Ha! If only the sheep here (in the US, not TBN - although there are quite a few here too) could see things as well as you!
The problem didnt start with Obama, although his lack of action on things that matter, and focus on leaving a legacy, didnt improve things either. It started with Bush going into a prestige war for false reasons, draining huge amounts of resources away from the economy, whilst lowering taxes thereby pushing national debt to record heights. (Thats how Reagan got the USSR to collapse: make them go mad on military spending in an arms race, so that the USSR had to postpone investments in domestic technology and infrastructure needed to sustain an economy, untill their economy halted to a near standstill) Apart from economics, the Iraq war created a disastrous instability in the middle east, creating breeding nests for terrorists. In fact any US military involvement in the middle east will see an increase in support for terrorist groups in Islamic countries. Even oppressed minorities dont allways see you as liberators, because when you give the populace freedom, the majority will start oppressing the minorities, whilst at least the dictators created some protection by oppressing all people equally. Their culture lacks normative backing for democracy. Modern democracies required 500 years to get to the cultural change from a feudal system to a democratic system. Were you surprised that these people stopped cheering for democracy when they realised that their newly celebrated freedom ends where another ones freedom begins, and that it takes tolerance to make a democracy work ? That was all new to them, though it comes natural to us, citizens of the Western world with these cultural underpinnings deeply embedded into our culture after 500 years of progress towards democracy. Although, lets just realise that the US has womens voting rights for just 94 years, and gave de-facto voting rights to blacks in 1965... Democracy is, and allways will be, a work-in-progress... And the Pentagon thought Democracy was going to be a plug-and-play installation in the Middle east...
There is a reason dictators thrive in the middle east: the population is too divided to unite against a dictator, their very culture despises democracy as another neo-colonialist idea the Western world imposes on them (unless you are a minority that sees it as a chance to get a say) and therefor "majority rule" has a whole different meaning in Arab culture. Diplomatical and intelligence backing of the Arab Spring by the Obama administration (notably Hillary Clinton as secretary of state) has worsened the instability and spread the instability to other countries.
Another fact about the middle east is that country borders were made up in the post colonial era, by two diplomats Sykes (UK) and Picot (France) who simply drew a line and gave the land to some Shahs from the Arabic peninsula, as a reward for their WW1 efforts against the Ottoman empire (nowadays Turkey), regardless of the people who lived there. In Iraq the British backed king was overthrown in 1958, in Syria the king was overthrown in 1961 followed by another coup in 1966, and in Iran the shah was overthrown in 1979. Ony the king of Jordan is still in the position the British and French gave his grandfather.
Sykes–Picot Agreement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This very agreement between occupying countries with conflicting promises to various rulers and people (Western involvement there) is the root cause of the civil war in Iraq and Syria, as well as the Palestinion-Israeli conflict. So, any state getting involved in the Middle east, is part of the problem.... They wont accept "our" borders, thats the root of the issue...
If only American foreign policists knew their history....
...Well maybe Obama had that right then... Pull out of Iraq.. Whether he did it because it was politically expedient, or because he understood the long term ramifications of military presence in the Middle East, we will not know the truth...
The political establishment from both parties have made huge errors, and since you guys have to choose between prolonging the status quo of inaction at home and failed foreign policies whilst sitting on a time bomb of foreign debt with Hillary, or taking an equal risk by letting Trump hack the dead meat, i really dont envy the choice you face with this presidential election....
As you see, i am non-partisan. I am just too aware of the significance of this election on the world economy, if the National Debt bubble collapses due to recession in China (the US biggest debt owner), the effect will be far worse than the 2008 collapse of the housing bubble, which will affect me too, here in the Netherlands.
Next to that, we have our own problems in Europe with the South not recovering from the Eurocrisis because their vastly different economic structures and policies are tied to the same monetary unit (Euro) as the Northern, so that a devaluation of national currency can not relieve the Southern countries Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain (P.I.G.S.
). The unelected EU cronies are still in denial, which will lead to their eventual demise... Do you see both the US and EU citizens are in the same boat ??
The next 10 years are going into the history books as the years that lead to geopolitical changes, both in the USA as well as in the EU and the Middle East. I hold my breath....
Please forgive me my political lecture, but i know your media is too busy with sh*t slinging and wont tell you the depths behind the news...
