by Richard Baehr
Until some insiders
break ranks and tell the truth, we will not know why U.S. President
Barack Obama changed his mind over launching cruise missiles at Syria
last week.
Until recently, there was speculation that when the president saw the public opinion polls showing that Americans were sharply opposed
to a strike, he became nervous about being out there on his own,
without the U.N., the British, or Congress, especially if there was a
modest risk that things might "go south" after a strike (retaliation
against U.S. assets or domestic terrorism). Another circulating theory
was that if the British were taking the war to a vote, then Obama, who
had been a frequent war critic as a senator, needed to do the same.
But now a new
explanation is gaining currency: that the president simply lost his will
to fight because he became afraid of Iranian/Hezbollah repercussions.
Unlike the Iranians, the Syrians, the Egyptians, the Russians and
pretty much everyone else on the international stage, who understand
that the president is an empty vessel at this point, and whose word
means little or nothing, Obama may take the Iranian threats seriously.
One Iranian cleric,
Alireza Forghani, offered this: "In just 21 hours [after the attack on
Syria], a family member of every U.S. minister [department secretary],
U.S. ambassadors, U.S. military commanders around the world will be
abducted. And then 18 hours later, videos of their amputation will be
spread [around the world]."
This Shiite cleric also
promised that one of Obama's daughters would be kidnapped and raped.
One wonders if the threats not only caused Obama to back off from a
unilateral attack on Syria, but also caused anyone in the administration
or the mainstream media to challenge their assumptions about the new
moderate Iranian leadership and their supposed openness to negotiations
over their nuclear program, almost completed at this point.
The Wall Street Journal, generally considered a more reliable source than ranting Iranian clerics, also reported
that there were threats from Iran that the administration was taking
seriously: "The U.S. has intercepted an order from Iran to militants in
Iraq to attack the U.S. Embassy and other American interests in Baghdad
in the event of a strike on Syria, officials said, amid an expanding
array of reprisal threats across the region."
There were also threats
from Russian leader Vladimir Putin, an ally of the Syrian government,
backed up by the movement of Russian ships. Putin has clearly learned
since the days of Hillary Clinton's pathetic gift of a reset button
(mistranslated no less into Russian) that the Americans are in strategic
retreat around the world, and Putin seems eager to reassert Russia into
the power vacuum in the Middle East this has created.
There is an argument to
be made at this point that Obama really does not care that much if he
loses the vote in Congress. In fact, if Congress backs a resolution
authorizing the use of force against Syrian President Bashar Assad,
however limited, there are clear risks for the president at this point,
with little in the way of gains, other than the supposed defense of
American credibility in the world. The president has argued that he
never set any red lines about the use of chemical weapons by the Assad
government but that the international community did, and Congress did,
and that he is seeking only to defend international norms.
The problem is that
while 98 percent of the world's population may reside in nations that
signed a chemical weapons treaty, that treaty did not obligate any
nation to act with force in the instance of a violation of the treaty.
The U.S. Senate may
have signed a chemical weapons treaty, and Congress may have passed the
Syrian Accountability Act, but it has not passed any measure requiring
action in the case of a violation of such a treaty. The president,
revealing his inner pacifist, stated publicly that he had been elected
to end wars, not start them. This Syria business, it seems, was a
distraction he had not bargained for.
It was of course, the
president himself, who set a red line on Syria and the use of chemical
weapons, not anybody else. The president ignored earlier violations of
that red line, but there is now added pressure to respond after the most
recent violation from the humanitarian hawks (such as the Samantha
Powers of the world) since the death toll from the use of chemical
weapons has been substantially higher, including hundreds of children.
And then there are
those who seem to think that if Congress passes the resolution, and
Obama launches one or two days of strikes (even if they accomplish
nothing strategically to alter the course of the war), that American
credibility will have been instantly restored internationally, and we
will now be respected again by the likes of Iran. To say this seems like
wishful thinking puts too good a face on it.
The president did not
ask his domestic lobbying arm, Organizing for America, to lobby
Democrats in Congress this week, but he did ask the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee to lobby members from both parties. Moving away
from its historic policy of not lobbying on issues that do not directly
relate to Israel and its security, or U.S.-Israel relations, AIPAC
signaled it was all in and would send 250 top people to visit House and
Senate members next week.
The president has a
twofer here as well -- if he wins the vote, he will get credit and
leftist anti-war advocates can blame AIPAC and the Israel lobby for once
again sending the U.S. to war. On the other hand, if the resolution
does not pass, AIPAC looks weak, and its ability to achieve results on
issues that actually matter to the community, and to both countries,
such as Iran's nuclear program, will be diminished.
A defeat of the
resolution is not a bad result for the president if he does not want to
take action. The president won re-election by appealing to his base, and
he is very uncomfortable taking it on, or forcing it to support
policies it always opposes, or at least always opposes if the president
is a Republican, especially one named Bush. If Obama has grown fearful
of the potential blowback that might result from a short pointless
military strike, then why should he take the risk?
There is also the
cynicism angle. Obama gets to blame Republicans in Congress for the
defeat in the House if it happens (and as now seems likely), which
simply sets him up for the fall battles with House Republicans over the
budget, the federal debt limit and Obamacare -- things that actually
matter to this White House, unlike the Syrian war or Iran. Greater
federal spending, higher taxes, and more redistribution of wealth and
income are the things that move Obama, not military action or addressing
humanitarian issues abroad. The U.S. has a president who wants a much
smaller American footprint abroad, but a much larger government
footprint within the country.
The president hoped
that he had insulated himself from serious risk of blowback from a
military effort directed at Assad for his chemical weapons use, by
letting the Syrians and their allies know in advance that we were not
seeking to change the momentum of the battle between the regime and its
many opponents, nor to remove Assad, nor to hit his chemical weapons
depositories (rumored to be the largest supply in the world). Rather,
the U.S. communicated in every way possible that its response would be
small.
The Obama
administration, in other words, was communicating its utter lack of
strategic seriousness. Pinprick strikes were needed to show America's
humanitarian credentials, but it was not taking sides in the Syrian
civil war. Jon Stewart, a popular comedian, mocked the administration's
response, suggesting that the U.S. was now going to war because it did
not like how the regime had killed these most recent victims, but the
other ways Assad had killed people were acceptable.
It is easy to get the
sense today that the president expects to lose the vote in Congress, and
tossing the military authorization to it anticipated this outcome.
If a majority votes in favor of the limited war resolution in the
Senate (60 votes may be required), this will increase pressure on
wavering Democrats in the House, who are reluctant to embarrass a
president of their party (embarrassing a Republican, especially one
named Bush, on a war vote is a different matter entirely). For now, 224
House members have committed to vote no, or lean that way, with only 35
certain or leaning the other way. That is more than enough to defeat the
resolution if the leaners stay on the no side. But even if Congress
provides a split verdict -- the Senate for, the House against -- the
president can abandon the effort and blame House Republicans for U.S.
inaction.
Those arguing the
hardest for support for American military involvement seem convinced
that U.S. credibility will be shot if it does not strike back at Assad.
Until last week, the president had behaved as if Congress was an
irrelevance in the decision process. The U.N. and the international
community seemed to matter, but Congress was hardly mentioned.
With the decision to throw this
to Congress, Obama has damaged American credibility in a far more
lasting way than how this vote and U.S. action or inaction in Syria is
perceived. For from now on, presidents will assume they cannot simply
strike at enemies, but must enter the political process and get
congressional support, even for quick actions, thereby removing the
element of surprise. If you want to neuter the credibility of U.S.
fighting forces and the American ability to matter on the international
stage, you could not do more than what Obama has already done.
Richard Baehr
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=5627
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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