Monday, September 9, 2013
Syria/Russia/U.S.: The Debate Continues
I believe this comment by Infidel753, (who knows a lot more about the Middle East and all of its problems than most), from the post below deserves wider discussion.
Infidel753 said...
A few reminders I think are important:
(1) It is not an established fact that the Asad regime ordered the chemical-weapons attack at all (discussion here). The regime was already winning the war and had no motive to risk provoking US intervention against itself. The rebels had ample motivation to stage an attack in hopes of tricking the US into attacking the regime. Their chief backer, Saudi Arabia, has plenty of money and could certainly acquire a few chemical weapons for them to do so.
Can you imagine the result if Obama struck at Syria and it was later shown that the chemical-weapons attack was a rebel trick designed to manipulate him into doing that very thing? He'd probably have to resign.
(2) The rebels are largely jihadists (including al-Qâ'idah fighters) who have already started persecuting and killing non-Sunni minorities including Christians. As ghastly as the Asad regime is, it would be worse both for us and for the Syrian people if they were to take over.
(3) By Middle Eastern standards Syria is a fairly strong country militarily. Most Middle Eastern states do not have the power to remove Asad even if they wanted to (and most of them are dictatorships who have no interest in establishing a precedent that dictators can be overthrown for violating human rights). Israel or Turkey could do it, but at great cost, and they're understandably focused on their own national security.
(4) We risk escalating tensions with Russia and Iran (much bigger and stronger states than Syria), and creating an opportunity for Iranian radicals to undermine Iranian moderates who are finally in the ascendant there.
The plain fact is that Obama has made a mistake here. If it takes the House voting no to stop this from moving forward, so be it.
Thoughtful comments welcome.
Partisan sniping and trying to make political points on this serious issue will be ignored.
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13 comments:
Hi Shaw, thanks for the post -- very flattering.
As another data point about what kind of people the rebels we're considering helping actually are, here's a report on their recent capture of a Christian village near Damascus (I recognize the name of this village -- I visited it very briefly in 1979).
It's probably becoming a moot point due to the recent bizarre turn of events under which a Kerry gaffe was transformed into a Russian disarmament initiative which may eliminate the option of a US airstrike. It never looked very likely that Congress would authorize action, but now, with a proposal on the table to get rid of the chemical weapons, I can't imagine the airstrike moving forward.
If it takes a gaffe, some House Republicans, and Vladimir Putin to save us from committing an epic-scale foreign-policy blunder, that's one of the weirder outcomes I can ever remember seeing, but I'll take it.
First off, I would caution anyone that might assume that Barack Obama rushes into things and or makes rash decisions.
We have not done much in regards to Syria and Obama has, up until now, walked a very thin line in regards to Syria.
Now, all of the sudden, he wants to start a war? Obviously, something is going on that we are not aware of.
So, tonight it is announced that Putin may have offered a way to take the chemical weapons off the table.
Which gets Obama off the hook and gives him an out and it allows for all the warring parties to continue on with conventional weapons.
Personally, I think the call to go to war was just a way to start diplomacy which hasn't been done up to this point.
As so played, then Barack Obama is brilliant.
At the end of the day, the United States wants the Syrian Government and their partner Hezbollah to continue to be bogged down fighting the Saudi Arabian funded Al Qaeda bunch.
It keeps all of them busy killing each other and it takes the pressure off of Eqypt and the focus off of Eqypt.
These comments present in a most thoughtful and constructive way extremely powerful arguements for not intervening in the Syrian civil war.
Obama's calculus on this issue was indeed wrong and it my hope as well that Congress denies approval for military strikes of any kind.
______ MUCH ADO ABOUT MUCH ______
If Shakespeare were writing a play about our posture on Syria today, that is what he would doubtless want to call it.
It's all about the "ado." There is no discernible substance in the way we- and the rest of The World Community -- are handling -- or failing to handle -- this issue. And so, the sad situation where people are dying by the hundreds every day, apparently, has been rendered laughable by turning it into a MEDIA KERFUFFLE about the OBAMA Administration whose actions most closely resemble SELF-PARODY.
It doesn't MATTER what we decide to do or not do over there, because whatever it is it will be too small to do any good.
A missile strike on our part might succeed in spending a few more billion of our phantom dollars, maiming or snuffing out the lives of still more of our young men and women, while killing a few innocent bystanders in Syria, but it's likely to have no effect whatsoever on the policies of either Assad or the rebels none of whom is worth the powder it would take to blow him to hell.
The administration's hinkle pinkling approach to this highly louted "Looming Crisis" is all too reminiscent of The Lobster Quadrille -- Will you? -- Won't you? -- Will you? -- Won't you? -- WON'T you join the dance?
We know darned well our leaders are flirting with yet-another costly exercise in futility, and still the media, the White House, and various congresscreatures with long sober faces solemnly intone their tosh and tarradiddle before the cameras as though their spurious rhetoric and the shuffling fandango they perform actually had genuine significance.
Could this be what Edgar Allen Poe meant to symbolize when he wrote The Masque of the Red Death?
Picking sides to support in Syria is impossible because neither side represents the general population.
Although you may call Kerry's utterance a gaffe, it could well be a planned "mistake" to force Putin to take some action and make him look look like the world peace maker. This would elevate Putin and keep us out of escalated armed conflict.
Intelligence shows the use of chemical weapons by al-Assad but the same intelligence showed the presence of WMD's in Iraq.
Sometimes a gaffe is just a gaffe. Sometimes it is a planned political move.
"Can you imagine the result if Obama struck at Syria and it was later shown that the chemical-weapons attack was a rebel trick"
Like Bush did? Facts don't matter, only partisan politics do and whatever Obama does, it will be viciously attacked.
"The rebels are largely jihadists"
Like the 'rebels' in Afghanistan we supported and armed against the Soviets? Say what ever happened to the Taliban?
"Facts don't matter, only partisan politics do and whatever Obama does, it will be viciously attacked."
Obama would never be attacked the way Bush was and is. The MSM is to far up Obama to ever vilify him the way the have done Bush. I was not in favor of attacking Iraq but a lot of members of congress were, Clinton, Kerry are two shining examples. Both presidents are relying on the same intelligence system so both could be wrong.
Capt. Fogg: Like Bush did?
Not even Bush committed the specific blunder of letting a foreign false-flag operation trick him into launching a military operation to do our worst enemies' dirty work for them. I'd be surprised if a President of either party could remain in office if it turned out that had happened.
Like the 'rebels' in Afghanistan we supported and armed against the Soviets?
I made this exact point in my post on Syria a couple of weeks ago.
Infidel753,
I'd be very interested on what you think about this turn of events.
Will you be putting up a post on this?
skud, you're talking points are boring us.
Shaw: If you're referring to the Russian disarmament initiative, I think it's too soon to assess it, especially since we don't know what Putin's real intentions are. My main reaction is relief that it has probably taken the option of an American strike against Syria completely off the table for the foreseeable future.
Infidel753,
A thoughtful answer. Thanks.
Charles Pierce, who does not support President Obama on this at all, nevertheless has an interesting post on how Pres. Obama approaches these issues:
BARACK OBAMA IS NOT A MAN OF THE GUT
IMO, it is just too facile for folks to believe all of what happened was a blunder by PBO and Kerry.
Those on the right, of course, will hop around like deranged kangaroos, believing that is so, but the last laughs will be on them.
Only those suffering from acute Obama Derangement Syndrome would believe something as serious as this was not carefully thought out so that all the players--Russia and Syria--would look like they took control of the situation and be the ones to initiate the taking down of Syria's chemical weapons.
But I still believe in a wait and see position while all of this plays out. Including the ridiculous accusations and suppositions traveling around the internet.
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