Barack Obama action may put to rest for now comparison with Jimmy Carter
By authorising the use of military force for the first time outside the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan that he inherited, President Obama may hope that he has shut some of his critics up. For the moment, at least.
The sight of four pirates in a lifeboat holding off an $800-million warship and the world’s last superpower was not, after all, the image the White House wishes to project.
Mr Obama’s own silence on the subject last week, ducking questions about whether he would rescue Captain Phillips, suggested a degree of indecision or weakness that stood in marked contrast to the swift — if bloody — action taken by France.
Opponents who have always seen his presidency as a throwback to that of Jimmy Carter rather than John Kennedy, were lining up to compare the scenes in the Gulf of Aden to the Iranian hostage crisis 30 years before.
Read entire article at Times (UK)
The sight of four pirates in a lifeboat holding off an $800-million warship and the world’s last superpower was not, after all, the image the White House wishes to project.
Mr Obama’s own silence on the subject last week, ducking questions about whether he would rescue Captain Phillips, suggested a degree of indecision or weakness that stood in marked contrast to the swift — if bloody — action taken by France.
Opponents who have always seen his presidency as a throwback to that of Jimmy Carter rather than John Kennedy, were lining up to compare the scenes in the Gulf of Aden to the Iranian hostage crisis 30 years before.