Will Obama Reveal His Views on Raiding Syria? Nope.

People often complain here in the U.S. about how the nature of presidential campaigns make it hard for complex and sophisticated ideas to get out (and this is a gross understatement).  And the media is often blamed.  But the candidates are often just as much as fault. Case in point, Senator Obama’s silence on what he thinks of the deadly U.S. raid last week into Syria from Iraq in pursuit, apparently, of Al-Qaeda members.  McCain has issued a statement basically approving the action.  But Obama, who famously argued in favor of similar strikes into Pakistan, has refused to issue a statement one way or the other (at least as far as I know, if I am mistaken someone please let me know). 

As I understand it, Obama’s position is that since the U.S. has not actually acknowledged the raid, he should not comment on it. I think this is a useful dodge, but not convincing. He is not the President yet, and he is surely within his rights to express views about the zillions of confirmed news reports about the raid, and the anti-US protests in Syria, the Syrian government’s angry response, and Iran’s angry response.  Yes, yes, he’s got an election to win. And I know it is politically advantageous to say nothing.  But wouldn’t you like to know whether he thinks such raids are legal, appropriate, and/or necessary? That is the big question, and it would be nice if someone asked him, or if he would give us some hint of where he is going on this.