"No Ground Troops to Syria:" Obama's Smartest Move in Eight Years?

By the way, Obama snapped about halfway through the Q&A mainly because he just got frustrated with the tedious repetition of the same question. By the time he got to Jim Acosta he blurted out angrily: "I just spent the last three questions answering that very question, so I don't know what more you want me to add."

But don't kid yourself, Obama knows what's going on. He knows the bigwig media owners who sit on the same board of directors with the big weapons manufacturers, the Wall Street bankers and other honchos in the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) want another war. That's what it's all about. That's why they have trained all their cameras on Paris to make sure that every wailing woman, every candle-lit vigil, and every bloody victim is filmed up-close-and-personal to maximize the emotional impact and help generate momentum for another US-led massacre in the Middle East.

But Obama's not going to go that route. He's not going to expand the war. Not because he's opposed to violence or squeamish about killing innocent people. Heck no, that has nothing to do with it. Here's the reason he gave at the press conference:

PRESIDENT OBAMA: "Well, keep in mind what we have been doing. We have a military strategy that is putting enormous pressure on ISIL through airstrikes; that has put assistance and training on the ground with Iraqi forces; we're now working with Syrian forces as well to squeeze ISIL, cut off their supply lines. We've been coordinating internationally to reduce their financing capabilities, the oil that they're trying to ship outside. We are taking strikes against high-value targets -- including, most recently, against the individual who was on the video executing civilians who had already been captured, as well as the head of ISIL in Libya".(So) Even as we grieve with our French friends, we can't lose sight that there has been progress being made."

"Progress"? A four and a half year stalemate followed by a Russian-led military campaign that has rolled back all the gains the "US-backed" jihadis made in their effort to topple Assad? Obama calls that progress?

Let's be blunt: US policy in Syria has gone off a cliff. It's a complete and utter disaster. Obama knows that. He's just making lame excuses. Here's more:

PRESIDENT OBAMA: "...there have been a few who suggested that we should put large numbers of U.S. troops on the ground. And keep in mind that we have the finest military in the world and we have the finest military minds in the world, and I've been meeting with them intensively for years now, discussing these various options, and it is not just my view but the view of my closest military and civilian advisors that that would be a mistake -- not because our military could not march into Mosul or Raqqa or Ramadi and temporarily clear out ISIL, but because we would see a repetition of what we've seen before, which is, if you do not have local populations that are committed to inclusive governance and who are pushing back against ideological extremes, that they resurface -- unless we're prepared to have a permanent occupation of these countries.

"And let's assume that we were to send 50,000 troops into Syria. What happens when there's a terrorist attack generated from Yemen? Do we then send more troops into there? Or Libya, perhaps? Or if there's a terrorist network that's operating anywhere else -- in North Africa, or in Southeast Asia?"

Okay, so now we're getting closer to the truth. Obama and his top advisors have looked at this mess from all sides and figured out that it's a hopeless cause, so they're not going to send US troops to die for nothing. Good. At least, that makes sense.

But even THAT isn't the whole truth. The whole truth is that Obama and crew are worried about Russia. Sure, the politicians do a lot chest thumping and saber rattling in their op-eds or when they're bloviating in front of a TV camera. But this is the real deal. Syria is not make-believe. It's a war, and it's a war Russia intends to win. And if the US gets in Russia's way, by setting up a safe zone within Syria's sovereign borders or doing something else stupid like that, there's going to be trouble.

Obama knows this because he's a reasonable man; immoral, but reasonable. He's not a hothead like John McCain or a foam-at-the-mouth basketcase like Hillary Clinton. Obama is cut in the mold of James Baker, a dyed-in-the-wool imperialist who understood the parameters of imperial power. There are limits to power and a wise man will acknowledge those limits and act accordingly. That's what Obama is doing. He's decided that the rewards are just not worth the risks, so he's cutting his losses and backing down. That doesn't mean Washington's plan for Syria has been abandoned, it just means that Obama wants to run out his time in office without dragging the country into another pointless bloodbath.

If you ask me, it's the smartest move he's made in eight years.