Whatâs
Wrong Today:
Despite
the UK Parliamentâs vote against attacking Syria, Mr. Obama so far seems to
continue to want
to go it alone. The “senior officials” quoted by the NYT are probably from the National
Security Council. Mr. Obama’s National Security Adviser Susan Rice is most
likely the one who is driving the bus, and it is looking like she is pointing
it at a wall.
The miss-management
of the Syria event â a rush to war then retreat, an attempt to block the UN
observers, presenting dubious intelligence, bad management of potential allies â
could end her career and take Mr. Obama with her.
Any claim
that the US would attack Syria in service of some “international community”
is now looking weak: We have the French on our side, proving they want to
demonstrate a muscular interventionist foreign policy, just like America. But let’s
count who is against bombing Syria: The UK, the UN Security Council, the UN
Secretary General, the US military,
the US intelligence
community, the public in the United States, Israel, and Turkey.
Obama is now in a catch 22. Speaker Boehner
(R-OH) demands
answers to detailed questions about the war Mr. Obama wants to wage. Today,
the scuttlebutt is that the WH will spend the day trying to answer them. Here
are some of the questions:
the Administration use to determine that this scope of chemical weapons use
warrants potential military action? Does the Administration consider such a
response to be precedent-setting, should further humanitarian atrocities occur?
What result is the
Administration seeking from its response? If potential strikes do not have the
intended effect, will further strikes be conducted?
Assuming the targets
of potential military strikes are restricted to the Assad inner circle and
military leadership, does the Administration have contingency plans in case the
strikes disrupt or throw into confusion the command and control of the regimeâs
weapons stocks?
Does the
Administration have contingency plans to deter or respond should Assad
retaliate against U.S. interests or allies in the region?
Does the
Administration have contingency plans should the strikes implicate foreign
power interests, such as Iran or Russia?
Imagine,
Mr. Boehner has managed to seize the high ground from Mr. Obama on Syria. Thatâs some principled leadership by Mr. Boehner. His
âdemanding answersâ on Syria isnât particularly surprising, nor is the chutzpah
displayed by Boehnerâs assumption that his political history gives him some leverage with which to
assume the moral high ground. But, he has the moral high ground, at least for
the moment.
Another quarter weighed
in: Javad Zarif, Iranâs Minister for Foreign Affairs posted on Facebook:
wider implications: Any use of chemical weapons must be condemned, regardless of
its victims or culprits…Violence, repression, killing and extremism are
repugnant crimes and every actor with influence in Syria must compel the
parties to come to the negotiating table…Are all options really on the table
as the US president repeatedly declares? Is every nation with military might
allowed to resort to war or constantly threaten to do so against one or another
adversary? Isn’t the inadmissibility of resort to force or threat of force a
peremptory norm of international law? Is there any place for international law
and the UN Charter at least in words if not deeds? Can one violate a peremptory
norm of international law in order to punish? Have those who maintain “all
options on the table” noticed what these options have brought them and
others in the past 100 years? Have they examined empirical evidence of the
outcome of wars in the 20th and 21st century, all of which were initiated by
those who were assured that their military might will lead to “shock and
awe” and a quick victory?
It is a terrible inflection point when
John Boehner and the Iranian Foreign Minister make more sense than Susan Rice
and President Obama. (Ignore for the moment that Iranians domestically are blocked from Facebook.)
If the
president calls Congress back from vacation to vote on a war resolution he will
risk as Mr. Cameron did, public defeat. If he does not call back Congress and
proceeds with a strike he will face serious opposition from both Republicans
and many Democrats.
He can of
course stand down on the issue but, that has its own political fall-out: He may
be damaged goods in international politics.
This should be a matter for the Congress
to decide according to the Constitution.
And while
weâre talking about Congress, how many of our jolly statesmen remember what happened the last time Americans took on
the Syrian army?
It
happened in Lebanon when the US Air Force decided to bomb Syrian missiles in
the Bekaa Valley
on December 4, 1983 (Saint Ronnie was our president). An American A-6 fighter bomber
was hit by a Syrian ground-to-air missile and crash-landed in the Bekaa; its
pilot, Mark Lange, was killed, its co-pilot, Robert Goodman, taken prisoner and
jailed in Damascus.
Jesse Jackson
traveled to Syria to get him back, amid many clichés about
âending the cycle of violenceâ. Another American plane â this time an A-7 â was
also hit by Syrian fire but the pilot managed to eject over the Mediterranean
where he was plucked from the water by a Lebanese fishing boat. His plane was
also destroyed.
While our planes are better, (the A-6 was retired in 1997), so are the Russian missiles that sold to Syria. We are told that Syria will be a short
mission, in and out, a couple of days. Thatâs what Mr. Obama likes to think.
But think Iran. Think Hezbollah. Think Russia.
Revolutions
started with people refusing to pay for the Kingâs wars: The English (in the 17th
century), the French (in the 18th century), the Russian revolution was started
by Russians tired of fighting in WW1.
Be
careful plutocracy, the people are watching.
