海角大神

In my years of punditry 鈥� or, rather, sophisticated application of political science to presidential politics 鈥� it has been rare for a president to both confirm my take on his previous actions and to follow my advice on what to do next within hours of my post on the topic. (Please, hold the hate mail 鈥� I鈥檓 not suggesting he actually read the post!) But we just saw both occur in the president鈥檚 recently completed press conference, during which he acknowledged that, as yet, his administration has not settled on a policy for dealing with the Islamic State (IS), much as I suggested was the case in my earlier post.

Of course, the president鈥檚 candid confession set off the predictable barrage of criticism on the Twitterverse with comments like this:

鈥淲hat on earth are we waiting for?鈥�

鈥淐lint Eastwood鈥檚 empty chair would have a better strategy to deal with ISIS than Barack Obama.鈥�

鈥淚f I have this right, we鈥檒l be taking unspecified action following an unformulated strategy leading a nonexistent coalition.鈥�

As I suggested in my post earlier today, however, it is no surprise that the Obama administration is struggling to formulate a response to IS 鈥� this is precisely the type of foreign policy problem that is most difficult to address because it is not immediately clear whether the nature of the IS threat affects US national interests to the degree that warrants a more comprehensive military response, particularly one that may put us on the same side as a dictator we have been trying to remove for some time now. Once again, Obama鈥檚 initial response seems dictated by a desire 鈥渘ot to do stupid stuff鈥� 鈥� at least, not immediately, and not before he can get Congress involved in the formulation of a response. And while the twits in the Twitterverse panned him for acknowledging that he has no 鈥渙rganizing principle鈥� that would immediately dictate how to respond to IS, my point in my earlier post is that he needed to explain why this was the case, and why deciding what to do was so difficult. Today鈥檚 conference was evidently a first step in doing so.

Did he succeed? One of the difficulties any president faces in trying to explain his actions is that his is not the only voice that will be heard. Heading into a midterm election, Republicans are sure to pounce on Obama鈥檚 candid statement that his administration is still formulating a strategy as evidence that his foreign policy is reactive and lacks guiding principles. It will be interesting to see how the media reports on what are sure to be dueling narratives, and what the public reaction to these narratives is. This much is certain: Almost every media report will lead with some version of the president鈥檚 statement that his administration does not yet have a strategy for dealing with IS.聽 Whether they will provide some context for this statement, however, remains to be seen.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE 5:50 p.m.: Since I know lots of you don鈥檛 follow Twitter, I thought I鈥檇 give you a representative sample of the reaction Obama鈥檚 admission is getting. Needless to say, heads are exploding and, as far as I can tell, they are exploding on the left as much as on the right.

鈥淚鈥檓 baffled. What possesses a president to acknowledge he doesn鈥檛 have a strategy against a threat he鈥檚 fighting?聽 Answer: Lameduck.鈥�

鈥淛ust to point out the obvious, ISIS in its various iterations is at least a decade old. But glad we are still working on the strategy thing.鈥�

Matthew Dickinson publishes his Presidential Power blog at http://sites.middlebury.edu/presidentialpower/.