Obama's Two-Faced Foreign Policy

That's why once a propaganda theme is developed -- such as blaming Assad for the sarin attack and Russia for the MH-17 shoot-down -- there are no revisions or corrections even when the evidence leads in a different direction. The false narrative must be maintained because it is useful as a Stratcom weapon to discredit and damage an adversary in the eyes of the public.

Even when Obama knows better, he sticks with the Stratcom, too, all the better to beat up "an enemy." Obama may drop the false allegations from future speeches, but he won't retract what he has said before. Note that he has said little or nothing about either the sarin case or the MH-17 incident after initially wielding them as propaganda clubs against Assad and Putin, respectively.

So, instead of telling the whole truth to the American people, Obama just replaces the old attack lines with new ones. Obama's latest comments about the Russians in Syria sounded like premature gloating over the prospect of a Russian "quagmire" in Syria, staking out an early "I-told-you-so" position as if being proved right were more important than resolving the crisis.

But does Obama really want the Russian-backed offensive against Al Qaeda's Nusra Front and the Islamic State to fail and for the terrorists to win?

That outcome might make for a great talking point at the think tanks and on the op-ed pages, but a terrorist victory would be a humanitarian catastrophe for the people of Syria and a strategic disaster for the West, where Europe is already under strain from the flood of Syrian refugees.

One might think that a more mature and responsible approach would be for the United States and the European Union to do all they could to help the Russians succeed -- by cracking down on countries aiding Al Qaeda and the Islamic State and by facilitating serious peace talks between Assad and "moderate" Sunni politicians.

Perhaps the "under-the-table" Obama will move in that direction in the weeks ahead, but the "above-the-table" Obama seems more afraid of committing a social faux pas that will offend Official Washington. He seems to fear that criticism more than he cares about saving lives and bringing peace to Syria.