oja oba !!!

Assad will have to go. Sooner, rather than later. A Global coalition may even have to play some role in his removal. But today, Barack Obama showed some uncommon strength, that for years have been bereft in occupants of the oval office, and continues to be wanting in many so called world leaders. He stepped the US away from the brink, even if for another 10 days.

Vladmir Putin enjoys the aura of faux-machismo where pictures of his taming tigers, bear hunting with bare torso and robbing a US sport team owner of his ring-hood brings. Vladmir like very much, the image of Vladmir The Great of St. Petersburg. Barack Obama is routinely derided as a whimp at home and a terrorist supporter abroad. These too characters make for a great romantic epic, but are they also made for a horrific global calamity?

Several British journals spent their precious little editorial spaces this week reviewing the "work" that still needs to be done to achieve Dr. Martin Luther King's Dream, first espoused five decades ago, in the raging days of the civil rights movement in America. It was interesting to note how much none of the opinionators on the other side of the pond failed to see that the Dream was beyond an American Dream, it was a Global Dream.

John Kerry is heard sounding like the US is going to start a full campaign in Syria soon. Apparently someone is trying so hard to make Obama look much worse than George Bush. After 9/11, Mr. Bush was convinced that Iraq was the nexus of the War on Terror, and so he sheepishly marched the US into perfidious war that benefitted only the enemies and rivals of the United States. In the decade of the Iraq war, China grew stronger economically and militarily, while the US grew much weaker morally.

The Russians and Chinese must be grinning at the political harakiri of the west, as the grisly sight of dead Egyptians begin to elicit comparison with Syria. After all, the al-Sisi led mauling of Brotherhood opposition is no different than the Assad led mauling of the various al-Qeda stripes in Syria. While western call for calm in Egypt has remained muted, the quest for a post Assad Damascus must be causing some heart burn in western capitals.