In a forum on e-democracy.com, one American complained that Obama’s decision to put a few advisory troops into Syria is the beginning of another American war in the middle east. While that’s ludicrous, the next president might not be as cautious as Obama.

But my criticism of the post is that it’s just complaining, which does nothing.The problem is, what are we going to do about it?

At the time Bush called for Congress to allocate money for a war, I remember thinking: “This is either brilliant or idiotic. If Congress allocates the money for war in Iraq, Saddam was sure to buckle and let in all sorts of inspectors.” And sure enough, it began to work- it was brilliant!

And then, Bush, “the idiot decider”, decided he was through sending in inspectors, and it quickly turned to idiocy.

We quickly captured Saddam, it was great. We had the chance to remove him and choose someone from his government who’d be a better leader. We could even work with him (or even her!) to start making the country more moderate. If we planned a 50-year process, it could work.

And then the idiot decider stood by while his people dismissed the police and the army, and chaos ensued. Idiocy has won again. Hope was gone.

And there was nothing we could do. We, the American People, had no say in the matter because we had let our own government go rogue a long time ago. Had we had a say in the matter, none of it would have happened. We’ve allowed ourselves to be able to elect idiot governments and have no ability to control them.

The same thing is happening now. I don’t know if Trump truly believes the stuff he spouts. I hope he’s just brilliantly manipulating the Republicans. But I don’t know… Dishonesty is rarely a better policy than idiocy. I like the tone we’re hearing from the Democrats, but we need to see more international results from Obama.

We have a difficult road ahead in Syria. Aiding the moderates to overthrow Saddat is clearly the right side to be on, unless it’s not going to be successful. I don’t see any way for it to succeed. I doubt Obama does either. I suspect we’re trying to do the decent thing instead of coming up with a real solution. I suspect Obama and Kerry are pursuing a real solution quietly.

Clearly the best solution is if Russia would help us put a stable democracy into Syria. Or a stable dictatorship with a plan to turn it into a democracy over time, slowly. It must be some form of Syria’s current government, plus an end to the support of Hamas and The Muslim Brotherhood.

I doubt Obama will create the kind of true leadership we need for this. He seems to think leadership is only done via backroom negotiations until an agreement can be announced. So he has a limited practical plan for supporting the moderates while keeping his negotiations with Russia close to his chest. My guess is that we need to mobilize all of Europe and even China to pressure Russia and Iran to work with us. Putin is saying the right things about Syria, but he’s not to be trusted. Syria needs a real UN-backed solution.

Let’s make Congress have true political accountability to the people, so we can do more than sit back in silence next time war is imminent. We need to do more than hope the next election won’t bring back a repetition of the Bush years. Support PeopleCount.org.