Barack Obama is not entirely responsible for the hundreds of thousands of dead and the millions of displaced homeless refugees in the Middle East nightmare, but he shares a lot of the blame by his policy toward Iran, his abrupt removal of US troops from Iraq, and the overthrow of Qaddafi and a subsequent turning of a stable Libya into an arms bazaar and recruiting center for ISIS. Leadership has never been infallible, and in fact has been responsible for catastrophe far more often than for victory. Obama may or may not be incompetent, may or may not have brilliantly orchestrated the current catastrophe to his own ends, but either way the Fates smile at those who think they can control the affairs of men and the rising of the oceans and smite him with the bitter ends of his own self-bestowed laurel wreaths.

The legions were no match for wild steppe horsemen
The fierce Comanche died from Texans’ guns
Two hundred years all Europe feared the Norsemen
And Emperors and Kings bequeathed to sons
The consequences of the foolish actions
That led to sorrow, misery and woe
As kingdoms set upon by warring factions
Succumbed to the relentless nomad foe
Decisions made in haste throughout the ages
Have turned upon their authors to declaim
That all the savants, soothsayers and sages
Know not that future rests on bowman’s aim
Justinian who set about to rescue
The West from horse-borne fearsome Hunnish hordes
Sent legions who found death among the fescue
And evergreen lay still beside their swords
Napoleon and onion domes in season
And Chamberlain who said Peace in our time
Decisions made with at the time good reason
Turn on its head the standing paradigm
And so it is with troubles in the present
They seem outside the boundaries of the norm
But through the ages things have not been pleasant
And what we live through now is true to form