Lost in the Hullaballoo

Remember the MidEast war that wasn’t?  The attack on Syria, long and loudly called-for by Maverick John McCain?  And the President’s tip-toeing up to launching it, then calling the Republicans’ bluff about being consulted?  Whatever happened to all that?  You scarcely see it even being alluded now.   But actually there has been a string of startling and encouraging diplomatic developments, throughout the Muslim world.   The very latest: Maintaining its intel and military focus even during the irresponsible Republican shutdown, the Administration has moved swiftly and effectively in North Africa.

Awhile back, I posted this scenario whereby President Obama had planned the whole thing in advance and foreseen the results.  The thought-experiment was partly tongue-in-cheek; but indeed, international events have been playing out as though they had been meticulously scripted:

http://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2013/08/brilliant-mr-president.html

http://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2013/09/brilliant-mr-president-update-post-10.html

Check it out.   And now, the latest footnote:

[Update 6 October 2013]  Since we posted this, the succession of military and diplomatic victories for the Obama administration  has been dazzling. Putin came round; Al-Assad has caved; and even Iran is making nice again. 

When the surprise Russian-American-Syrian initial agreement on chemical weapons was announced, we had to listen to professional Obama-bashers bloviate in the media about how, for technical reasons, dismanteling was technically impossible.  Turns out the things mostly hadn’t even been weaponized, and the dismanteling has already begun:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/un-official-says-chemical-weapons-inspectors-begin-destroying-syrian-stockpile-machinery/2013/10/06/c166f608-2e70-11e3-9ddd-bdd3022f66ee_story.html

In normal times, this all would be the Talk of the Town;  only, the Republicans have shut down the town, and a cowed media retreats from objective assessment before the shrillness of partisan mudslinging.   Yesterday saw another triumph of intelligence planning and special-forces implementation, in which one of the few remaining original al-Qaeda top brass was not only neutralized, but actually captured alive.   Likewise commendable was the simulataneous SEAL retaliation against the Shabaab on their home turf. By any rational measure, everyone would simply salute these carefully planned and flawlessly executed triumphs; but as the NYTimes put it on today’s front page, “the simultaneous attacks are bound to fuel accusations that the administration was eager for a showy victory.”

Again, no point even polemicizing against the Teabaggers on this:  truly we have reached post-consensus politics when they throw tantrums even about matters on which the most consensus exists -- the need to fight al-Qaeda.   You might try, not to polemicize, but to satirize this state of affairs, by imagining an apple-pie-and-motherhood scenario in which the First Lady praised the value of mothers breastfeeding and being denounced for it by, say, Michelle Bachmann -- except that that actually happened.  The satirist shrugs and casts his pen aside.