I am of a violently mixed mind on Syria. I am prepared to believe that the use of chemical weapons is a "red line"; and so when the President cited it a year ago, he would have had my lukewarm support for intervention. But there was an election on, and something like principle and American leadership wasn't going to get in the way of Mr. Obama's campaign...and so we did nothing. A year later, Assad has apparently used chemical weapons again, which has Mr. Obama now actually thinking about strikes of some sort. The only problem is that the past year has been spent doing nothing of substance to prepare for such a strike, and we find ourselves one year into Sequestration with a rapidly hollowing military which is less capable of doing what it should have been dispatched to do a year ago.
The President made his impassioned plea for support for this intervention in a Saturday Rose Garden address, in which he spoke of the need for strength and response. He also apparently reversed course and decided to seek Congressional sanction for his action, much to be braying approval of the Bought and Paid For Media who found themselves unable to find historical precedent for such sagacity, forgetting of course the actions of the George Bush's (The Elder, The Younger). Satisfied with his effort to whip the country into a war frenzy, he repaired to the golf course without summoning Congress to return from its extended break to take the matter up.
And so we are left to ponder the facts before us. The "rebels" in Syria include a not insignificant number of Al Qaeda related Islamists. The President--perhaps sensing the potential pitfalls of overthrowing Assad when there is such little clarity into what comes next--has taken regime change off the table. Presumably, whatever is planned for Syria would be from the "punishment" playbook, the one whose historical record--in the Arab World at least--seems to serve only to leave emboldened leaders in place thumbing their nose at the United States to the cheers of the restive Arab Street.
Great Britain has discussed this issue within its own political system, the Prime Minister having summoned Parliament from vacation specifically to do so. Mr. Cameron was unceremoniously abandoned by the "Tea Party" wing of his party, reflecting a dose of common sense of the British people who seemed collectively to be saying, "Are you kidding me? We're not going to do this again. And besides, we could hardly "do" Libya; Syria is a harder nut to crack.
It is--that is for sure. But I don't want readers to get too carried away with this sentiment. Yes, the Syrians have an advanced integrated air defense system (IADS). And yes, they have a number of ballistic and cruise missiles, target-able at US interests in the region. But we shouldn't get carried away. If we decide to do this, Assad will never see it coming. His first indication that something is wrong will be explosions and rubble. That doesn't mean he won't react in unpredictable ways, and it doesn't mean that his puppeteers in Tehran won't take such an attack as a call to arms...it simply means that as a military matter, taking down Syria's Command and Control would not be a particularly taxing endeavor---provided we can 1) get carrier based forces into the region and or 2) we get neighbors to let us use their air bases for the attack. Tomahawks from ships and subs are not enough.
So...we CAN do this--though I really don't know what "THIS" is yet. The question is whether we should. I have been dead set against it for the past few days, but I am beginning to wonder about the long term damage Mr. Obama is doing to America's prestige and its place in the world. I offer two pieces for your review as you make up your own minds,
one from Elliot Cohen--a friend and one of Mitt Romney's senior foreign policy guys--and another by a
couple of Republican Congressmen, one of whom I think has a chance to be President someday (Tom Cotton).
As Albert Einstein used to say, "I'm gonna have a tink on this". Maybe you will too.
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