Happy #Benghazi! Day

++Since high-school graduates won't remember much of the real 9-11,they can always remember Benghazi and the House next week will start their star chamber on that tragedy after countless review boards,Senate and House committee hearings. One of the Republican members of this non partial hearing says "the enemy is at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue."

++Meanwhile the President gave his nationally televised ISIS talk. It was very short and succinct. What bothers some people is that the President cast the ISIS problem as part of his counter-terrorism strategy and not as a declaration of war. I thought the speech dealt with the issue as best it could. 

++There are a few problems with President Obama's strategy. l. Yes, it would be good of the Iraqi government were inclusive and gave confidence to its ethnic and religious minorities, particularly to the Sunni population, which has been having its own Arab Spring for the past three years only to face enormous our repression. If we couldn't engineer such a government after all these years,there is no reason to believe we can now. What one USAID official told me when I was in Iraq was that "we created one of the most corrupt governments in the Middle East." It is unlikely to change anytime soon.
2. The unicorn of the moderate Syrians will be given priority even though evidence has shown that they sold their arms which we gave to them to Al Qaeda.
3. At some point, President Obama is going to have to admit that we are coordinating our actions on the ground with Iran and the Iran-backed militias in Iraq.
4. Going for a twofer--destroying ISIS and toppling the Assad regime--will be difficult to pull off.

++Yes, there really is a broad coalition against ISIS. But what they will do remains to be seen. Unlike W's Iraq War, we have the cooperation of France,Germany and Turkey. The Arab League unanimously supports the policy. The Saudis have agreed to allow the US to train the Syrian "moderates". Britain will not fly airstrikes in Syria. Turkey,once again, will not allow its territory to be used to launch airstrikes. 

++President Obama cited the examples of Yemen and Somalia as successes of his counter-terrorism policies. In terms of body count, he is right but not in terms of any political stability. The two examples should dramatize how President Obama thinks about the actions he has and will take. His administration has been concerned about two basic things: non-proliferation of nuclear arms; and terrorism. 

++Jonah Goldberg has a piece in the Atlantic which showcases that President Obama is the greatest terrorist hunter in our history and that one of his greatest achievements in the Middle East was the elimination of Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles, which have been destroyed. Goldberg points out what amazing problems we would face if that had not been achieved.

++On the domestic front, President Obama faces the issue of whether he has to seek approval for his actions from Congress. Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell as well as many Democrats have insisted he must. Harold Koh, the former counsel for the State Department, has argued he must secure permission from the UN Security Council.

++Studiously absent from his speech was the word Israel. Others have pointed out that President Obama left out details from his strategy because he did not want to upset the discussions Secretary of State John Kerry was having with the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia.

++I expect that the Republicans will get their opposition into gear in the next week. 

++Neo-con Eliot Cohen writing in the Imperial Post asked the reader "Do you feel safer today than you did on 9-11?" My answer is absolutely yes because we have an alert, reasonable and practical Commander-in-Chief.