NEW YORK TIMES: …“I was not here in the run-up to Iraq in 2003,” he told a group of visitors who met with him in the White House before histelevised speech to the nation, according to several people who were in the meeting. “It would have been fascinating to see the momentum and how it builds.”
In his own way, Mr. Obama said, he had seen something similar, a virtual fever rising in Washington, pressuring him to send the armed forces after the Sunni radicals who had swept through Iraq and beheaded American journalists. He had told his staff, he said, not to evaluate their own policy based on external momentum. He would not rush to war. He would be deliberate.
“But I’m aware I pay a political price for that,” he said… (more)
EDITOR: Here we see President Barack Obama’s toughness and greatness, reminiscent of John Adams who refused to be pressured into war against France. What others accuse as being indecisiveness is in fact reflection and leadership.
Message for future presidents: ‘If you want to be popular, become a movie star.’
