By Robert Pembroke
If I remember correctly, John Kasich was Donald Trump’s only Republican presidential competitor who did not receive a nickname. And if I were Trump — heaven forbid — I would try and keep Kasich in the background, too.
As governor of Ohio, Kasich has eliminated a $6 billion budget deficit, cut income taxes, added 320,000 new jobs in Ohio in his first term and reformed the state’s criminal justice system. Not a bad scorecard if you’re running for president in 2020.
Did you happen to watch the movie “Wag the Dog” that was released in 1997? It’s about a sitting president who, two weeks prior to his re-election, became involved in a sex scandal and with the help of a Hollywood producer, fabricated a war in Albania to take attention away from his misdeeds. Sound familiar?
Donald Trump is involved in a sex scandal and I am scared to death that he is going to start a war with Syria. Only this time, it won’t be fabricated — it will be real and many innocent people, including Americans, will be killed.
According an article in The Atlantic titled “The Risks of Foreign Policy as Political Distraction” on June 15, 2017, “If you’re an embattled head of state, deflecting criticism through foreign adventures carry seductive appeal.” The article details a number of devastating catastrophes of which Napoleon’s Crimean War of 1853-1856 leads the way. Napoleon fought Orthodox Russians and, in the process, 900,000 of the 1.6 million soldiers who began the war ended up dead.
In 1857, Pres. James Buchanan, wanting to drown out “the pipings of abolitionism,” sent federal troops to Utah to reassert control over the Mormons and in 1998, Pres. Bill Clinton, at the height of the Monica Lewinsky affair, sent cruise missiles into the Sudan and Afghanistan to take out a few terrorists.
The recent attack on Syria by the United States, France and the U.K. is not an example of “Wag the Dog.” Do I believe that John Kasich would do a similar thing in similar circumstances? Yes, I do.
The U.S. Constitution does not allow a president to send missiles and bombs anywhere he wants. What should happen is for Pres. Trump to ask Congress for permission to make a missile and bomb strike on Syria. In this case, 42 people were killed in a suspected chemical attack in Khan Sheikhoun, a rebel-held town in northwestern Syria on April 4. The missile and bomb attacks, by the U.S., France and the U.K. occurred April 13, which means the president had nine days to consult with Congress and gain its acceptance for the attack.
Verbally, I have sounded off on Pres. Obama when he did not enforce his “red line in the sand” statement about Syrian Pres. Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemicals in 2012. I have long been a critic of Obama’s foreign policy.
As serious as Obama’s failed Syria policy was, his actions during the Arab Spring are potentially more damaging. In a story called “Barack Obama Was a Foreign-Policy Failure” on foreignpolicy.com on Jan. 18, 2017, the editors said, “Obama and his team mistakenly viewed the Arab Spring as a large-scale, grass-roots uprising clamoring for liberal democracy and embraced it too quickly. These misunderstandings led to Obama’s disastrous intervention in Libya, his inept diplomatic interferences in Yemen and the premature demand that ‘Assad must go.’”
Obama was blindsided by Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin’s decision to annex Crimea. For years, Russia has had a policy of trying to keep Eastern European countries from joining NATO and the Ukraine was not an exception. Putin had the power to stop the Ukraine from drifting towards NATO and he used it. Obama did nothing to stop Russia’s Eastern European misadventures and even refused to sell the Ukraine arms to defend itself.
My wife and I were privileged to hear Gov. Kasich speak at the University of Utah. We were able to ask the governor a few questions during his presentation and spent a few minutes talking with him after he finished speaking. Kasich is what America needs now and I have one thing to say to him: “Fight on, John Kasich, fight on.”
Robert Pembroke is the former chairman and CEO of Pembroke’s Inc. in Salt Lake City.