In Syria, Obama sees a yellow light

In the desperate fight against the Islamic State, the Pentagon has it all wrong. It has been using color coding to designate the eligibility of various Syrian rebel groups to receive American aid. According to The Wall Street Journal, some groups were assigned green dots while others were given red and some yellow. This is where things went wrong. The last color should have been saved for the White House.

I do not accuse, in case you’re wondering, President Obama of personal cowardice. I do, however, accuse him of an excess of caution and not knowing what he is doing. A Turkish official summed it up for the Journal this way: “The Americans color-coded; the Russians invaded.”