusing to take significant actions is astounding.
But I want to focus on that "invading" part. Just who does he mean?
He can't mean Afghanistan. That's the "good" and "necessary" war. Or it was the good war, in any case. But I called that, too.
So what country did we invade because it harbors terrorist networks?
It can't be Libya. Not only wasn't it an "invasion," but the administration denied it was even a "war".
Pakistan? No. The president (rightly) celebrates the raid that killed Osama bin laden, and that was part of his boast of defeating al Qaeda Prime in Afghanistan.
So what other invasion was there?
Oh yeah, Iraq. The "bad" war of "choice" that had nothing to do with the war on terror.
Now wait, I'm not saying that Saddam supported the 9/11 attack. It's like a Left-wing "dog whistle" response whenever terrorism and Iraq are mentioned in the same paragraph. There is no evidence of direct Saddam-bin Laden cooperation.
Although Saddam's people had contact with al Qaeda's people as they interacted in the international terrorist community; and Saddam did host al Qaeda elements after Operation Enduring Freedom; and Saddam did host and train other terrorists and otherwised support terrorists in other countries; and Saddam most certainly created his own jihadi foreign legion called Saddam's Fedayeen to help keep the Shias down (we killed them in large numbers during the invasion); there was no direct link regarding the attack.
I wouldn't have been shocked if such a link had turned up, but such evidence never did surface. And I never asserted such a link. Neither did the Bush administration, for that matter. But that's what the Left always heard.
Anyway. Let's revel in President Obama's admission that the invasion of Iraq was an attempt to solve a problem of a country that "harbors terrorist networks."
