Cuba vs. Syria.

This is coolbert:

The face saving gesture?

Thanks to Israeli Hayom we have this article from Dan Margalit.

The comparison being made between the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1963 and the current stand-off as it now exists regarding the alleged Syrian use of lethal chemical agents.
  
 "Cold War redux"  by Dan Margalit

"Here is a little reminder for U.S. President Barack Obama: 52 years ago, Presidents John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev met in Vienna. The Russian was under the impression that the American was a 'lightweight' and humiliated him. This erroneous assumption brought the world to the brink of nuclear war over the Soviets' intentions to deploy ballistic missiles in Cuba."
. . . .
"The events surrounding Syria's chemical weapons' stockpile are surprisingly similar to the U.S.-Russian face-off in the days of Kennedy and Khrushchev, when they locked horns over missiles stationed in Cuba and Turkey, as well as to the struggle between East and West over the Berlin Wall"

Dan Margalit is correct in that Khrushchev did PERCEIVE JFK as less than resolute and an American President who COULD BE subjected to manipulation, machinations and intrigue on the global scale as part of the Cold War as it existed at the time.

In this instance Dan Margalit  is not quite correct with regard to "missiles stationed in Cuba and Turkey".

Those Soviet ballistic missiles having been moved to Cuba and installed, that effort made totally in secret and constituting AT THAT EXACT MOMENT ABOUT EIGHTY PERCENT [80 %] of the Soviet nuclear striking capability NOT a fair comparison with antiquated American nuclear-tipped Jupiter-C ballistic missiles as station in Turkey, the presence of which was an open secret.

JFK having promised as a "face saving gesture" in 1963 to remove the Jupiter-C missiles from Turkey, but that decision had been arrived at some months prior, a scheduled dismantling having been already planned.

Having from some time ago "drawn the red line" in the sand President Obama NOW need his own "face saving gesture"? Making ultimatums and boxing yourself into a corner without having a way out is not a good way to conduct foreign policy EVER!

I guess if only you have such situations transpire once every fifty years or so, that is not so bad!

coolbert.