Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveZ
As a progressive neanderthal, my criteria for a successful Obama presidency would be:
1. End of the Iraq War, with an Iraqi government in place that actually believes in human rights for Sunni, Shi'ite, Kurd, Christian, Jew, Druid and whomever/whatever else lives in that geography. Anything less is failure.
2. End of the Afghani War - with the same points as above.
3. Elimination of al-Qa'ida and its subordinate and satellite entities from this planet, in that they no longer present a threat to the Western world. Anything less is failure.
4. Reduction in government spending, especially in social programs geared to increase the dependency of targeted groups toward government aid for long-term existence. If that means some of the Obama administration's pet programs don't become law, that's a success.
That's just a few of what I consider a successful Obama presidency. So, "failure" is a subjective term.
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Steve, I kind of like your list. But your "anything less is a failure" condition seems an unattainable condition. Kind of like -- win the Super Bowl, but if you don't win by six touchdowns, you're a failure.
I'd be very happy if President Obama
substantially achieved all of the items on your list. Even that might be difficult because...
- How does one measure what a government "believes"? It sure isn't what they say, we all know that. I'd consider #1 a success if there was realtive peace among all those groups within the geography of Iraq after we withdraw our military. If they start a civil or sectarian war, I'll write the whole Iraqi experience off as just a very bad idea.
- On the Afghanistan criteria, you might as well consider Obama a failure right now. The Russians finally gave up after ten years, and they had close to a hundred thousand troops trying to quell the war lords who run those mountains. Maybe Obama might have some success diplomatically, but we sure can't win militarily. I guess I might be willing to apply the same standard as Iraq -- if they aren't killing or threatening people, particularly us, I'd be relatively happy. I'm not even going to address human rights and the Taliban. We don't have enough soldiers, money or time to force a culture of two thousand years to act like we'd like them to.
- I don't know how you eliminate al Quaeda when we don't know precisely who belongs and who doesn't. A primary measure that I'd call successful is a meaningful decline in terrorist attacks. Alternatively, we're stuck with a standard of "if we simply declare victory against al Quaeda, we won". I don't like that one anywhere near as much as widespread relative peace.
- If Obama can begin to substantially reduce annual deficit spending within four years, I'd consider it a big success. If he effectively spends a little money on education, improving healthcare for a greater number of Americans, and decreases unemployment, I'll consider it a success. Because if he does those things, I know he'll have to cut a bunch of unneccessary government spending in order to do it. But the possibility that he could achieve a balanced budget and begin to whittle at the national debt seems unachievable right now.
But in general, I think meaningful progress towards all of those things would provide a good measure of success or failure.