Obama’s Nightmare -- Thomas Friedman, New York Times

[longknife]

The scandal engulfing two of our top military and intelligence officers could not be coming at a worse time: the Middle East has never been more unstable and closer to multiple, interconnected explosions. Virtually every American president since Dwight Eisenhower has had a Middle Eastern country that brought him grief. For Ike, it was Lebanon’s civil war and Israel’s Sinai invasion. For Lyndon Johnson, it was the 1967 Six-Day War. For Nixon, it was the 1973 war. For Carter, it was the Iranian Revolution. For Ronald Reagan, it was Lebanon. For George H.W. Bush, it was Iraq. For Bill Clinton, it was Al Qaeda and Afghanistan. For George W. Bush, it was Iraq and Afghanistan. For Barack Obama’s first term, it was Iran and Afghanistan, again. And for Obama’s second term, I fear that it could be the full nightmare — all of them at once. The whole Middle East erupts in one giant sound and light show of civil wars, states collapsing and refugee dislocations, as the keystone of the entire region — Syria — gets pulled asunder and the disorder spills across the neighborhood.

And you were worried about the “fiscal cliff.”

Read more ....http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/opinion/friedman-obamas-nightmare.html?ref=opinion&_r=1&

And this doesn't include the growing wars in Mali, Somalia, and others that he's gonna drag us into.

 

[emilynghiem]

I say, let's issue a challenge to see who can make peace first:
The leaders/members of the Democrats, Republicans, and Independent Third Parties.
Or the Jewish, Christian and Muslim.

I am betting on the LATTER! Why? Because political consensus on govt policies depends on working
from the ground up which takes forever to build collectively toward national unity. Pushing from the top down doesn't work
but causes more division.

With religion/church groups, you choose your affiliation by whose authority you want to follow.
So once those authorities agree and make peace, then all the rest of the tribe follows from there, from the top down.

The real leaders of the Jewish Christian and Muslim are already working together for peace.
The problem is we don't give these people credit or attention in the media, but that can be changed.
By pushing the right people to the forefront who can lead the way, by religious affiliation,
the masses will follow them in turn.

As for political parties, the individual members have a better chance than elected leaders of crossing over party lines, working together to form cohesive sustainable solutions. And then feed these ideas to their respective party leaders. However, that process takes longer to build from the ground up on a stable foundation by agreement forged point by point per policy.

So the religious groups will take less time, if they listen to the right people leading the way.

The party system, by organizing so many diverse political and personal beliefs into
distinct groups, will actually take longer to make peace between them all,
in order to do this right.

The scandal engulfing two of our top military and intelligence officers could not be coming at a worse time: the Middle East has never been more unstable and closer to multiple, interconnected explosions. Virtually every American president since Dwight Eisenhower has had a Middle Eastern country that brought him grief. For Ike, it was Lebanon’s civil war and Israel’s Sinai invasion. For Lyndon Johnson, it was the 1967 Six-Day War. For Nixon, it was the 1973 war. For Carter, it was the Iranian Revolution. For Ronald Reagan, it was Lebanon. For George H.W. Bush, it was Iraq. For Bill Clinton, it was Al Qaeda and Afghanistan. For George W. Bush, it was Iraq and Afghanistan. For Barack Obama’s first term, it was Iran and Afghanistan, again. And for Obama’s second term, I fear that it could be the full nightmare — all of them at once. The whole Middle East erupts in one giant sound and light show of civil wars, states collapsing and refugee dislocations, as the keystone of the entire region — Syria — gets pulled asunder and the disorder spills across the neighborhood.

And you were worried about the “fiscal cliff.”

Read more ....http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/opinion/friedman-obamas-nightmare.html?ref=opinion&_r=1&

And this doesn't include the growing wars in Mali, Somalia, and others that he's gonna drag us into.