{"id":1493,"date":"2016-06-19T19:27:55","date_gmt":"2016-06-19T19:27:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/?p=1493"},"modified":"2016-06-19T19:27:55","modified_gmt":"2016-06-19T19:27:55","slug":"syrian-problem-not-lack-american-will","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/06\/syrian-problem-not-lack-american-will.html","title":{"rendered":"Syrian problem is not a lack of American will"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Syrian<\/a><\/p>\n

Immanuel Wallerstein asserted in a recent post\u00a0that\u00a0the gap\u00a0between American power\u00a0and political rhetoric is growing. This can be related to the the Syrian problem at the heart of current US foreign policy.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The US is no longer the dominant power in the world.\u00a0However, it\u00a0refuses to accept this, International Relations expert Wallerstein\u00a0wrote at the start of June<\/a>.<\/p>\n

All US presidential candidates accept that the US is in decline, as Wallerstein points out. By looking back to bygone eras in their campaign rhetoric, they acknowledge US power has become a shadow of what it once was. However, they\u00a0ascribe this failure to a lack of willpower by President Obama. Rather than superpower decline,\u00a0typical\u00a0of history.<\/p>\n

The Syrian problem as a test of American limits<\/h3>\n

Disaster is\u00a0closer than you think. It will happen if the US resorts to even greater\u00a0force to solve its\u00a0Syrian problem. \u00a0Many current State Department officials have now recently pleaded in a memo for Obama to attack the Syrian government. Hillary Clinton holds the same belief the Syrian government should be attacked. Not ISIS, but the Syrian government, which has been pushing back ISIS fiercely in recent battles<\/a>. The US government sees the Syrian government (“regime”) as the Syrian problem, more so than ISIS, due to its defiance and its close ties with Russia.<\/p>\n

But on\u00a0almost the same day the memo hit the headlines,\u00a0the Russian Defense Minister toured\u00a0the latest Russian anti-aircraft missiles based in Syria. Maybe it’s\u00a0a message to those war hawks that they’ll get shot down in flames.<\/p>\n

Aggressive US\u00a0diplomats are\u00a0blind to the web of traps set by Russia in Syria, because these hawks\u00a0are so convinced of the importance of wills rather than the facts in the way of their ambitions. These are not the usual traps US soldiers have been harmed\u00a0by, either. These traps are fully flanked\u00a0by the resources of a vast\u00a0nation with\u00a0long-range radar covering the entire Mediterranean. There are Russian satellites in orbit, missile cruisers on the sea, and nuclear submarines under the sea near Syria. And don’t forget the\u00a0cruise\u00a0missiles capable of crossing vast distances to devastate US bases and airfields if Russia decides to return fire. Forget all that. To US\u00a0diplomats and politicians, America is invincible. It’s only problem is Obama’s lack of will.<\/p>\n

To crazed warmongers\u00a0like Clinton<\/a>, the US can do anything, so your\u00a0suggestion\u00a0the US might\u00a0lose a battle or\u00a0fail to conquer\u00a0the world\u00a0under her leadership would be\u00a0high treason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Immanuel Wallerstein asserted in a recent post\u00a0that\u00a0the gap\u00a0between American power\u00a0and political rhetoric is growing. This can be related to the the Syrian problem at the heart of current US foreign policy. The US is no longer the dominant power in the world.\u00a0However, it\u00a0refuses to accept this, International Relations expert Wallerstein\u00a0wrote at the start of June.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":577,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[1329,1353,236,78,289,25,229,1501,73,1481,360],"class_list":["post-1493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-2","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-history","tag-immanuel-wallerstein","tag-isis","tag-obama","tag-politics","tag-russia","tag-state-department","tag-syria","tag-us","tag-us-government"],"yoast_head":"\nSyrian problem is not a lack of American will - L'Ordre<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Presidential candidates and now diplomats have come out against Obama's apparent lack of will in solving the Syrian problem. 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Bentham","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/06\/syrian-problem-not-lack-american-will.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/06\/syrian-problem-not-lack-american-will.html","name":"Syrian problem is not a lack of American will - L'Ordre","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/06\/syrian-problem-not-lack-american-will.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/06\/syrian-problem-not-lack-american-will.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/files\/2016\/06\/Politics-300x300.jpg","datePublished":"2016-06-19T19:27:55+00:00","dateModified":"2016-06-19T19:27:55+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/#\/schema\/person\/576f5919c442d93e18909ed47628846e"},"description":"Presidential candidates and now diplomats have come out against Obama's apparent lack of will in solving the Syrian problem. 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Bentham","description":"Harry J. Bentham is a British futurist blogger who has been a contributor at a number of think tanks including the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies since 2013. His work at Press TV and the L'Ordre blog featured at the multi-faith Beliefnet website has gained increasing attention and praise, including in the international media. Commentaries on political and ethical controversies by Bentham have been published at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, H+ Magazine, Dissident Voice and numerous other publications. He edits The clubof.info Blog (http:\/\/www.clubof.info\/search\/label\/Harry_J_Bentham).","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Harry-J.-Bentham\/e\/B00D4MSEY0\/"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/author\/hbentham"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/577"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1493"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1510,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1493\/revisions\/1510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}