When you play a game of cards, you play the hand that you
are dealt. If you're a sober and rational person, you don't fantasize that lady
luck will be on your side to make you win the game even if you're holding a lousy
hand. In real life, you try to stay out of trouble when you're down on your
luck; and you take chances only if they are small and you see no alternative.
When you have a responsibility to others, you have the duty
to be cautious when making a decision that may affect their well-being or their
lives. If material possession is involved such as an estate or someone's
investment portfolio, we call that a fiduciary duty. You do not “double down”
when you have a lousy hand, and the stakes are high. If you do that, you will
be considered reckless playing with other people's money (OPM) even if you win.
If elected to office, you have the duty to run the public
business the best way you can, but always in accordance with the wishes of your
constituents. There comes a time, however, when the public is so divided on an
issue, you will find yourself in the difficult position of being the final
arbiter that must decide one way or the other. If the public office happens to
be the presidency of the United States of America which carries with it the
duty of commander-in-chief responsible for deciding on matters of war and
peace, you literally hold the lives of people – yours and the enemy's – in the
palm of your hands.
With this in mind, read the article written by Con Coughlin
under the title: “Obama's Ineptitude in the Mideast” and the subtitle: “The
president's fecklessness risks undoing a decade of sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan .” It was published in
the Wall Street Journal on January 10, 2014. When you have done this, decide
for yourself whether Obama has been fickle or that the author, and all those
who think and talk like him, are being irresponsible and reckless.
I know what I think which is that President Obama is wearing
the right prism through which he can see reality as it is. He is thus aware of
the hand he holds; it is one that tells him it would be foolish to double down
under the circumstances in the hope of bluffing the opponent and getting him to
surrender without a fight. And this is because the opponent that Coughlin is
talking about is one who fights on his home turf with volunteer soldiers that
will never run out given that they breed faster than they die. This is also an
opponent for whom the fight costs very little if anything whereas America has a
finite reserve of soldiers and resources to fight with.
Coughlin and those who think of themselves as hawks make one
big mistake that engenders a series of other mistakes. They believe that the
American people are undecided when it comes to their country's continued
involvement in a war that never ends. And so, the hawks call on the President
to play the role of final arbiter by persuading the population it will be good
for America to double down on George W. Bush's war, and get back into the Anbar
Province of Iraq where 1,300 American soldiers backed by a huge army were
killed at the hands of an enemy that was then a fraction of what it is today.
The mistake the hawks make is that they fool themselves into
believing the American people are split in the middle when it comes to the war.
Thus, they fail to see that the people of America
are wearing the same prism their President is wearing, and that they see the
same hand America
is holding.
The people see that going against an enemy – however
loathsome he may be – who nevertheless fights to defend his home and his
family, is an enemy you cannot bluff, and one you cannot defeat. They do not
want their president to play with other people's lives (OPL) because these
other people are their sons and daughters or those of their neighbors.
But guess what, my friend; this is an enemy that can defeat
you however long it may take. And while there is no way to show that such enemy
has been defeated, if you can ever do that – there is a way to show how a
superpower can be defeated by the ragtag army of a primitive country.