Obama: A man with a plan

By Gail Collins

Monday, Sept. 15, 2014 | 2:02 a.m.

It’s a tough time to be a concerned citizen. The truth of the matter is, the job has always been messy. But it’s way worse when the focus is on international affairs.

We gathered around our TVs, computers and smartphones Wednesday night to hear President Barack Obama explain his plan for combating the Islamic State group, even though we have pretty much lost faith in plans when it comes to U.S. involvement in the Middle East.

Actually, we were just waiting to see how he sounded. So we could just say something like “he appeared to believe he’s on the right track.”

When it comes to anything relating to Iraq and Syria, we’re good at imagining a downside. We were sickened by the videos of the beheadings of two U.S. journalists. We want revenge. On the other hand, the Islamic State did it for the notoriety. Were we just rewarding them by giving them center stage in a presidential address?

The president wants to arm Syrian rebels. But some of the fighters in the Islamic State were Syrian rebels. Obviously, the administration feels its rebels are not going to become anti-Western terrorists. But the anti-Western terrorists in the Islamic State are waving around a ton of our weaponry that they took from the Iraqis. Just saying.

We don’t want boots on the ground. The idea of airstrikes sounds much safer. Unless you happen to be an innocent civilian in the vicinity. Can we step up the bombing on both sides of the border without killing Iraqi and Syrian civilians? And are we setting our sights too low if we say we’d buy into any plan that would just keep terrorists out of the homeland and refrain from making things worse?

During the run-up to the speech, Republicans were irate about the president’s failure to act sooner, explain his plan faster and, in general, be tougher. For once, foreign policy was becoming a major congressional-elections talking point.

“President Obama’s chronic passivity has helped the jihadists,” John Cornyn of Texas, the second-ranking Senate Republican, said last week in a floor speech. Cornyn slammed the administration’s “don’t do stupid stuff” mantra, claiming Obama “doesn’t seem to fully grasp the magnitude of the threats and challenges that America is now dealing with.”

Cornyn mixed up Iranians and Iraqis a few times, but concerned citizens understand that these things get complicated. More to the point, not doing something stupid is actually a super foreign policy goal. Look back on our recent history of messing with the Middle East, and what do you see? Stupid things we wish we’d never done.

Even Scott Brown, the Republican Senate candidate in New Hampshire, has taken off after Obama’s foreign policy: Brown calls it a “failure” in a new web ad. Brown does not appear in the spot, perhaps hoping to avoid conjuring up visions of what U.S. foreign policy would look like if run by a man who has been known to deal with far less difficult topics by responding: “ ’Cause, you know, whatever.”

In his speech, the president was making a comeback from weeks in which he was attacked for everything from playing golf on his vacation to saying “we don’t have a strategy yet” on the Islamic State surge in Syria. On that, the critics have a point. You’re not supposed to say you don’t have a strategy. Even when everything on the ground has shifted and you need to consult your allies, get the Iraqi government to reorganize and collect new intelligence. You still don’t say “no strategy.” You say “I’ll discuss strategy after I brief the congressional leaders.” And then fail to invite them.

The tone of alarm in Washington and on the campaign trail has been hyper-shrill. Concerned citizens are easily frightened on the subject of terrorism, but they’re also worried about getting carried away. Denouncing the president’s failure to take on the Islamic State faster, Rep. Michele Bachmann told The Huffington Post: “We haven’t seen anything like this since Hitler and the blitzkrieg in World War II.” Bachmann serves on the House Intelligence Committee, and we are not going to call up that old canard about the House Intelligence Committee being a contradiction in terms. This is incredibly serious stuff, and we’re focused on looking for answers.

That’s why it’s almost comforting to have Dick Cheney around, so we can know what to avoid. Last week, in a Washington speech, the former vice president said Obama had to “understand we are at war and that we must do what it takes, for as long as it takes, to win” and spend way more money on defense.

Which means that:

A) Although we have to fight the Islamic State surge, it’s going to be a struggle more complicated than war.

B) The president should put timetables on everything.

C) The defense budget needs to go down.

Remember that no matter what else happens, Dick Cheney will never steer us right.

Gail Collins is a columnist for The New York Times.