24 August, 2011 Article 1. The Daily Beast Obama’s True Claim to Fame Michael Tomasky Article 2. Stratfor Israeli-Arab Crisis Approaching George Friedman Article 3. The Financial Times Why Assad need not fear Gaddafi’s fate Ed Husain Article 4. The Christian Science Monitor Libya endgame: Lessons for Syria's protesters Bilal Y. Saab Article 5. Foreign Policy Assad's Chemical Romance Leonard Spector Article 6. Washington Post 10 years after 9/11, al-Qaeda is down but not out David Ignatius Article 7. Hurriyet Why Golda Meir was right Burak Bekdil Article 1. The Daily Beast Obama’s True Claim to Fame Michael Tomasky August 23, 2011 -- Barack Obama hasn’t been much of a domestic-policy president from nearly anyone’s point of view. And it’s a little hard to picture how he might ever be seen as such—that is to say, even if he’s reelected, he’ll probably have a Republican House or Senate (or both) that will thwart him at every turn, so the best he’ll be able to say is that he presided over a slow and very difficult economic recovery, which presumably will finally happen by January 2017. But foreign policy could be a completely different story. Here one can see how he might become not just a good but a great foreign-policy president. Yes, of course, let’s stipulate: the war isn’t actually, you know, over. And even after it is, Libya could descend into chaos or extremism or both (although it is heartening to read that the National Transitional Council, the recognized new governing body, apparently has detailed governance plans in place). So could Egypt, and Tunisia, and so on and so on. Lots of things could, can, and undoubtedly will go wrong. Let’s also stipulate that Obama did not drape himself only in glory on Libya. The administration’s statement in June that the conflict wasn’t under the purview of the War Powers Act because bombing didn’t constitute “hostilities” was ridiculous. And many critics reasonably felt back in Mar