Indeed, Mr. Jackson, President Obama “leaves the White House with a legacy of destruction” (page A5, Jan. 13 North Kitsap Herald).

The U.S. car industry is kaput, the stock market moved from a healthy 10,000 points in 2008 to a lousy 19,500 low in 2016. In 2008, the U.S. had 168,000 troops in Iraq; Obama increased the number to 4,000. The environment suffered under Obama, and he nearly destroyed access to health coverage with the Affordable Care Act.

Mr. Jackson is also right about Obama being “directly responsible for sparking many fires in the Middle East.” Obama started being a pyromaniac in 3500 B.C. when Sumerians, Babylonians, Hittites, Assyrians, and Persians killed each other and Jews insisted that there is only one God.

The fall of Rome and the rise and spread of Christianity and Islam created more chaos in Mess-O-Potamia. And after the death of Muhammad, Islam split into Shiite and Sunni factions, still fighting each other today. Probably Obama’s doing too. The nine Crusades and the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453 kept the fires going

After the Great War, the British and French divided the former Ottoman Empire into Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq. Palestine became a British mandate to be established as “a national home for the Jewish people” (Balfour Declaration). That time bomb is still producing sparks today.

In 1948, the U.N. established the State of Israel, resulting in four wars. Between 1975 and 1990, Lebanon was embroiled in a civil war and between 1980 and 1988 Iraq and Iran fought each other. Is Obama also responsible for the 1991 and 2003 wars with Iraq and the 2001-2014 war with Afghanistan? Probably.

Mr. Trump’s brilliant analysis of the Obama/Hillary Clinton politics led him to the conclusion that both were responsible for giving birth to ISIS and the Syrian War. As you can see, Mr. Jackson, you were right. There is plenty of historic evidence of the “direct responsibilities” of President Obama for the “many fires in the Middle East.” Fortunately, the Second Coming, Jan. 20, 2017, will replace a “legacy of destruction” with … well, at a minimum, something better than the Marx Brothers’ performances.

Jim Behrend

Bainbridge Island