Your right of course. Neither President Obama or Sec. Hillary Clinton are directly responsible for the creation of ISIL. Though Sec. Clinton like many Democrats and most Republicans are indirectly responsible due to their support of the Bush Administration's push for war in Iraq. But whether it's ISIL or it's slightly less brutal but no less abhorrent cousin Al Qaeda or Al Nusra, both Democrats and Republicans share the blame for supporting short sighted foreign military expeditions that create the futile environments in which these groups thrive. The sad thing is that even astute scholars like yourself seem to give a pass to our leadership when they make bone headed foreign policy decisions like say helping destroy Libya.
OK. But isn't the proliferation of weapons from stockpiles in Libya causing just as much pain, anguish and death in greater northern Africa? (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/09/us-libya-arms-un-idUSBRE93814Y201304) Couldn't one argue that policies pushed by liberal interventionist like Susan Rice and Samantha Powers have resulted (at least in Libya) in spreading, rather than containing, the chaos?
"All Obama did in Libya (quite against his own instincts) was to help level the playing field and prevent a massacre, Homs-style, of Libyan revolutionaries by the Gaddafi regime’s heavy weaponry." An action which all but ensured the fall of Gaddafi's government, thus throwing the country into the chaos we see today. So again, why doesn't the Obama Administration deserve some of the blame?
Your right of course. Neither President Obama or Sec. Hillary Clinton are directly responsible for the creation of ISIL. Though Sec. Clinton like many Democrats and most Republicans are indirectly responsible due to their support of the Bush Administration's push for war in Iraq. But whether it's ISIL or it's slightly less brutal but no less abhorrent cousin Al Qaeda or Al Nusra, both Democrats and Republicans share the blame for supporting short sighted foreign military expeditions that create the futile environments in which these groups thrive. The sad thing is that even astute scholars like yourself seem to give a pass to our leadership when they make bone headed foreign policy decisions like say helping destroy Libya.
There's no profit in introspection.
OK. But isn't the proliferation of weapons from stockpiles in Libya causing just as much pain, anguish and death in greater northern Africa? (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/09/us-libya-arms-un-idUSBRE93814Y201304) Couldn't one argue that policies pushed by liberal interventionist like Susan Rice and Samantha Powers have resulted (at least in Libya) in spreading, rather than containing, the chaos?
"All Obama did in Libya (quite against his own instincts) was to help level the playing field and prevent a massacre, Homs-style, of Libyan revolutionaries by the Gaddafi regime’s heavy weaponry." An action which all but ensured the fall of Gaddafi's government, thus throwing the country into the chaos we see today. So again, why doesn't the Obama Administration deserve some of the blame?