Syria Superthread [merged]

[myself.only]

Prof Bruce Ackerman, writing in Foreign Policy says: President Obama's proposal to the US Congress "is a massive bait-and-switch operation. It authorizes the president to use "the Armed Forces of the United States," including boots on the ground, and to employ military force "within, to or from Syria." What is more, the president can act to deter the "use or proliferation" of "chemical or other weapons of mass destruction" and intervene to "protect the United States and its allies and partners against the threat posed by such weapons." This is nothing less than an open-ended endorsement of military intervention in the Middle East and beyond."

Prof Ackerman suggests that "The crucial point to recognize is that something special is happening. A dispute with a minor-league despot is provoking a major turning point in American foreign policy. This is a moment for Congress to confront its responsibilities with high seriousness."

I'm not so sure, my suspicion is that, despite a few big brains in the White House and in Foggy Bottom, the real planning is both highly political and highly partisan, rather than being either strategic or in America's best interests. I'm guessing that President Obama is sincere when he says he doesn't want to engage in the Middle East. I base that guess on the fact - and I believe it is a fact - that he and his closest advisors neither know nor care much about that region, or any other outside of "Blue America" for that matter. It was another great Democrat, Thomas "Tip" O'Neill who reminded us that all politics, and by extension all policies, even the gravest foreign policy matters, are, ultimately, "local." I think President Obama "sees" the world, and indeed America, through the eyes of an inner city "community activist" ~ in that I think he is just the other side of the same coin from President George W Bush. I, honestly, cannot see much to choose between them in terms of what President George HW Bush famously called "the vision thing."

Unfortunately, for America, it is, yet again, saddled, by choice, with thoroughly second rate leadership, but this time there is no Margaret Thatcher to put some intellectual heft and spine into the leader of the free world.

ERC, I think several nails hit on heads there.
The lesson learned from keeping Saddam on the Xmas card list while he gassed enemies foreign and domestic is that a minor league despot using WMDs on your watch is a major pain in the legacy.

 

[myself.only]

Or will it be Blue for the new Foreign Non Policy of his eminence, Justin Trudeau. The addition of a special tac vest JT pouch may also be mandated.

Complete with field clipboard for polling root causes

 

[a_majoor]

Tying the Syria thread to American "Grand Strategy" (or lack thereof); the domestic political considerations around this blunder may be what drive the ultimate decision to go or not go, with unpredictable outcomes for both the Uni9ted States and the West for decades to come:

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/09/05/if-obama-doesnt-bomb-syria-now-hes-toast/

If Obama Doesn’t Bomb Syria Now, He’s Toast

Apologies for another Syria post after this morning’s essay, but sometimes the news gives you no choice. From the Times this morning, we see that the President is still floundering, unwilling or unable to level with himself or the public about just how ugly his self-created Syria predicament has become:

“I didn’t set a red line; the world set a red line,” Mr. Obama said at a news conference in Stockholm on the first day of a three-day visit to Sweden and Russia, where he will take part in a summit meeting that is likely to be dominated by the war in Syria.

“My credibility’s not on the line,” he said, appealing to lawmakers and foreign leaders to back his plan to retaliate against President Bashar al-Assad. “The international community’s credibility is on the line. And America and Congress’s credibility is on the line.”

President Obama could not be more wrong. It is precisely the President’s credibility as a spokesman for the “international community” (whatever that is) and for US foreign policy that is glaringly and horribly on the line. An effective leader would have consulted with key people in Congress and made sure of his backing before making explicit threats of force. Now the President is twisting lonesomely in the wind, and the question is whether Congress will ride to the rescue. If it doesn’t, it will be the closest thing the American system has to a parliamentary vote of “no confidence”, where Congress explicitly declares to the world that the President of the United States does not speak for the country.

That would be very dangerous. Foreigners will no longer know when and whether to take anything this President says as representing American policy rather than his own editorial opinions. We hate to say it, but that is so dangerous that there’s a strong argument for Congress to back the Syria resolution simply to avoid trashing the credibility of the only President we’ve got.

If Congress declines to support what even proponents of a Syria strike must agree is a massively screwed up policy, then the President will face another choice. He can do a “Clinton” (President Clinton bombed Serbia in the teeth of congressional disapproval), or he can fold like a cheap suit. If he chooses the latter course, Clint Eastwood’s “empty chair” stunt at the 2012 GOP convention will look eerily prophetic. For purposes of foreign policy, the United States will endure something like a presidential vacancy until Mr. Obama is replaced in 2017 or until he finds a way to restore his authority and prestige.

Considered in the abstract, the planned attacks on Syria may or may not be smart. But thanks to this latest round of “smart diplomacy,” if bombs don’t fall on Syria, President Obama will have bombed his own credibility into oblivion.

 

[nn1988]

Russia boosting its fleet in the Mediterranean sea seems like a bluff to me, although if  the situation in the Middle East was to escalate drastically and things were to get hairy and awry,. an attack on Israel/US/France etc. by China/Russia/Iran/Syria.. etc would Canada and Great Britain be bound to get involved and defend the former.

 

[George Wallace]

Russia boosting its fleet in the Mediterranean sea seems like a bluff to me, although if  the situation in the Middle East was to escalate drastically and things were to get hairy and awry,. an attack on Israel/US/France etc. by China/Russia/Iran/Syria.. etc would Canada and Great Britain be bound to get involved and defend the former.

You have heard of an organization called NATO, haven't you?

 

[nn1988]

No. What's that  :-*

 

[Journeyman]

Russia boosting its fleet in the Mediterranean sea seems like a bluff to me, although if  the situation in the Middle East was to escalate drastically and things were to get hairy and awry,. an attack on Israel/US/France etc. by China/Russia/Iran/Syria.. etc would Canada and Great Britain be bound to get involved and defend the former.

Wow.  Once again, there are opinions and there are informed opinions.    :stars:



Yet another one to the <ignore> pile

 

[57Chevy]

ref to article posted by Thucydides
Quote
          “I didn’t set a red line; the world set a red line,” Mr. Obama said at a news conference in Stockholm....bla bla bla.

is not all what he said.

He said, quote;
            "The world set a red line when governments representing 98% of the world's population said the use of chemical weapons was abhorrent and passed a treaty forbidding their use even when countries are engaged in war," he said. "That was not something I just kind of made up, I did not pluck it out of thin air."

He added: "My credibility is not on the line. The international community's credibility is on the line because we give lip service to the notion that these international norms are important.

"Keep in mind, I'm somebody who opposed the war in Iraq, and I'm not interested in repeating mistakes about basing decisions on faulty intelligence," the US president said at a news conference in Stockholm.

 

[57Chevy]

                                                          Shared with provisions of The Copyright Act
Standoff In The Mediterranean: The US vs Russian Navies
by Tyler Durden
Link

While the leaders of the two superpowers are shaking hands for the camera in St. Petersburg, their navies are sending a different message. Here is the latest  breakdown of the world's key navies in the Mediterranean theater of naval operations as of last night. By now it is likely woefully outdated, now that there are reports the Chinese have joined the fray too (not on the side of the 'free droning world').

 

[myself.only]

You have heard of an organization called NATO, haven't you?

No. What's that  :-*

:
Well at least we can rest assured that the Soviet Union Russia has.

 

[a_majoor]

57, I am most of the readers here are aware of what he said, but he chose those words to weasle out of admitting he had indeed used the term "red line": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxxwfaIAl_Q


Since he is indeed on record as saying those words (and implying swift action once the "red line" was crossed), then it is his credibility on the line.

The world is simply standing by and watching with interest.....

 

[OldSolduer]

op:

The whole Syria thing is turning into a  :trainwreck:

 

[CougarKing]

Seems these rebels are capable of holding their own...with weapons possibly supplied by the Saudis or other Gulf states that is.

From the Aviationist:

In the meanwhile in Syria Assad’s Mig-21 fighter jets are downed by rebel anti-aircraft fire

While U.S. and Russian warships and planes are amassing in the Mediterranean Sea, the Syrian regime is still attacking Free Syrian Army positions across the country.

And rebels are shooting back with some good results.

The image in this post shows a Syrian Arab Air Force (SyAAF) Mig-21 hit by anti-aircraft fire. The aircraft reportedly crashed and the fate of the pilot is unknown.

Days ago we noticed Syrian Migs were operating over Syria without releasing flares to deceive IR anti-aircraft missiles: a possible sign that MANPADS were not active in the area where the video was taken.

Airports used by Assad’s Air Force to launch air strikes on rebels would be among the first targets of an eventual U.S. attack on Syria.
(...)

 

[vonGarvin]

Seems these rebels are capable of holding their own...with weapons possibly supplied by the Saudis or other Gulf states that is the United States.

From the Aviationist:

There, fixed that for you.

 

[The Bread Guy]

The 'International Human Shields' movement, started by a group of activists in Britain and the US, plans to bring to Syria civilians from countries around the globe, who will try to deter US strikes on the country by staking out potential military targets.

Franklin Lamb, a lawyer recently appointed as the legal adviser for the group said he had been "inundated" with requests from activists including from Canada, France, Italy, the US, and Britain.

The Syrian regime has not yet indicated whether it will allow the group to enter the country, but it raises the prospect of hundreds of pacifists descending on Damascus, as happened in Baghdad before the 2003 Iraq invasion.

Many of those volunteering to go to Syria also took part in the 'Human Shields' movement that travelled to Baghdad, initially to protect hospitals and schools, and later, key government infrastructure sites ....

Telegraph, 6 Sept 13

 

[vonGarvin]

That's one way to cull the herd.


If they go to Syria, that's just a really good reason to start bombing....

 

[Edward Campbell]

I was advised by a Muslim acquaintance, who knows my views on the Middle Eastern morass, that "human shields" are considered fair, even "smart" throughout the region. The idea that they are dishonourable, even cowardly, is not, he suggests, shared much beyond the liberal West.

During the China-Mongol wars that led to the Yuan Dynasty Kublai Khan's commanders used "alive boards," walls of Chinese civilians, as human shields. Different Chinese commanders reacted differently: some sacrificed the Chinese human shields to get at the Mongols, others allowed them to serve their purpose. Although I cannot recall, off hand, any direct references to human shields in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which is part of the core Chinese cultural foundation ~ I've never met anyone who doesn't know at least some of the stories ~ that isn't to say that they weren't used, but, generally, Chinese "heroes" try to "serve the people," to use modern terms.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Andrew Coyne makes the case for intervention in a well written column in the National Post.

He asks a pertinent question: "One reads the many, many elegant explanations of why the West cannot, must not, need not intervene in Syria — it would be hypocritical, in view of past failures; the distinction between chemical and conventional weapons is an arbitrary one; the credibility of the United States is not on the line (and anyway, credibility is overrated); it is not worth spilling blood in the service of abstractions like the Responsibility to Protect; the rebels are no better than the Assad regime; the UN Security Council has not approved military action; and that old favourite, what’s our end game? — and in none of them will you find a frank acknowledgment of what in fact they are arguing: that we should stand by and do nothing while tens of thousands of civilians are slaughtered; that we should do nothing, even when the means of slaughter escalates to chemical weapons."

I will answer: I am one who says "we should stand by and do nothing while tens of thousands of civilians are slaughtered; that we should do nothing, even when the means of slaughter escalates to chemical weapons." My view on the Middle East would not change if the disputes escalated to nuclear and, as I have said, before even if (when, I think) Israel's very existence is threatened by Arab weapons of mass destruction, of whatever sort, our only response should be to help evacuate Jewish refugees and resettle as many as we can here. (That would be the one case where my general reaction against settling refugees in Canada would not apply. When, rather than if, the Jews are driven out of the Middle East they weill not be looking to return, not anytime soon, anyway and they will integrate well into our society.)

 

[Nemo888]

Maybe the crap sandwich wouldn't look so bad if there was a goal and someone in Washington sounded like they had a clue what was going on.

How do you prevent ethnic cleansing of the Alawites if the rebels win? How do you prevent the Islamic radicals  from getting those weapons if they achieve victory? How does intervention help the 2 million refugees and 5 million internally displaced persons? In what way is intervening better than letting them fight amongst themselves? It is starting to look like either there is no plan or it is so stupid they won't reveal it.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

op:

The whole Syria thing is turning into a  :trainwreck:

It is a soup sandwich... Looking back on the past few years I am finding it very comical that Obama was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize a few years ago  ;D is no institution sacred anymore.

The hawks want to strike but the bomb bank is empty