Russian forces occupy the Crimea.

[A Theist]

And yet Barack Obama has proven himself deft in his handling of Libya and Iran.

He's made the right call in staying the hell out of Syria. Why back Al Qaida against Assad? My enemy's enemy isn't always my friend. You might agree with me that this was our mistake with Stalin in WWII.

In the case of this crisis, there are economic options short of direct military intervention. Russia's economy is in trouble and it can't handle being isolated by the world community right now. I'd say "softer" diplomacy will yield better results than the saber rattling that the GOP uses first, last and always. We'll see.

Conservatives say Barack has been a disaster but I have yet to see any disasters, certainly nothing like the FUBAR of the last administration.

He's made the right call in staying the hell out of Syria. ...

He made that call only after he couldn't get enough support from our allies and from our Congress when he wanted to give assistance to the Assad opposition.

In the case of this crisis, there are economic options short of direct military intervention. Russia's economy is in trouble and it can't handle being isolated by the world community right now. I'd say "softer" diplomacy will yield better results than the saber rattling that the GOP uses first, last and always.

I haven't heard that kind of sabre rattling from the GOP here. In fact, as Min posted, even John McCain is discouraging a military option right now....and I agree with you in part that we should play our economic options first, but also keep in mind that Putin supplies most of the oil to Europe. What do you suppose he's going to do when Europe and the United States presses Putin with economic sanctions?....he'll turn off the oil supply, refuse to pay Russia's debts on loans from the U.S. and Europe, etc.....Putin's not entirely helpless here, and he'll probably go into Ukrane anyway....in any event I agree that we should use the economic option, but in conjunction with flexing a bit of military muscle like putting off the spending cuts to our military, do some military exercises in the region with our allies as Putin just did, and reconsider the option to putting a missile defense shield in Poland and in the Czech Republic.