US President Barack Obama mounted a defiant defense of his global leadership on Wednesday, rebuking critics who see him as weak but warning that not every global threat justifies a US military response.
In a major speech at the West Point military academy, Obama denied US power had ebbed under his watch, after he withdrew troops from Iraq and as he does the same in Afghanistan.
He also pledged to ramp up support for Syrian rebels, vowed to stand up to Russia over Ukraine and promised to make drone strikes against terror suspects more transparent.
He vowed to hold China accountable to international “rules of the road” in the South China Sea and elsewhere.
“To say that we have an interest in pursuing peace and freedom beyond our borders is not to say that every problem has a military solution,” Obama said.
“Since World War II, some of our most costly mistakes came not from our restraint, but from our willingness to rush into military adventures – without thinking through the consequences,” Obama said, in an apparent reference to the Iraq war, which he has branded a disaster.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 29th, 2014.
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Hah fat chance of that , WAR is the usa 's main export. It's america's lifeblood. It could not survive without spreading conflict around the world every now and then.