Speaking of codswallop, Mark Steyn provide a bucket’s worth of it in his latest column for the National Review Online. The one positive thing I can say for Mr. Steyn is that, unlike many Republicans and progressives in recent days, he isn’t treating Putin like some kind of superhero. On the other hand, Steyn basically serves as a curator of right-wing bullshit as he cobbles together one trope after another in what amounts to little more than a sustained insult of the president of the United States and his Secretary of State. Yet, underneath it all, there is no substance. Mr. Steyn makes no recommendations. He offers no constructive advice. He doesn’t say that we should attack Syria. He actually mocks the idea that we should attack Syria because “America’s credibility is at stake.” Yet, he also says that the Assad regime is enjoying “impunity,” and he hints that that is a bad thing. He thinks we should have threatened to do a lot more damage, although he doesn’t say what policy would be advanced by increased bellicosity.
Finally, he scoffs at the idea that the Assad regime will actually be disarmed with the assistance of the Russian government. Yet, as you can see in this morning’s papers, the U.S. and Russia have already agreed on a framework to do just that.
GENEVA — The United States and Russia have reached an agreement that calls for Syria’s arsenal of chemical weapons to be removed or destroyed by the middle of 2014, Secretary of State John Kerry said on Saturday.
Under a “framework” agreement, international inspectors must be on the ground in Syria by November, Mr. Kerry said, speaking at a news conference with the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey V. Lavrov.
An immediate test of the viability of the accord will come within a week when the Syrian government is to provide a “comprehensive listing” of its chemical stockpile.
I shouldn’t have to mention it, but we couldn’t attack Assad’s chemical weapon depots without risking explosions of poisonous gas that would have killed lots of innocent people. So, regardless of the size of our aerial bombardment of Syria, it would have left the weapons in the hands of the regime. It’s hard to see how crating up the weapons and removing and destroying them is not a preferable outcome to a limited punitive strike aimed at doing little more than making a point that we don’t approve of gassing civilians with sarin. And, unless Mr. Steyn thinks we should go fight in the civil war ourselves, it’s hard to see what alternative he has to either disarmament or a punitive strike.
Whether it’s a commitment to violence or to being critical in all circumstances or simply an aversion to diplomacy, Mr. Steyn seems to embody every pathology of the right.