“The Syria Babble We Don’t Need”: Reducing Complicated Issues To Campaign Style Contests
Our country is about to make the most excruciating kind of decision, the most dire: whether to commence a military campaign whose real costs and ultimate consequences are unknowable.
But let’s by all means discuss the implications for Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Iowa, New Hampshire and 2016. Yea or nay on the bombing: which is the safer roll of the dice for a Republican presidential contender? Reflexively, sadly, we journalists prattle and write about that. We miss the horse race of 2012, not to mention the readership and ratings it brought. The next election can’t come soon enough.
So we pivot to Hillary Clinton. We’re always pivoting to Hillary Clinton. Should she be weighing in on Syria more decisively and expansively? Or does the fact that she authorized the war in Iraq compel restraint and a gentler tone this time around? What’s too gentle, and what’s just right? So goes one strand of commentary, and to follow it is to behold a perverse conflation of foreign policy and the Goldilocks fable.
The media has a wearying tendency — a corrosive tic — to put everything that happens in Washington through the same cynical political grinder, subjecting it to the same cynical checklist of who’s up, who’s down, who’s threading a needle, who’s tangled up in knots, what it all means for control of Congress after the midterms, what it all means for control of the White House two years later.
And we’re doing a bit too much of this with Syria, when we owe this crossroads something more than standard operating procedure, something better than knee-jerk ruminations on the imminent vote in Congress as a test for Nancy Pelosi, as a referendum on John Boehner, as a conundrum for Mitch McConnell, as a defining moment for Barack Obama.
You know whom it’s an even more defining moment for? The Syrians whose country is unraveling beyond all hope; the Israelis, Lebanese and Jordanians next door; the American servicemen and servicewomen whose futures could be forever altered or even snuffed out by the course that the lawmakers and the president chart.
The stakes are huge. Bomb Syria and there’s no telling how many innocent civilians will be killed; if it will be the first chapter in an epic longer and bloodier than we bargained for; what price America will pay, not just on the battlefield but in terms of reprisals elsewhere; and whether we’ll be pouring accelerant on a country and a region already ablaze.
Don’t bomb Syria and there’s no guessing the lesson that the tyrants of the world will glean from our decision not to punish Bashar al-Assad for slaughtering his people on whatever scale he wishes and in whatever manner he sees fit. Will they conclude that a diminished America is retreating from the role it once played? Will they interpret that, dangerously, as a green light? And what will our inaction say about us? About our morality, and about our mettle?
These are the agonizing considerations before our elected leaders and before the rest of us, and in light of them we journalists ought to resist turning the Syria debate into the sort of reality television show that we turn so much of American political life into, a soap opera often dominated by the mouthiest characters rather than the most thoughtful ones.
Last week, in many places, I read what Sarah Palin was saying about Syria, because of course her geopolitical chops are so thoroughly established. A few months back, I read about Donald Trump’s thoughts on possible military intervention, because any debate over strategy in the Middle East naturally calls for his counsel.
They’re both irrelevant, but they’re eyeball bait: ready, reliable clicks. I wonder how long I’ll have to wait before a post on some Web site clues me into Beyoncé’s Syria position. Late Friday, Politico informed the world of Madonna’s. (She’s anti-intervention.)
This type of coverage hasn’t been the dominant one. But plenty of it is creeping in.
Here’s a smattering of headlines, subheads, sentences and phrases from various news organizations last week: “Votes on Syria could have huge ramifications on 2016 contenders”; “Vote puts Republicans mulling 2016 run on the spot”; “Democrats and Republicans are choosing their words carefully, lest they take a hit three years from now”; “the difficult line G.O.P. presidential contenders like Rubio must balance in trying to project a sense of American military might without turning off conservatives skeptical about following Obama’s lead”; “the risk for Paul is if Obama’s prescription for Syria turns out to be a success”; “Mitch McConnell’s muddle”; “Hillary Clinton’s Syria dilemma.”
Some of this rightly illuminates the political dynamics that will influence the final decisions about a military strike that individual members of Congress and the president reach. It’s essential in that regard.
But some merely reflects the penchant that we scribes and pundits have for reducing complicated issues to campaign-style contests and personality-based narratives, especially if those personalities have the stature and thus the marketability of celebrities.
Celebrities get clicks, while the nitty-gritty is a tougher sell. I’ll not soon forget a BuzzFeed post from last February with this headline: “The sequester is terrible for traffic.” It didn’t mean Corollas and Escalades. It meant the number of readers bothering with Web stories on a subject they deemed as dry as they apparently did the federal budget and automatic cuts to spending.
The traffic lament shared the screen with a link to an utterly different style of political feature asking readers to indicate which “presidential hotties” they’d get down and dirty with. The headline on that post? “Sexy U.S. presidents: would you hit it or quit it?” Sex, I guess, brings on rush hour. Maybe presidents do, too. They’re celebrities, even the dead ones.
It’s easy for the media and our consumers to focus on recognizable figures, how they’re faring and what they’re saying (or, better yet, shouting). I even spotted recent reports on what Chris Christie wasn’t saying. They noted that he hasn’t articulated a position on Syria, though that’s unremarkable and appropriate. He isn’t receiving the intelligence that members of Congress are, and he doesn’t get a vote.
He’s not the story, and neither is Paul or Rubio or the rest of them. What matters here are the complicated ethics and unpredictable ripple effects of the profound choice about to be made.
And if we want the men and women making it to be guided by principle, not politics, it surely doesn’t help for journalists to lavish attention on electoral calculations and thereby send our own signal: that we don’t expect, and voters shouldn’t count on, anything nobler. On a question of war and peace, we need nobler. We need the highest ground we can find.
By: Frank Bruni, Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times, September 7, 2013
“If The President Is For It”: After White House Briefing And Asking No Questions, John Cornyn’s Convenient Change Of Heart
In March Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) appeared at an event in Atlanta, and publicly endorsed U.S. intervention in Syria. Then President Obama expressed support for military strikes in Syria, at which point Cornyn reconsidered.
Indeed, in a curious twist, the Texas Republican said this week “many questions are still left unanswered,” which led to a meeting with the president in the White House in which Cornyn asked no questions.
All of which leads us to now.
A Cornyn aide said Thursday that the senator currently opposes the Syria resolution, which will be debated on the Senate floor next week.
“If the vote were held today, Sen. Cornyn would vote no,” said Megan Mitchell, a spokeswoman for Cornyn.
The immediate significance of this is that Cornyn is the first leading congressional Republican to express opposition to authorizing the use of force. In the House, the top two GOP leaders — House Speaker John Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor — endorsed the resolution earlier this week, while in the Senate, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is too afraid to say much of anything.
But it’s the larger context of announcements like these that stand out.
Kevin Drum had a gem on this yesterday.
There’s obviously a bit of hypocrisy on both sides in this affair, but I have to say that watching Republican pols and conservative pundits get on their high horses about Syria has been pretty nauseating. These are guys who mostly have never met a war they didn’t like, and until a few months ago were practically baying at the moon to demand that President Obama stop diddling around and get serious about aiding the rebels and taking out the monstrous Bashar al-Assad. But now? Butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths as they talk piously about the value of multilateral support; the need to give diplomacy a chance; the perils of regional blowback; the lessons of Iraq; and the fear of escalation if Assad retaliates. You’d think they’d all just returned from a Save the Whales conference in Marin County.
There are some Republicans who are perfectly serious about their desire not to get entangled in yet another Middle Eastern conflict. But most of them couldn’t care less. Obama is for it, so they’re against it. It’s pretty hard to take.
Bill Kristol published an interesting item this morning, urging his party follow the president’s lead on Syria. “The fact is that Obama is the only president we have,” Kristol wrote. “We can’t abdicate our position in the world for the next three years. So Republicans will have to resist the temptation to weaken him when the cost is weakening the country. A party that for at least two generations has held high the banner of American leadership and strength should not cast a vote that obviously risks a damaging erosion of this country’s stature and credibility abroad.”
Now, as a skeptic of U.S. intervention, I’m not at all convinced that restraint in Syria will “weaken the country.” But what’s interesting to me is that Kristol seems to believe congressional Republicans, en masse, can separate their political instincts from their foreign policy worldview.
In recent days, it’s been made abundantly clear that they cannot. Putting aside the merits (or lack thereof) of intervention, most congressional Republicans appear to be approaching this debate the same way they approach every debate — as post-policy partisans who define themselves by their objections to a president they hold in contempt for reasons that are generally incoherent.
By: Steve Benen, The Madow Blog, September 6, 2013
“Heads I Win, Tails You Lose”: On Syria, Republicans Once Again Are Playing “A Rigged Sports Game”
“I am going to support the president’s call for action,” House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said on Tuesday, in reference to U.S. policy in Syria. “I believe my colleagues should support this call for action.”
In the 48 hours that followed, most of Boehner’s colleagues from his own party — which is to say, the members he ostensibly leads — announced their intention to ignore the Speaker’s suggestion.
By some measures, this might raise doubts about Boehner’s leadership abilities. The Speaker’s office doesn’t see it that way.
Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) office reiterated Friday that it’s President Obama’s responsibility to sway the public on the need to strike Syria and warned that lawmakers will represent their constituents.
“The speaker has consistently said the president has an obligation to make his case for intervention directly to the American people,” said Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck. “Members of Congress represent the views of their constituents, and only a president can convince the public that military action is required.”
Let’s put aside, for now, the notion that members of Congress represent the views of their constituents — an assertion that doesn’t seem to apply to how Republicans approach immigration, gun violence, taxes, job creation, entitlements, civil rights, health care, or education.
Instead, let’s try to fully appreciate the rules as they’ve been laid out for the political establishment, because it seems as if the last few days have been devoted to the political establishment and the chattering class planting some goalposts pretty deep.
If congressional Republicans ignore President Obama, it’s evidence of Obama failing. If congressional Republicans ignore their own party’s leaders, it’s still evidence of Obama failing.
If the president bypasses Congress to pursue his national security strategy, he’s dictatorial. If he seeks congressional authorization for his national security strategy, he’s weak and undermining the stature of his office.
If lawmakers reject a resolution authorizing force in Syria, Obama will struggle to get anything through Congress for the rest of his term. If lawmakers approve a resolution authorizing force in Syria, Obama will struggle to get anything through Congress for the rest of his term.
If the president uses the military to intervene in Syria, Obama will have undermined the credibility of the United States on the global stage. If the president honors a congressional vote against using the military to intervene in Syria, Obama will have undermined the credibility of the United States on the global stage.
I’m starting to think this game is rigged in a heads-I-win; tails-you-lose sort of way.
For what it’s worth, while the ultimate outcome on Capitol Hill is in doubt, I’m not at all convinced this is a make-or-break moment for Obama’s presidency, and he might as well resign if the votes for his Syria policy don’t materialize. Greg Sargent had a compelling piece on the larger context this morning:
If Congress says No, and Obama announces that he will abide by the vote — arguing that the people have spoken, that democracy and the rule of law will prevail, and that our country will be stronger for it — then it’s very possible that the Dem base will rally behind him…. If Obama heeds Congress, the liberal base — and liberal lawmakers — would likely have Obama’s back. Independents, who have tilted strongly against an attack, might be supportive, too.
And so, several questions for the political science egghead types and anyone else who cares to answer. Do voters really perceive situations like these in the same terms pundits and Congressional lawmakers do, i.e., in terms of what they tell us about presidential strength or weakness? Do voters really expect presidents to bend Congress to their will, or do they see Congress as its own animal and don’t hold presidents accountable for its behavior?
I imagine for many political observers, it’s easy to think of political “wins” and “losses” in a sports context — victories are inherently good and defeats are inherently bad. And if the president goes to Congress seeking authorization for a military strike in Syria, and lawmakers reject the appeal, it would be, by definition, a loss for the president.
But it might simultaneously be a win for democracy that leaves the public with the outcome the American mainstream wants. Voters may well react to news organizations obsessing over “Crushing Presidential Defeat on Capitol Hill,” but I’m not convinced the public would reflexively see it that way.
If Congress balks and the White House honors the vote, most Americans would be pleased, not outraged, right?
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, September 6, 2013
“Let’s Be Clear”: The Congressional Resolution On Chemical Weapons Is Completely Different From The Iraq War Resolution
There has been a lot said in the last week comparing the Congressional resolution authorizing the use of force to punish Bashar al Assad’s government for using chemical weapons to the resolution authorizing the Iraq War. Nothing could be further from the truth.
As an ardent opponent of the Iraq War resolution, I am proud to say that 60 percent of the Democrats in the House of Representatives voted against authorizing the Iraq War. Today, I support the resolution authorizing force to sanction the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
There are five major differences between the current resolution and the one that authorized the Iraq War:
1). The President is asking for a narrow authorization that the U.S. exact a near-term military price for Assad’s use of chemical weapons. He is not asking for a declaration of War – which is exactly what George Bush asked from Congress in Iraq.
George Bush sent thousands of U.S. troops to overthrow the government and then occupy Iraq. He spent what will ultimately be trillions of dollars to overthrow the Iraqi regime and then conduct a 10-year campaign to pacify the country.
The President’s proposal to Congress is not intended to overthrow the government of Syria. And it certainly does not involve conducting an American war against Syria. This is not an action that the President would have contemplated absent the use of chemical weapons. This resolution is intended entirely to make the Assad regime pay a price for their violation of a 100-year international consensus that the use of chemical weapons is unacceptable in the civilized world.
Some have argued that killing people with chemical weapons is no worse than killing them with a gun or a bomb. Both are horrible. But the difference that created a worldwide consensus against their use is that they are weapons of mass destruction. Like biological and nuclear weapons they are distinguished by two characteristics that would make their regular use much more dangerous for the future of humanity than guns and bombs:
- They can kill massive numbers of people very quickly.
- They are completely indiscriminate. They kill everything in their path. They do not discriminate between combatant and non-combatants — between children and adults.
Those two characteristics make weapons of mass destruction different from other weapons. In the interest of our survival as a species we must make the use of all weapons of mass destruction unthinkable. That must be one of humanity’s chief goals if it is to survive into the next century.
There has been talk about “other options” to punish Assad and deter him from using chemical weapons in the future. But the fact is that the only price that matters to Assad — or to anyone who is in the midst of a military struggle — is a military price.
There is a worldwide consensus that no matter how desperate someone’s military situation, the use of chemical weapons in specific — and weapons of mass destruction in general — is never justified.
When combatants are in the midst of a military struggle, they don’t really care about their “reputation” or even the economy of their country. They care about their military situation.
That is not true of countries like Iran or any other country that is not at war. Economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure are important levers on most countries and governments — but not governments in the midst of military battles that threaten their survival.
As a result, to reduce the likelihood that an actor like Assad will use chemical weapons again, he has to experience a military sanction — the degradation of his military capacity — because at the moment, that’s all he cares about. I’m sure Assad would be happy to worry about whether he is indicted by the International Criminal Court, or the state of the Syrian economy at some time in the distant future. Right now he cares about his military capacity.
If we do nothing, the odds massively increase that he will use chemical weapons again, because he knows that they work to kill huge numbers of his opponents — and that he can do so with impunity. That would be a disastrous setback for humanity’s critical priority of banning the use of weapons of mass destruction — weapons that could easily threaten our very existence.
2). The resolution on chemical weapons explicitly limits the authorization to 90 days. The resolution on Iraq was unlimited — and resulted in a conflict lasting over a decade.
Opponents have questioned whether short-term air strikes could be effective at substantially degrading Assad’s chemical weapons infrastructure. There is no guarantee. But there is some precedent for believing they can. As Walter Pincus wrote in today’s Washington Post:
…the precedent worth recalling is Operation Desert Fox in December 1998, in which the Clinton Administration went after Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s facilities for weapons of mass destruction over four days.
Although the operation almost immediately faded from the American public’s mind because it was followed quickly by the House impeachment debate, it did destroy Iraq’s WMD infrastructure, as the Bush administration later discovered.
3). The resolution on Iraq was based on faulty — actually fabricated — intelligence about the supposed presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Those “intelligence” assessments turned out to be totally untrue — much of it manufactured.
The resolution on chemical weapons is not based on anyone’s estimate of the likelihood that Assad has weapons of mass destruction. It is based on their actual use — recorded and widely distributed on video — and intercepts that document the orders for their deployment.
4). The Iraq War Resolution involved the commitment of American troops — on the ground — where thousands of them died and thousands more were maimed. This resolution explicitly precludes American troops on the ground in Syria.
5). President George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their entire team wanted to invade Iraq. The Neocons desperately wanted to finish what they started with Desert Storm. They had an imperial vision of America’s role in the world that involved American domination of the Middle East through the projection of military power. That vision turned into the nightmare in Iraq. Iraq became one of the great foreign policy disasters of all time.
President Obama and his team have exactly the opposite goal. The team is composed of people who opposed the War in Iraq — and the Neocon world-view — including the President who was against the War in Iraq from the first day.
He has been very explicit that his aim is to end America’s wars in the Middle East — not to begin another.
Bush and his team used the false specter that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction — and was behind the 9/11 attacks — to drive America into a war that had nothing to do with either.
On the contrary, President Obama is motivated entirely by his goal of enforcing the international consensus against using chemical weapons — not starting a war. In fact, he has done everything in his power for two years to avoid America’s military involvement in the Syrian civil war.
Some have argued that those who opposed the Iraq War Resolution, but support the President’s proposal, would have opposed a similar resolution if it had been presented by George Bush. And the answer is yes, that is clearly a factor. The motivations and world-view of the people you are empowering to use military force should matter a great deal. The fact is that while Bush and the Neocons might have tried to use a resolution to start a long war — the Obama team will not.
Progressives may differ on whether using military action to sanction Assad is the correct course of action for the United States. But the argument that Obama’s proposal to use military means to sanction the use of chemical weapons by Assad is analogous to the Bush’s rush to war in Iraq is just plain wrong.
By: Robert Creamer, The Huffington Post, September 5, 2013
“Padding The Coffers”: When Crass Fundraising Takes A Grimm Turn
Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.) announced just days ago that he would support President Obama’s call for military intervention in Syria. “We have to keep our word; this is about our credibility,” the New York Republican said last weekend. “We can’t permit a precedent where there is a use of chemical weapons and there is no response.”
Four days later, Grimm changed his mind, and announced yesterday he opposes the policy he’d previously endorsed.
I’ll leave it to others to speculate as to why, exactly, the congressman reversed course so quickly and completely, but Grimm appears to have tipped his hand a bit.
Rep. Michael Grimm, a New York Republican, is sending out fundraising emails based on his decision to switch from supporting President Obama’s Syria plan to opposing it.
Grimm’s campaign list sent out the fundraising call on Thursday with the subject line “Oppose Military Action in Syria.”
The fundraising appeal, sent within a few hours of Grimm’s newly announced position, asks donors, “Will you stand with me in opposing President Obama’s plan with a donation of $25 or more right now?” It adds, “Stand with me today with a donation of $25 or more to strongly oppose military action in Syria.”
Terri Lynn Land, a Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Michigan, yesterday tried to pull the same fundraising stunt.
To be sure, there are no laws or ethics rules prohibiting this sort of crass fundraising, and for all I know, there may well be prospective sucker donors out there who respond to these appeals.
But I like to think reasonable, fair-minded observers can agree that this is just cheap and ugly. In Grimm’s case, we have an elected member of the U.S. Congress telling constituents and supporters (1) Syria used chemical weapons to slaughter civilians; (2) the U.S. is weighing a military response; (3) Grimm flip-flopped over the course of a few days; so (4) send Grimm some cash because … Obama is bad. Or something.
Pro tip: don’t try to exploit a national security crisis involving a chemical-weapons attack to pad your campaign coffers. Just. Don’t. Do. It.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, September 6, 2013
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