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With the evolving crisis in Crimea and Russian intervention the question being asked is how will the United States respond?  Beyond what steps the administration takes during this crisis, the question we need to be asking ourselves is why did we not see this coming?

The National Security Council deals with a host of compelling challenges requiring actions by the president, but in the past few years we have seen the administration drift from crisis to crisis.

When the president does act it seems he reacts to foreign policy crisis’s, and is never proactive or has any contingency plans for any area of the world.

The “Arab Spring” caught the national security and the administration completely by surprise, and when the administration did respond, if offered confusing and contradictory statements and policies to the situation in the Middle East.

In Syria, inaction by the administration has had a profound effect across the region, with many of our allies wondering and perplexed by the inaction emanating from Washington.

At first the President stated in 2011, “The future of Syria must be determined by its people, but President Bashar al-Assad is standing in their way.” He continued, “For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside.”     

The president backed the United States into a corner with his ill-fated statements then compounded the problem by stating in August 2012, “We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is when we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus,” Obama said. “That would change my equation. . . . We’re monitoring that situation very carefully. We have put together a range of contingency plans.”

When chemical weapons were used by Syria, the presidents vacillate, allowing Russian president, Vladimir Putin to dictate terms favorable to President Bashar al-Assad.

Now with a mounting humanitarian crisis in Syria coupled with rising Islamic extremism, which many Middle Eastern experts have warned against since 2011; has made the situation more complicated.

Even the situation in Venezuela, which has been overshadowed by events in Syria and now the Ukraine, the president and his foreign policy team have been perplexed on how to respond.

No one is articulating or contemplating military action in any of these regions, but what we are asking is there any contingency plans or anything relating to a coherent foreign policy strategy by the president?

This is not a partisan attack on the administration but the president has to realize he is the leader of the free world and begin to realize his inaction has consequences.

Friday’s action by Russia in sending military forces into the Crimea, had the president issuing a warning, “any violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity would be deeply destabilizing.”

At first he had Vice President Joseph Biden call Putin, while the president went off to a Democratic campaign rally, hardly signaling the seriousness of the crisis.  It wasn’t until Saturday that the president actually called Putin directly.

This situation has been developing since November of last year and it’s unfathomable that the U.S. had been caught flat footed in its response.  We should not have had to react to the situation, contingency planning should have been developed on how the United States would respond and what action would be taken.

This just continues to reaffirm to the world the U.S. is simply a paper tiger incapable of strategic thought or action.             

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