„The Romans had a word for it: principiis obsta, meaning ‚resist the beginnings‘ to avoid an unpleasant end. Syria is a perfect case study. Obama drew his vaunted ‚red line‘ over the use of chemical weapons in Syria before Bashar al-Assad massacred civilians with sarin, a nerve gas, in 2013. But instead of making true on the threat of an American military response, Obama pulled back and invited the Russians in, never mind that Henry Kissinger had essentially kicked them out of the Middle East in the 1970s – pushing them out of Egypt, Russia’s main stronghold in the region, by bringing then-President Anwar al-Sadat into the American camp. Mr. Putin was delighted to oblige Mr. Obama, and there went 40 years of American primacy in the world’s most critical arena.
Today, the Russians are back in force, posing a deadly risk to anybody who would dislodge them from the Levant. Today, Assad’s army is on a roll; millions of refugees have flooded into neighboring lands and into Europe. …Who has comparable weight to America’s today? Russia, Iran, and China. Reaching out to them reflects another misreading of reality on Obama’s part. For they are not cohorts, but hard-core rivals who have been emboldened by America’s retraction. … If Obama were indeed a realist, he would appreciate such simple insights into the nature of men and nations. Not to put too fine a point on it: He is not a realist, but an isolationist with drones and special-operations forces.“ (Der Herausgeber der deutschen wocehnzeitung Die Zeit Josef Joffe in der US-amerikanischen Zeitschrift The Atlantic: „Obama Is Not a Realist. He’s an isolationist with drones and special-operations forces“)
