President Obama … Could Speak Softly and Carry a BIG STICK – By Derek Chollet | Politico

President Obama Is A World Leader That Could Speak Softly and Carry a BIG STICK

President Obama’s Red Line, Revisited

The offhand remark spurred a massive success in Syria. So, why does the foreign policy establishment consider it a failure?

By Derek Chollet | PoliticoOn the last Saturday of August 2013, Labor Day weekend, the United States was once again about to go to war in the Middle East.

Less than two weeks earlier, in the middle of the night on August 21, the Syrian military had attacked rebel-controlled areas of the Damascus suburbs with chemical weapons, killing nearly 1,500 civilians, including more than 400 children. Horrific video footage showing people with twisted bodies sprawled on hospital floors, some twitching and foaming at the mouth after being exposed to sarin gas, had ricocheted around the world. This brazen assault had clearly crossed the “red line” that President Barack Obama had enunciated a year earlier — that if Assad used chemical weapons, it would warrant U.S.A. military action.