The problem in Syria is that the opposition is no longer preferable to the regime and the regime is beyond redemption. Until I see evidence that contradicts it, I am not going to assume that Samantha Power is unaware of this conundrum just because she wrote a book condemning historical indifference to genocide in the West. The assumption is that she favors military action because she’s always argued that we should not stand idly by while evil regimes slaughter their own people. But all that tells us is that she is morally opposed to doing nothing when we can intervene at an “acceptable risk.” The problem in Syria is that there are no acceptable risks.
The one citation that Jeffrey Goldberg makes from Ms. Powers’ book that needs to be considered is the following:
So I have a sense that Power would believe that the following statement, which she made in her book’s concluding chapter, would apply to Syria: “When innocent life is being taken on such a scale and the United States has the power to stop the killing at reasonable risk, it has a duty to act.”
In her conclusion, Power asks, “Why does the United States stand so idly by?” in the face of mass killing. And she explains the traditional behavior of Western leaders when confronted with proof of large-scale atrocities: “Western governments have generally tried to contain genocide by appeasing its architects. But the sad record of the last century shows that the walls the United States tries to build around genocidal societies almost inevitably shatter. States that murder and torment their own citizens target citizens elsewhere. Their appetites become insatiable.”
Her argument for intervention in cases of large-scale violence against civilians is not motivated merely by moral interests: “Citizens victimized by genocide or abandoned by the international community do not make good neighbors, as their thirst for vengeance, their irredentism and their acceptance of violence as a means of generating change can turn them into future threats.”
How does that apply to Syria? The regime has enlisted Lebanon’s Hizbollah, causing the civil war to spread to their neighbor, and the opposition has, indeed, become bad neighbors. Doing nothing has, as Ms. Powers predicted it would, failed to prevent a bad situation from getting worse.
But that doesn’t mean that some affirmative actions could have avoided this at an acceptable risk to the United States. Right now, we are not losing lives in Syria and we aren’t incurring huge costs there. Until someone explains how we can fix the problems there, I do not see why we should take ownership of the mother of all headaches.
The emerging “Do Something Caucus” needs to explain their plan.
Does Power’s book address when we help certain governments slaughter their own people? Like say, Pinochet’s Chile?
.
How does that apply to Syria? The regime has enlisted Lebanon’s Hizbollah, causing the civil war to spread to their neighbor, and the opposition has, indeed, become bad neighbors. Doing nothing has, as Ms. Powers predicted it would, failed to prevent a bad situation from getting worse.
On this one paragraph, I could write a diary on the misconceptions presented here. Someone hasn’t been paying attention the last 4-5 years and most likely the past decade where multiple assassinations took place in Lebanon. It’s not Hezbollah that caused the civil war to spread to “their neighbor.” Do your homework and see how the Sunni clerics have undermined Syria’s sovereignty through provocation, incitement to hatred and sending jihadists across the border into Syria. Saudi Arabia has been meddling in Syria and most likely an affiliated Sunni terror group murdered PM Hariri with a car bomb in Beirut in 2005. Not Hezbollah!
My diary – Condi’s Fairy Tale – Neocons and A Democratic Syria.
The so-called opposition was supposed to be “makeable” and Ms Clinton did her best to prolong hostilities, frustrate the Geneva 1 talks for a diplomatic solution and encourage all sorts of Arab nations to fund foreign fighters and ship arms from Libya to Syria. This is all well documented and NATO partner Turkey played a major role as Erdogan had the grand vision, he would become the new sultan. Erdogan got the encouragements from the US State Department.
See link to story – The Failed Grand Strategy in the Middle East. h/t Superpole
If the United States had made the choice to “do nothing” and made sure regional powers did the same, there would not have been a civil/sectarian war. I suppose no one followed the ugly scenes of the most horrible war crimes in Syria these past 2.5 years. Not only from the Assad regime, but especially from the Al Nusra Front (rightly designated as a terror group) and all the Al Qaeda affiliated terror groups now deployed throughout Syria. A guarantee for terror strikes throughout the regions, Africa and Europe the coming decade. Not because the Western powers, the US and GCC states did nothing, but because their goal was the overthrow of the Assad regime. Just like Iraq, the most “humane” design to create chaos and we’ll reap a new dawn: a democratic state based on Western principles of a secular state. The utter idiocy and bs from Washington DC. Why propagate these false statements here at BooMan?
Game changer in Syrian civil war …
○ Key City Qusayr Fallen to Assad’s Forces June 5, 2013
○ Obama Sidelined on Syria, Hollande and King Abdullah Deliver Arms to Syrian Rebels June 18, 2013
○ Stirrings In Syria – 2 Years On a rebuttal to BooMan’s fp story US would be nuts to take ownership of the (Syrian) problem May 17, 2013
“If the United States had made the choice to “do nothing” and made sure regional powers did the same, there would not have been a civil/sectarian war”
You have no way of knowing this. The US reacted to the situation that developed in Syria. You can argue that arming the rebels has ensured that the conflict will be longer and bloodier but not that there would not have been a civil war.
Staying out and forcing regional powers to stay out (who do things for their own national/ideological interests) is not doing nothing. Leaving aside that we have no influence over actors like Iran and Russia.
Think beyond DC orchestrating everything behind the scenes. Believe it or not the tail often wags the dog when it comes to the US.
You clearly have not followed the developments in Syria. Check out my coverage on the issue Syria the past two years.
I usually follow the developments in Syria through analysis and reports from native Arabs and regional experts. I admit to not following your coverage.
I see we’ve reached the “random bad shit ’bout America” stage of the argument early.
Go ahead and stick your head in the sand!!
I feel for the people of Syria, but we shouldn’t get involved.
The past two and a half years have demonstrated pretty conclusively that your thinking has already won in the White House. They are clearly not eager to send in da troops, or even try a Libya-style mission.
The question now is whether a large-scale chemical weapons attack – if that is in fact what happened – requires a response for the sake of maintaining the almost century-old taboo on using those weapons.
Assuming that maintaining that global norm must only be a pretext for a preexisting desire to attack Syria, like Bush’s WMD scam, flies in the face of 90 years of history, as well as the history of the American reaction to the Syrian Civil War.
Okay, let’s add deterrence as an equity here.
Let’s say that quite aside from any U.S. interest in the outcome of the civil war, we have an interest in punishing assholes who use chemical weapons.
And let’s assume, although I am nowhere near ready to concede it, that the Assad regime launched the chemical attack.
What is the right way to create future deterrence that doesn’t present unacceptable risk to the United States?
Is it possible for us to eliminate all Syrian armor from the air? What would the
SovietRussian response entail? Can we punish Syria without Russian acquiescence?Well, you know that our military can blow up the world, so yes we can destroy their armored vehicles from the air. It would be expensive to do and I don’t know it would solve anything.
I don’t think the Russian would do anything overt if we attack Syria and we don’t need their permission, but they have ways of making us pay. They could cut off gas supplies to Europe, for example, or deny us access to our troops in Afghanistan.
The would be a cost to enforcing the chemical weapons ban.
The question is whether it is worth it, and how seriously we take the norm against chemical weapons usage.
You can tell me you value something, but if you are only willing to pursue in the absence of any cost, you don’t really value it; you just think it’s nice.
Hitler was unwilling to use chemical weapons because of concerns about violating that international norm, and the consequences it might have. Is the international norm against chemical weapons usage something we should value, or is it something we think is nice?
Zyklon B was what now?
And what are you leaving out in your neat little dichotomy there between liking a chemical weapons ban and valuing it?
Zyklon B was not the use of chemical weapons in warfare.
Nice own goal: even someone willing to gas people in concentration camps feared the consequences of using them in battle. Many, many thousands of allied troops did not die of gas attacks because of the norm you would so casually throw away.
And what are you leaving out in your neat little dichotomy there between liking a chemical weapons ban and valuing it?
If you have a point, go ahead and throw it out there. Don’t be shy.
What a strange argument you are making about Hitler.
He feared international opinion about the use of chemical weapons while he gassed millions of people in concentration camps. All of this in a war that ended with two nuclear explosions. What, exactly, does this argument attempt to do?
It’s just not doing any work for you. Hitler gambled on victory, not on sustaining the approval of international opinion. And I don’t know what your source is for this, and I’m not trying to refute it, but having been the victim of a gas attack in the First World War, Hitler may have had idiosyncratic personal reasons for not wanting to use them. He also may have had strictly military reasons, like he thought they’d lose overall if they were introduced because of America’s manufacturing prowess.
How many times would you like me to repeat myself?
He.
Didn’t.
Use.
Chemical.
Weapons.
In.
The.
War.
We’re talking about the value of the chemical weapons taboo, and you’re acting baffled about how German’s non-use of chemical weapons, in the face of that taboo, is relevant.
Okay, BooMan.
Some background: http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/technology_and_culture/v040/40.1
br_price.html
He feared international opinion about the use of chemical weapons while he gassed millions of people in concentration camps.
Yes. Even the guy who was willing to carry out the Holocaust feared the consequences of engaging in chemical warfare. You don’t understand what making this point is supposed to “do” in an argument about the value of that taboo?
And keep in mind that fearing international opinion is not merely a question of getting invited to cocktail parties, but about being politically and militarily isolated.
I do hope you also know that the death camps were operated in secret, for the purpose of preventing the outside world from knowing about them, again because of concerns over international opinion.
All of this in a war that ended with two nuclear explosions. There was no taboo at the time about the use of nuclear weapons in warfare, the way there was surrounding chemical weapons. Hence, nukes were used, and gas was not.
Interesting juxtaposition between Germany’s non use of chemical weapons ON THE BATTLEFIELD and the US attack on Japan, AFTER Nazi Germany surrendered in the European Theater, with the first use of nuclear weapons, to force an end to the Pacific Theater campaign without a direct attack by ground troops on the mainland of Japan ……
How are the two related to the original post Booman?
It is a pretty good bet that air strikes would neither topple the Assad government nor turn the tide of the civil war in favor of the rebels. What I’m afraid will happen, is the failure of air strikes to resolve the situation will in turn create a ton of pressure to escalate US involvement.
Actually, in general any kind of intervention is going to create an enhanced risk of escalation.
What does Bashar Assad really love?
His internal security apparatus.
His air force.
His armor forces.
His life.
If the goal here is punishment and deterrence, an air campaign that imposes a very heavy costs to him would seem to be the way to go.
And then what?
And then every regime that considers the use of chemical weapons in the future looks at what happened to Assad, and says “Hmmmm…”
Your turn: Assad’s use of chemical weapons goes unpunished, and then what?
Try to remember that the world is a bigger place than Syria.
Then we don’t wind creating the root of the 2018 invasion to depose the Ba’athist regime in Damascus, and some risk is created that chemical weapons will be used in the future.
…because every air strike ever carried out caused us to later invade that country.
and some risk is created that chemical weapons will be used in the future.
“Some risk is created.” What an honest, forthright way to describe the expiration of the global norm against chemical weapons usage.
The point is that attacking commits us to regime change, in much the same way that the 1998 bombing of Iraq committed us to regime change. If you want to argue that Gore/Lieberman would have left Saddam alone, so nothing was set in stone, I’d argue fine, let’s leave this alone now, rather than later.
This is not a simple equation where you do something because something has to be done. If nothing productive can be done then you don’t do anything, and you manage the consequences the best you can. Refraining from taking ownership of the mess in Syria does not force us to acquiesce to future chemical attacks in different circumstances.
The point is that attacking commits us to regime change
Then it’s a stupid point. Air strikes don’t commit us to regime change, and the 1998 strikes on Iraq didn’t commit us to regime change. We had absolutely no reason, after Operation Desert Fox, to launch the Iraq War.
You continually deny George Bush’s agency in making the Iraq War happen. It’s a ridiculously implausible argument, and I have trouble believing you would give it the slightest credence if it wasn’t a helpful escape hatch in internet debates.
Well, you can look at this from different magnifications.
One way to look at it is to survey the countries we have, at some point, bombed, whether in a one-off way or a more sustained campaign. Did we eventually wind up doing regime change in those countries?
In Serbia, Iraq, and Afghanistan we did. In Sudan, the country was eventually divided, which could be one outcome in Syria.
So, that’s looking at it less with any personal agency and more with impersonal historical forces. In general, once you bomb, you eventually insist on regime change.
In the case of Iraq, you can pick your starting point, whether it be 1990, 1991, 1998, the 2000 election, or the Sept. 11 attacks.
However, you shouldn’t overstate Bush’s agency in the decision to invade Iraq. For reasons of prestige, saving face, deterrence, etc., the prior actions and threats of the Clinton and Bush I presidencies created a forceful logic that argued against further stalemate, especially once the status quo began to crumble in earnest and a terror threat arose in response to the status quo. As Wolfowitz admitted, the WMD argument was purely for administrative reasons.
The problem was that we owned the Iraq problem and couldn’t solve it. We don’t need to do that in Syria just because we want to protect the taboo on chemical weapons. I hope you aren’t arguing that we need to do it. If it is your preference that we do it, that argument I can accept.
We did regime change in Serbia? When was that?
Shouldn’t that one error, by itself, be enough to rebut your argument that air strikes inevitably commit us to regime change?
In the case of Iraq, you can pick your starting point
If you aren’t too terribly concerned with accuracy, I suppose you “can” pick any starting point you like.
We don’t need to do that in Syria just because we want to protect the taboo on chemical weapons.
No, we don’t. Courses of action well short of owning the Syrian problem are available to us.
I hope you aren’t arguing that we need to do it.
No, we aren’t obligated to do it. We could just let chemical warfare reestablish itself as part of the world order. That is an option available t us.
The downfall of Milosevic was precipitated by the Kosovo campaign and heavy diplomatic condemnation from the West. The ensuing mess has proven manageable, in a way that is very unlikely to be the case in Syria. However, Serbia could serve as a best-case scenario for Syria, in that a bombing campaign and increasing international pressure could lead to the deposition of Assad by internal forces. We were still committed to regime change there. And we got it.
Yes, the internal Serbian political events that brought about Milosevic’s downfall were precipitated by the bombing campaign.
What this is supposed to have to do with an American military regime change effort continued to elude me.
We were still committed to regime change there.
Link? Or any evidence whatsoever to support this assertion?
Are are we just using the phrase “committed to regime change” to mean “had engaged in hostilities prior to any change, regardless of who carries it out or how it happened, in another country’s government?”
Last I checked, indicting someone as a war criminal (which we pushed for, aggressively) is a strong indication that your policy is regime change.
The military component was done during the Kosovo campaign. The covert element went unseen. Bob Baer lacks credibility with me, but he isn’t lying about everything.
You’re now defining the term so broadly as to be meaningless. Now “regime change” means “indicting.” Hokay.
In case you don’t remember, you started down this path as a way of arguing that bombing a country would cause us to invade it and overthrow its government, like Iraq.
If a bombing campaign against Syria could be one proximate cause of the Syrian people overthrowing their dictator…so what? Is that supposed to be an argument against it? Is it supposed to be the “I’ve heard that logic before” argument you were making when you began this?
Or is this just “I’m not wrong on the internet, because I can play with definitions?”
Sigh.
No analogies are perfect.
But let’s see how Serbia lines up.
We bombed Serbian forces in 1995 as part of a humanitarian effort to stop the ongoing civil war. In this sense, we did in 1995 what people are proposing to do now, although I’m not hearing much about a UN peace keeping force. But the proposal is to bomb the bad side of a civil war for humanitarian reasons.
Four years later we did a sustained bombing of Serbia proper as part of the Kosovo War. During that war we obtained the War Crime indictment, making it clear that our policy was regime change, which happened about a year later.
For our purposes, the point is that the 1995 bombing was not the end of our commitment but the beginning. It set us on a path that could not end until regime change was accomplished. Fortunately, covert means were available and the aftermath, while messy, was largely Europe’s responsibility.
Syria is much more likely to resemble Iraq than Serbia and Bosnia. It could work out, possibly, but it is highly unlikely. And, for that reason, we need to ask if we want to own the probably outcome, which a foreign policy commitment to end the Assad regime and be morally responsible for the outcome, along with the risks that we’ll create a logic of escalation that we can’t control or that can be exploited by the maniacs in our foreign policy establishment.
Excuse me, but claiming that the U.S. carried out “regime change” in Serbia is not an analogy.
You were making a very clear argument – bombing a country commits us to something like what happened in Iraq. You cited Serbia as an example of such a country, in which we carried out “regime change” after the bombing, and thereby “owned” the problem.
As you noted, we didn’t even bomb Serbia in 1995, making it irrelevant to your original claim – and I’m going to stick with your original claim, and not follow you as you change the subject.
Christ, you’re going to try to elide the difference between the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and the people of Syria getting rid of Milosevic during a political crisis, by using the passive voice?
You made a very specific claim, as part of a very specific argument: if we bomb Syria, we will “own the problem,” and have to commit to a regime change mission down the road.
And now, despite your protests, you finally come around to acknowledging that you were wrong: “much more likely to resemble Iraq than Serbia,” meaning, those are two very different situations.
You take my original claim, then take all of my later clarifications and caveats and compare them to my original claim, and find my original claim wanting. How could that fail to work?
What I said originally is that recent history shows us that once we commit to air strikes, we have (except in Sudan, which was partitioned) found it necessary to follow through to regime change.
I later clarified that in the case of Serbia, covert tools were available and Europe was there to take the majority of the responsibility for the clean-up.
I later clarified that Syria is not like Serbia in those respects, and more resembles Iraq.
I don’t care about your later caveats, because your argument that is relevant here is contained in your original claim.
I don’t care about your effort to prove yourself technically Not Wrong On the Internet. I care about the claim that a air mission to Syria will commit us to something like the Iraq War.
Even you won’t defend that claim anymore.
I later clarified that in the case of Serbia, covert tools were available and Europe was there to take the majority of the responsibility for the clean-up.
Oh fer chrissakes, now we’re pretending that “covert tools” brought down Milosevic, and not actual political events in Serbia?
Desperate. As desperate as pretending to have never heard of UNSCOM.
Syria is much more likely to resemble Iraq than Serbia and Bosnia.
Because you say so?
Syria is a country in the midst of a civil war, on the verge of breaking up. More like Serbia, or more like Iraq?
Is there really any reason, other than the rhetorical power of being able to argue “It’s just like Iraq,” why you think that a punitive strike against Assad for using chemical weapons would result in the US invading and occupying the country? You sure haven’t given us any yet.
I’ve heard that logic before:
Well, no, a “refusal to cooperate with chemical weapons inspectors” is not, in fact, the same thing as using chemical weapons on a large scale in war.
But since you asked: the Iraq Survey Group confirmed that the Saddam government destroyed its remaining chemical weapons stockpiles after the 1998 bombing raids.
No they didn’t. They confirmed he destroyed them in 1991.
You’re thinking of the nuclear weapons program, which was destroyed in 1991.
UNSCOM continued to find and destroy Iraqi weapons throughout the 1990s, until they left in 1998.
Got any links? Pretty sure they destroyed both in 1991, and anything remaining was abandoned.
Yeah, here’s a link:
“Produced and stockpiled” being the key words.
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/cw/unscom.htm
Do you people seriously not remember UNSCOM destroying Iraqi chem-bio weapons and equipment in the 1990s?
It was rather widely discussed at the time, and during the invasion of Iraq.
I guess the UN was lying when it said its inspectors destroyed all that stuff.
Unbelievable.
Do I have any links to demonstrate that UNSCOM was destroying WMDs in Iraq in the 1990s?
Yes, many: http://www.cfr.org/iraq/iraq-weapons-inspections-1991-1998/p7705
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/cw/unscom.htm
Don’t you remember Scott Ritter?
That was debunked the next year by the Iraq Study Group.
No they fucking weren’t!
Jesus Christ, you’re denying that UNSCOM destroyed chemical-bio weapons in Iraq in the 1990s?
You need to stop discussing Iraq entirely until you get this right.
I can’t believe anybody can be ignorant of this.
You really are clueless. From Charles Duelfer’s Transmittal Message:
There is a [timeline of events https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/iraq_wmd_2004/WMD_Timeline_Events.html%5D that might help you understand the pace of the destruction. Yes, they destroyed WMD and missiles, and it took years to complete, but the decision to allow the destruction took place in 1991. After that, no WMD production took place, and they did not decided to destroy things after the 1998 bombings because they were already destroyed.
Yes, they destroyed WMD and missiles, and it took years to complete, but the decision to allow the destruction took place in 1991.
Shorter BooMan – Yes, Joe’s right, UNSCOM was destroying weapons throughout the 1991s, but I’m feeling pissy.
Did I say that the decision to allow the destruction wasn’t made in 1991?
Did I saw that additional WMDs were produced after 1991?
Can’t you just for once admit being wrong about something, instead of doing this?
What the fuck are you talking about?
I never said that weapons weren’t destroyed in the 1990’s. This wasn’t even my argument. You are the one who tried to tell us that the 1998 bombings were very effective because they finally convinced Saddam to destroy his weapons. I didn’t make that claim. I was just confused by it.
Then you started talking about UNSCOM actions before 1998, which makes no sense to me. They weren’t discovering new weapons; they were discovering trace elements and undisclosed planning documents and information on their BW program. Saddam ordered the weapons destroyed in 1991, not 1998, so stop yammering at me.
Uh yeah, that’s just being outright obtuse, dude. You said that as a result of our bombings in 1998 the weapons were destroyed. I said I did not think this was true, but would have liked evidence to the contrary. What you have only bolsters my initial point: our 1998 bombing campaign was not the cause, let alone a pretext, of their destruction.
Oh, and I’ve heard your logic before, too:
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?21511-Italian-invasion-of-Ethiopia-and-Chemical-
Warfare
And, of course, there is the rather non-obvious assertion that George W. Bush wouldn’t have come into office determined to overthrow Saddam, if only we hadn’t bombed in 1998.
That rather misses the point that bombing what Saddam loved didn’t solve anything.
You rather miss the point that the Iraqis destroyed their chemical weapons stockpiles after Operation Desert Fox.
As confirmed by the Iraq Survey Group.
Clearly, that doesn’t matter to you.
Clearly, the chemical weapons issue, in and of itself, is just not something you value, outside of its significance in the context of other foreign policy questions that you do value.
Well, I disagree. I think the chemical weapons taboo is a BFD in and of itself. That seems to be where we disagree.
Iraq Study Group:
I don’t think we should get involved either. What I don’t understand is why this always falls to the US to do something. Where is France? Where is England? Surely they know something about poison gas.
Jesus, this type of analysis is frustrating.
What do you expect from one of the original PNAC’ers?
This is an epic fustercluck situation. A conflict that is spreading, a worsening refugee crisis, lack of accurate information (UN weapons inspectors faced sniper fire today), and escalating tension with Russia who is clearly supporting Assad.
Seems like it has to be a UN managed response if there is to be any sort of response and I’m not optimistic that this is possible. At least the President and Kerry are behaving rationally but what a mess.
Because one of life’s hardest lessons is the recognition that ‘you/me/they can’t FIX somebody else’s dilema’ and I see Powell is commenting yesterday that it is an internal problem that the Syrians must resolve themselves, my DUH point would only be that since there are no magic wands all we can do is level the playing field.
Remove Assad, contain the chemicals. Simplistic yes, but then again it’s not really in our power to do any more.
BooMan, you’ve been writing for a long time. You were writing during the run-up to the Iraq War, when chemical weapons usage was in the news all the time.
Could you please link to some of your old pieces arguing for the unimportance of the international norm against chemical warfare?
I was not writing in the run-up to the Iraq War. I launched this blog in 2005. I became a member of Daily Kos on March 25, 2004.
My bad.
Can you please link to anything you ever wrote in your entire life indicating that the international prohibitions of chemical weapons were no big deal?
I think it was TarheelDem that recently brought up the entirely banal but somehow oft overlooked question “what constitutes victory?” or as I might like to say “what are the likely outcomes?”
There is ample indication that the once popular uprising in Syria has been heavily co-opted by foreign salafist mujahid. In the event that the hawks in Washington get their way and the Assad government is toppled, these delightful characters are going to have a rather potent advantage in reshaping the country to their liking.
The Do Something Caucus needs to do more than provide the broad outlines of their plan, they also need to provide some indication of what outcome they think their plan will result in and how that outcome will benefit the country.
Personally, I think you’re treating the neo-liberal crowd to much like honest advocates. Their goal is likely no deeper than Anyone but Assad and their plan is probably just to get the US involved and hope the intervention takes a life of its own.
I think you’re treating a response to chemical weapons usage, and a regime change mission, as one and the same. That isn’t necessarily so.
I think you’re also treating the Obama administration (which has resisted direct involvement, including the last two episodes of chemical weapons claims) and “the neo-liberal crowd” (which seems to consist mainly of conservatives, but never mind) as one in the same.
These things develop a life of their own, Joe. Obama has done a good job resisting the drumbeat pushing towards hostilities with Iran. We will see what he thinks about Syria.
Should I assume that you will oppose any attempt to re-purpose the chemical weapons causus belli into an opportunity for regime change in Syria if the administration goes there? Because I’m sure you understand why people are suspicious. Starting an invasion using NBC hysteria as a pre-text is a script we’ve all seen before.
Personally, I like to think Obama is smarter than that, but if he takes the bait he’ll have proven otherwise.
.
given the US and Israel the chance to advance their shared goals of security, stability and democracy.” July 16, 2012