It's abundantly clear that Obama did NOT want to intervene
militarily in Syria
in a manner that would radically alter the balance of power in the conflict
towards toppling Assad. Afghanistan ,
Iraq and Libya show
deposing one regime means living with a successor regime that may be worse. In
each of those cases, changing the regime stuck us in the middle of civil wars,
and the outcomes in all three of those cases have not been worth the price we
paid.
Add to that the fact that Americans are pretty fed up with Middle East military adventures, especially when there is
no discernible national interest. There is no compelling national interest in
affirmatively creating regime change in Syria . Most of the hue and cry for
doing so are based on humanitarian rationales. The sad fact and reality
is that frankly, there are no good outcomes in Syria from the US point of view,
so why get mixed up in it if we don't have to? And you better believe that the
people who are most emphatic that something be done to stop the killings will
be the first to condemn the United
States when its starts killing people to
stop the killings. There is no clean way to end a civil war, certainly not one
as brutal as Syria 's.
We can debate the wisdom of Obama's unilateral red line on
chemical weapons. I'd argue that it was a reasonable approach given that
the US
was trying to avoid being drawn into the conflict. Obama sent a clear
signal to the Assad regime " we want
to stay out of it. If you want us to stay out of it too, don't use chemical
weapons". That was communicated with great clarity. It's hard to
understand why Assad didn't heed that message.
Assad is ruthless. If he thought he needed to use the
weapons he would. He's also very rational, so he wouldn't use them if he
had other options, and given the state of the conflict and his ongoing support
from Russia and Iran , its hard
to see what would have compelled him to run the risk now. His enemies are
just as ruthless and are entirely capable of using chemical weapons to provoke US
intervention. But how they would have gotten them is pretty uncertain, and if
they were found out, all Western support would likely get cut. Assad's access
to chemical weapons is certain. But be clear about this: it no
longer matters whether Assad did it or the rebels did. Its politicized
now. The dominant story is that it was Assad, with major western governments
staking out that position.
Obama's red line rhetoric has backed him into a corner. His
political opponents who already despise the man will make that about him being
an inept president. I think the realty is not nearly that simple, but you can
interpret it that way. Getting rid of Assad and keeping the regime to
block the jihadists would have been the best outcome in all of this for the US . Obama
has been trying to find a policy approach that would give him that.
The problem now is that this isn't just about Syria anymore.
I'ts about US
credibility. The US
has stated a condition that commits it to an intervention. If we don't act in
the face of a clear violation, then other countries like N. Korea and Iran may be
prone to call our bluff about nuclear weapons for example.
I guarantee you that after Congress votes to support
Obama (I'm predicting they will), no matter who else says they are coming along
(the French) this will be Obama's deal alone. If we strike Syria , we'll
have to worry about Russian reprisals and Iranian ones as well. And the reality
is that there is no clean way to strike this regime. On the ground,
innocents are going to die due to US military action and Obama will be
crucified for the very intervention people like McCain or the human rights
interventionist faction in his administration (Susan Rice, others) are
clamoring for him to take. Whether its too little or too great an expenditure
of effort, the consequences are all bad. There are no good options
here politically for Obama or geopolitically for the United States
His political foes will make this only about Obama being a
lousy president, but in my view that's an analysis of a very
complicated world from the level of a 4th grader. It would be nice if the
world just operated the way the US
president wants. It does not. Obama is now stuck with nothing but a bunch of
bad options, from which he must try to pick the least worst. Instead of crowing
over how lousy a guy he is, his friends and foes alike better hope he finds a
way to thread this needle in a fashion that burns us the least.
