“Never Go With Carrots Only”: In Syria, President Obama’s Tough Line Paid Off
When the ancient Greek or Roman playwrights had painted themselves into a corner, plot-wise, they sometimes resorted to the dramatic device known as the deus ex machina, in which one of the gods was hoisted over the stage and dropped in to resolve the otherwise inchoate drama.
Something similar happened this week with Syria. The drama had progressed into a mix of international tragedy and domestic political bathos. President Obama’s threat of military action against Syria was right in principle but garnered no real political support — not least because Obama and his generals agree there is no military solution in Syria.
Cue the gods (in Moscow!): The stage directions may have been confusing, starting with a throwaway line from Secretary of State John Kerry, followed up quickly by his Russian counterpart. Then suddenly the stage was crowded with a cheering chorus that included U.S., French and Russian presidents, the U.N. secretary general, the Chinese and even Iranians.
Anyone who thinks this was simply a theatrical accident should go back to drama school. Obama, Kerry and the Russians have been talking about control of Syrian chemical weapons for many months, most recently a week ago at the G-20 meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia. Let it be said that the mercurial Vladimir Putin (whom Obama regards as the most transactional leader in the world) knows how to propose an 11th-hour deal.
The deus ex machina has been cranked into place, but that doesn’t mean the Syria play is over. The complicated diplomatic part is just beginning. I hope Obama and his allies will keep in mind some basic principles, so that we don’t quickly return to another Syria breakdown:
● Obama’s tough line paid off. The Russians endorsed international control of Syria’s chemical weapons only after Obama threatened to attack and didn’t flinch in St. Petersburg or on Capitol Hill. He may be a weakened president in foreign affairs, but this show of strength regained him some precious credibility. As a Syrian rebel leader told me by phone Monday night, “Never go with carrots only.”
● The U.N. Security Council now moves to center stage. The right framework is the resolution France was drafting Tuesday, with U.S. help. It would require Syria to place its chemical weapons under international control for supervised demolition. Syria could face military reprisals if it violates this resolution, which the French are proposing under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which authorizes force. Finally, the resolution would call for punishment of those responsible for the Aug. 21 chemical attack. The Russians want to soften this language.
● The next step is revival of peace talks in Geneva, where elements of the regime and the opposition can negotiate a cease-fire and transition plan. The United States and Russia, as co-sponsors of these talks, should begin thinking now about how to prevent a chaotic vacuum and sectarian revenge-killing when a political transition begins. The lessons of Iraq and Libya are clear: Reconcilable elements of the Syrian army and state institutions must remain intact so they help the rebuilding.
● President Bashar al-Assad must go. The Russians know this; they’ve repeatedly said so privately to U.S. officials. Now they need to make it happen. U.N. inspectors have gathered evidence that Syrian civilians were killed by sarin nerve gas on Aug. 21; this action could have been done only by the regime. It would be politically dangerous, as well as immoral, to allow Assad to remain in power once these findings are disclosed.
● The United States should step up its training and supply of moderate Syrian rebels — less to topple Assad than to provide a counterweight to jihadists in the opposition and help stabilize a future Syria. The first CIA-trained commandos are now heading into the field, in units of 30 or 40. Step up that flow!
● Iran should prove that it deserves a seat at the Geneva table. It can’t be part of the Syria solution unless it changes its destabilizing policies — not just in backing Assad but also in its nuclear program, its support for Hezbollah and other actions. A new Iranian president and foreign minister will be in New York in two weeks. The Iranians and the Obama administration should think big about a new security framework for the region.
● Given the United States’ profound reluctance to fight another war in the Middle East, Israel knows it will have to take responsibility for its own security, including any military action against Iran. The good news is that Israeli power is robust and credible. Both Assad and the Iranians seem to be deterred from reckless action, and the Russians (in secret) are cooperative. Credible threats of force prevent wars.
By: David Ignatius, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, September 10, 2013
“Armchair Warriors”: The Syria Question That Congress Must Answer
Congress is asking the wrong questions about Syria. The issue can’t be who wins that country’s civil war. It has to be whether the regime of Bashar al-Assad should be punished for using chemical weapons — and, if the answer is yes, whether there is any effective means of punishment other than a U.S. military strike.
Secretary of State John Kerry, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey showed the patience of Job this week as House and Senate members grilled them about the impossible, the inconceivable and the irrelevant.
At Wednesday’s hearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, I thought for a moment that Kerry was going to blow. Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) launched into a self-righteous soliloquy about Benghazi, the IRS, the National Security Agency and what he portrayed as Kerry’s longtime aversion to using military force.
Kerry, you may recall, is a highly decorated Vietnam combat veteran. Duncan is an armchair warrior.
“I am not going to sit here and be told by you that I don’t have a sense of what the judgment is with respect to this,” Kerry said.
But he held it together and gave Duncan a more civil answer than he deserved. “This is not about getting into Syria’s civil war,” Kerry explained. “This is about enforcing the principle that people shouldn’t be allowed to gas their citizens with impunity.”
For Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the question is why President Obama hasn’t been doing more to shape the outcome of the war. As the price of his vote to authorize a strike, McCain insisted that the resolution approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee include language calling on Obama to “change the military equation on the battlefield.”
I respect McCain’s knowledge and experience on military matters, even when I disagree with him. In this case, I think he’s hallucinating.
In Iraq, with U.S. forces occupying the country and a compliant government installed, it took a huge troop surge and a long counterinsurgency campaign to beat back the jihadists who threatened to take over part of the country. In Syria, with no boots on the ground and a hostile regime clinging to power, how is Obama supposed to ensure that the “good” rebels triumph over the “bad” ones? Why does McCain think we have it in our power to favorably change the equation now?
Let me clarify: I believe that a U.S. strike of the kind being discussed, involving cruise missiles and perhaps other air-power assets, can make it more likely that Assad loses. But I also believe that — absent a major commitment of American forces, which is out of the question — we cannot determine who wins.
For some skeptics on Capitol Hill, the question is why we don’t wait for others to act — the United Nations, perhaps, or some of the 188 other nations that have ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention outlawing atrocities such as those committed in Syria.
I guess hope springs eternal, but that’s how long the wait will be. Russia has vetoed every attempt by the U.N. Security Council to act. Britain’s House of Commons has said no. France is willing but won’t go it alone.
Maybe all this reluctance is a warning that we, too, should demur. But let’s at least be honest with ourselves: If we don’t act, nobody will. The clear message to Assad, and to other tyrants, will be that poison gas is frowned upon but not prohibited.
There is no way that Assad can be shamed into contrition and atonement; at this point, he’s fighting not just for power but for his life. He has to believe that if he loses the war and is captured by rebels, be they the “good” ones or the “bad,” he will be tried and executed like Saddam Hussein — or perhaps killed on the spot like Moammar Gaddafi.
If someone has a workable plan to snatch Assad and his henchmen, haul them before the International Criminal Court and put them on trial, I’m all ears. As things stand, however, the possibility of someday facing charges in the Hague must be low on the Syrian dictator’s list of worries.
If Assad and his government are ever to be held accountable for the use of forbidden weapons to murder hundreds of civilians, the only realistic way for that to happen is a punitive, U.S.-led military strike. This is the question that Obama put on the table — and that too many members of Congress seem determined to avoid.
By: Eugene Robinson, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, September 5, 2013
“Stark Raving Mad”: When Unhinged GOP Conspiracy Theories Become Self-Defeating
Remember Rep. Joe Wilson (R)? The right-wing South Carolinian has been in the U.S. House for nearly 12 years, and apparently has distinguished himself exactly once: he shouted “You lie!” during President Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress on health care policy.
Apparently, though, Wilson is still on Capitol Hill, and piped up during a House Foreign Affairs Committee meeting today with a question on Syria for Secretary of State John Kerry. Watch on YouTube
For those who can’t watch clips online, note that Wilson, with a halting cadence, very carefully read a question that someone on his staff apparently prepared for him:
“With the president’s red line, why was there no call for military response in April? Was it delayed to divert attention today from the Benghazi, IRS, NSA scandals, the failure of Obamacare enforcement, the tragedy of the White House-drafted sequestration or the upcoming debt limit vote? Again, why was there no call for a military response four months ago when the president’s red line was crossed?”
Now, I can appreciate a wild-eyed conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, but even by House GOP standards, this is just stark raving mad. First, the “scandals” Wilson believes in don’t exist; things are going fairly well for the Affordable Care Act; and sequestration was Republicans’ fault.
Second, think about the point Wilson is trying to make with his deeply silly question: the White House was, the theory goes, overwhelmed in April by scandals and policy fiascoes. To “divert attention” to all of these terrible problems, President Obama did … nothing.
Wilson’s conspiracy theory would at least have internal consistency if Obama had bombed Syria at the time, giving conservatives an opportunity to say the military offensive was timed to be a distraction from domestic difficulties. But Wilson doesn’t even have that — he’s saying Obama didn’t intervene in Syria in April to “divert attention” from made-up controversies, suggesting the Congressman doesn’t even understand the words of the conspiracy theory someone wrote for him to repeat during the hearing.
Alas, Wilson wasn’t alone.
Sahil Kapur reported on a related conspiracy theory from another South Carolina Republican.
Secretary of State John Kerry erupted at Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC) after the congressman charged that the Obama administration cannot be trusted to carry out an attack on Syria due to mistakes made in Benghazi and controversies involving the IRS and NSA programs.
“I cannot discuss the possibility of the U.S. involvement in the Syrian civil war without talking about Benghazi,” Duncan said, questioning Kerry at a Wednesday hearing.
“The administration has a serious credibility issue with the American people, due to the unanswered questions surrounding the terrorist attack in Benghazi almost a year ago. When you factor in the IRS targeting of conservative groups, the AP and James Rosen issues, Fast and Furious and NSA spying programs, the bottom line is that there is a need for accountability and trust-building from the administration,” he said. “The American people deserve answers about Benghazi before we move forward in Syria’s civil war.”
Kerry dismissed Duncan’s garbage rhetoric out of hand.
If the right-wing lawmaker’s name sounds familiar, it’s probably because Duncan is fond of conspiracy theories about the IRS and firearms; he believes conspiracy theories involving the Census Bureau; and he pushed Glenn Beck’s conspiracy theories surrounding the Boston Marathon Bombing in April. He’s also a birther.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, September 4, 2013
“Reality Check”: Assad’s Use Of Chemical Weapons Is Truly Depraved
“We categorically reject even the idea of using chemical weapons … against our own people,” Syrian deputy foreign minister Faisal Mekdad said this week. “This is crazy, morally this is absolutely unacceptable, and no Syrian … from the government will do it.”
Despite those comments, overwhelming evidence indicates the regime of Bashar al-Assad has deployed chemical weapons on the battlefield in Syria.
The most recent — and by far the most devastating — occurred on August 21, when thousands of people were gassed while they slept in the Damascus suburb of East Ghouta.
To realize how depraved it is to use nerve agents on innocent civilians, consider that the attack was “third large-scale use of a chemical weapon in the Middle East and may have broken the longest period in history without such an attack.”
That fact is currently being lost as Congress begins debating whether to approve limited military action in response to the Syrian government’s actions.
Yet that’s the thrust of the Obama administration’s argument.
“Bashar al-Assad now joins the list of Adolph Hitler and Saddam Hussein [i.e., other rulers who] have used these weapons in time of war,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told NBC on Sunday. “This is of great consequence to Israel, to Jordan, to Turkey, to the region, and to all of us who care about enforcing the international norm with respect to chemical weapons.”
The “threat” of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) — nuclear, biological, or chemical — is real, but one of the reasons people are hesitant to advocate a U.S. strike is because the threat of “WMDs” were used as a pretense to hasten the oust Hussein.
The Iraq war notwithstanding, history provides insight into the wickedness of chemical weapons use. That, in turn, informs why the international community has been proactive about neutralizing that threat.
In World War I poison gas was arguably the most feared of all weapons as several countries released more than 1.3 million tons of chemical agents — ranging from simple tear gas to mustard gas — and killed 90,000 men.
The gas, released in open air, spread with the speed and direction of the wind. The same thing happened outside of Damascus on August 21.
By World War II Nazi Germany had developed deadlier gasses and then took air out of the equation by releasing nerve agents in gas chambers. The effect was catastrophic — the largest chambers could kill 2,000 people at once — since the concentration of chemicals is highest in small spaces.
The horrors of the World Wars, as well as the more recent example of Iraq causing 60,000 chemical weapons casualties in their war with Iran in the ’80s, explain why the Obama administration would be aggressively proactive about their use in Syria.
Furthermore, there is the added danger of Syria’s chemical WMDs falling into the hands of extremists who would hesitate much less before wreaking chemical havoc on a part of the world.
That’s why there has been a persistent fear throughout the Syrian conflict that Assad would transfer chemical weapons to Hezbollah, the Lebanese-based terrorist group and Iranian proxy that has more than 60,000 rockets pointed at Israel.
Syria and it’s allies have insisted that Assad is not crazy enough to deploy WMDs on his people. On Friday Russian President Vladimir Putin said it would be “utter nonsense” for Syria’s government to provoke opponents with such attacks.
But overwhelming evidence indicates that he did just that. Now it’s just a matter of what the international community is going to do about it.
As Obama asked “every member of Congress and every member of the global community” on Saturday:
“What message will we send if a dictator can gas hundreds of children to death in plain sight and pay no price? What’s the purpose of the international system that we’ve built if a prohibition on the use of chemical weapons that has been agreed to by the governments of 98 percent of the world’s people and approved overwhelmingly by the Congress of the United States is not enforced?”
By: Michael Kelley, Business Insider, September 1, 2013
“For The Good Of Our Democracy”: On Syria, President Obama Had To Go To Congress
In seeking congressional authorization for military strikes against Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, President Obama is not weakening presidential power and is not looking for an out to avoid a war he doesn’t want. He is doing what is absolutely necessary in a democratic republic. He is rallying consent for a grave step and for what was always going to be a controversial decision.
True, Congress might vote no. If that happens, it is impossible to see how the president could then pursue an attack, even if he believes it necessary for national security. This is a risk, and a potential contradiction. It’s why Secretary of State John Kerry, a powerful advocate for Obama’s course, necessarily dodged questions on the Sunday talk shows about what the administration would do in the event of a negative congressional verdict. Obama simply has to assume it will win.
Congressional support is important for another reason: The policy Obama proposes is intended to do severe damage to Assad’s armed forces — from what I am gathering, no one in the administration is contemplating “pinpricks” or harmlessly tossing cruise missiles into lakes and fields – but also seeks to send a “message.” Using an act of war for “messaging” purposes is always vexed, but the message itself will be far more powerful if the President acts with Congress behind him. Were the president to act alone and then face an uproar in Congress, what would this do to American credibility and the world’s sense of our resolve?
And, yes, if the British Parliament could debate a strike, shouldn’t Congress?
Gaining democratic consent is especially important for an action that has very large long-term implications and clearly divides the country. Yes, the president did not seek congressional backing for his Libya policy. But in Libya, the United States was acting in support of allies. “Leading from behind” was a controversial phrase, but it did convey correctly that the United States was not acting alone or even as the lead power. In this instance, the United States is the main driver of the policy, and support from allies may be limited to France and a few other nations. A congressional stamp of approval would give the action the constitutional and global legitimacy it would lack if it were the decision of only one person. The delay created by seeking congressional support has the additional benefit of giving Obama more time to rally support around the world.
Nothing about this request will prevent Obama or future presidents from acting in an emergency and going to Congress later. But this is not an emergency. It is, however, important, and I wish Congress would call off its holiday and return to work, with the rest of the country, on Tuesday. If war isn’t a big enough deal to force Congress to shorten a recess, what is? The Senate seems to be moving in that direction. The House should, too.
Lastly — and, yes, this may seem wildly hopeful — a congressional debate of something this serious could be ennobling, whether the authorization wins or loses. Right from the start, the debate will not be purely partisan. Democrats are split, and so are Republicans.
Among progressives and liberals, there is a conflict over which historical metaphors are most informative. Those who see an attack on Syria as akin to Iraq or Vietnam have already started rallying in opposition. Those who see it as closer to our response in Bosnia and Kosovo (and our non-intervention in Rwanda) are more inclined to support the president. My hunch is that the president will rally enough Democrats to prevail, which is why I agree with the prediction of Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) Sunday on “Meet the Press” that the authorization will pass.
But this will be an even bigger test for Republicans, many of whom questioned the patriotism of Democrats who did not support President Bush during the Iraq war. There is also a genuinely anti-interventionist spirit within the libertarian wing of the party that was largely suppressed during the Iraq conflict and has come back to life under Obama. This view is represented most forcefully by Sen. Rand Paul, and it needs to be heard.
If this debate is carried out in good faith, as was the debate before the first Gulf War under President George H. W. Bush, it will strengthen the country. We often forget that the votes in the House and Senate over our response to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait were closely divided. Yet the nation was more united because Americans knew their views had been forcefully represented in Congress. If, on the other hand, this Syrian debate is used by a significant number of Republicans for the main purpose of undermining Obama, the rest of the world will know how degraded our democracy has become. Call me naive, but I honestly think that most Republicans do not want this to happen and will rise to the seriousness of the moment, whatever their views.
Reluctantly, I think the president is right to strike against Assad. It’s widely said that Obama’s own words declaring a red line have boxed him in and that he has no choice but to act. That’s true, but insufficient. Obama spoke those words precisely because the use of chemical weapons risks, as he put it on Saturday, “making a mockery of the global prohibition on the use of chemical weapons” and “could lead to escalating [their] use.” He had hoped that his words would be enough to deter Assad. Unfortunately, that wasn’t true.
I use that word “reluctantly” because, like so many who believe the Iraq war was a terrible mistake, I am wary of military intervention in the Middle East. But because of what Obama said and, more important, why he said it, I think we have to act in Syria.
By: E. J. Dionne, Jr., Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, September 1, 2013
Share This Blog
Unknown Feed- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
mykeystrokes.com 