Politico quotes Rafik Hariri Center Senior Fellow Frederic Hof on President Obama’s order to step up direct military support to Iraq’s Kurds:
he good news for Obama is that the apparent mixed messages don’t seem to matter to many American voters. The bad news is the inconsistent signals mean quite a lot to the Middle East, the world and to Obama’s own legacy, which he’s built on getting the United States out of Iraq — not entangled in other conflict there.
“The American public, as a general rule, is not interested in either one,” said former Ambassador Frederic Hof, now a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council. “He’s got to worry about how it’s perceived in the region. In terms of domestic politics, I don’t think that outside the Beltway he needs to worry about being a magnet for criticism about some perceived inconsistency.”