With everything happening in the world, it is understandable President Obama got upset at his press conference Monday. Except it wasn’t ISIS or the terrorists in Paris that upset him most. It was, of course, the Republicans, the enemy he seems to hate the most.
In particular, the President was irritated by calls from certain Republicans suggesting that, given at least one of the terrorists involved in the Paris killings may have traveled to Europe on a Syrian passport, perhaps we should just admit Christian refugees from Syria and not Muslim:
“When I hear folks say that, well, maybe we should just admit the Christians but not the Muslims; when I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which a person who’s fleeing from a war-torn country is admitted, when some of those folks themselves come from families who benefitted from protection when they were fleeing political persecution – that’s shameful. That’s not American. That’s not who we are.”
A couple of comments. First, it’s nice to see “no drama Obama” get passionate about something, though it would be nice if, at least once, it could involve getting mad at somebody other than Republicans.
Second, I generally agree with the President that we shouldn’t refuse to admit refugees who are Muslim and that we should admit even more Syrian refugees. What the President fails to understand is how difficult he makes it for people who want to agree with him on this point. Consider what is happening in just the Middle East:
- ISIS, a JV team no longer, controls large parts of Iraq and Syria.
- Refugees are flooding into Europe, fleeing a terrible civil war in Syria.
- Libya is a government-less disaster.
- For the first time in 40+ years, Russia has forces in the Middle East.
- Iran is ascendant in much of the area.
While President Obama has not caused these problems, his policies certainly haven’t prevented them or seemed to do much good about them. While rushing in can result in problems (especially when done without proper preparation and planning for what comes next; see, e.g., Iraq in 2003), not doing enough can result in problems, too.
President Obama came to office, and won the Nobel Peace Prize, as basically the anti-Bush (George W., that is). His policy of “don't do stupid [stuff]” seems to mean merely doing the opposite of George W. Bush. The problem is that hasn’t worked. Just because you would rather do nation building at home, doesn’t mean that the world might not be better off with your leadership abroad.
While the President assures us the refugees will be subject to “rigorous screening and security checks” before being admitted, why should anybody believe him when:
- We can’t stop the Chinese from hacking millions of federal employees’ personnel records.
- We spend tens of millions of dollars training Syrian rebels and get nothing.
- A Secretary of State is allowed to run her own e-mail system with such inadequate security that the Russians, the Chinese, and just about anybody else have probably hacked into it and stolen our information.
- His administration couldn’t get the website ready for his most important program with 4½ years advance notice.
Beyond that, there actually is a legitimate reason to give at least some priority to Christians fleeing ISIS: genocide. In 1994, the Clinton administration wouldn’t call what was happening in Rwanda “genocide.” They wouldn’t do it because calling something “genocide” creates obligations to take action under international law. The Clinton administration didn’t want to do those things, so it wouldn’t call what was happening genocide.
While the Obama administration is reportedly “moving to designate the Islamic State’s murderous attacks on the Yazidi in Iraq an act of ‘genocide,’” it certainly isn’t going to do that for Christians in Iraq and Syria, even though what is happening to Yazidis is also happening to them.
As former Representative Frank Wolf said in September, “actions committed against these groups [i.e., Yazidis, Christians, and other religious minorities] meet every criterion for genocide spelled out in Article II of the 1948 [United Nations] Convention [on Genocide].” But President Obama won’t acknowledge it, and instead saves his greatest scorn for Republicans, instead of those who kill innocent people in Paris and in the Middle East.
If President Obama thinks America should admit Syrian refugees because that is who we are, and I agree with him, it is who we are, then he needs to do more than just give speeches and rip on Republicans at press conferences. He needs to implement policies so Americans feel comfortable doing things they might otherwise worry about. He needs to lead, and get results, so that Americans know his words mean something and that he will actually do what he says he is going to do.
I hope he finally does it this time.
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UPDATE (11/23/15 9:04 pm): Corrected a typo in the third paragraph: changed "made" to mad".
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