“In the west, we like our leaders tough and decisive. American presidents are meant to behave like action heroes. That notion was captured in Hillary Clinton’s campaign advertisement about the ‘3am phone-call’. A telephone is heard ringing in the White House in the middle of the night, and the viewer is told that “something is happening in the world”. We do not know the nature of the crisis facing the president. But we can be sure that the appropriate response is not to yawn, turn over and say: ‘I’ll think about it in the morning.’

The 3am ad was aimed at Barack Obama. So it is potentially embarrassing that President Obama is, indeed, now being accused of being dangerously indecisive in office. The civil war in Syria has claimed more than 70,000 lives. The president’s ‘red line’ on the use of chemical weapons may have been crossed. And yet Mr Obama still keeps America hovering on the sidelines.”

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