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NYTimes: (Syria) a debacle of staggering proportions

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by basso, Sep 10, 2015.

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  1. basso

    basso Member
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    a stunning indictment of Obama's Syrian policy.

    Obama's Syrian Nightmare

    [rquoter]Syria will be the biggest blot on the Obama presidency, a debacle of staggering proportions. For more than four years now, the war has festered. A country has been destroyed, four million Syrians are refugees, Islamic State has moved into the vacuum and President Bashar al-Assad still drops barrel bombs whose shrapnel and chlorine rip women and children to shreds.

    For a long time, those who fled waited in the neighborhood. They wanted to go home. They filled camps in Turkey and Jordan and Lebanon. When it became clear even to them that “home” no longer existed, nothing could stop them in their desperate flight toward the perceived security of Europe. The refugee crisis is the chronicle of a disaster foretold.

    The refugees do not care what “Christian” Europe thinks. They are beyond caring about Europe’s hang-ups or illusions. They want their children to live. In their homeland, more than 200,000 people have been killed. Statistics numb, but less so when you know the dead. This evisceration of a state is a consequence of many things, among them Western inaction.

    American interventionism can have terrible consequences, as the Iraq war has demonstrated. But American non-interventionism can be equally devastating, as Syria illustrates. Not doing something is no less of a decision than doing it. The pendulum swings endlessly between interventionism and retrenchment because the United States is hard-wired to the notion that it can make the world a better place. Looking inward for long is a non-option for a nation that is also a universal idea. Every major conflict poses the question of how far America should get involved.

    President Obama has tried to claw back American overreach after the wars without victory in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has responded to a mood of national weariness with foreign adventure (although Americans have not been very happy with Obama’s pivot to prudence). He has tried better to align American power with what is, in his perception, America’s limited ability to make a difference on its own at a time of growing interdependence. One definition of the Obama doctrine came from the president last year when he declared: “It avoids errors. You hit singles, you hit doubles; every once in a while we may be able to hit a home run.” Or, more succinctly, “Don’t do stupid stuff.”

    But that’s not enough, as Syria demonstrates. President Obama has important foreign policy achievements, including breakthrough agreements with Iran and Cuba that took courage and persistence. (How those breakthroughs will play out remains to be seen, but they constitute a victory over sterile confrontation.) Elsewhere, however, he has undersold American power. In Syria and Libya he has washed his hands of conflicts that the United States could not turn its back on. Such negligence comes back to bite America, as its experience in Afghanistan since the 1980s has shown. Nobody loves a vacuum like a jihadi. And nobody likes American wobbliness like Vladimir Putin.

    In 2011, Obama said, “The time has come for President Assad to step aside.” At that time, as events have shown, the president had no policy in place to achieve that objective and no will to forge such a policy. His words were of a grave irresponsibility.

    In 2013, with France poised to join the United States in military strikes on Syria, Obama walked away at the last minute from upholding his “red line” on the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons. In so doing, he reinforced Assad, reinforced Putin, declined to change the course of the Syrian war, and diminished America’s word in the world — setbacks of far greater significance than ridding Syria of chemical weapons. This was a mistake.

    Continue reading the main story
    RECENT COMMENTS

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    Yes, China and Russia have consistently obstructed concerted action on Syria in the United Nations Security Council. Yes, the shifting array of forces and interests in Syria has been a challenge to policy. Yes, even limited intervention had its dangers. But, no! Such ruination was not an inevitable outcome.

    At multiple stages, if Obama could have mustered the will, the belief in American power, there were options. The Syrian aircraft dropping those barrel bombs could have been taken out. A safe area for refugees might have been created. Arming the rebels early and massively might have changed the course of the war. Counterfactuals, of course, don’t carry much weight. We will never know. We only know the facts of the Syrian nightmare now seeping, in various forms, into the West. Syria, broken, will be the rift that keeps on giving.

    In Libya, Obama bombed and abandoned. In Afghanistan, Obama surged and retreated. In Syria, Obama talked and wavered. He has been comfortable with the pinpoint use of force — the killing of Osama bin Laden for example — but uncomfortable with American military power.

    Syria is the question the Obama doctrine must answer if it is not to be deemed modest to the point of meaninglessness.[/rquoter]
     
    #1 basso, Sep 10, 2015
  2. glynch

    glynch Member

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    A stunning indictment of the whole neo-con strategy of regime change leading to failed states. It is just laughable how destroying the rest of the Syrian government control and their dream plan to do the same to Iran and even Russia will make us free and safe from terrorism.


    Excerpts from a good article discussing how the neo-con created the mess.

    ********

    It should have been clear by mid-2014 that if the neocons had gotten their way and Obama had conducted a massive U.S. bombing campaign to devastate Assad's military, the black flag of Sunni terrorism might well be flying above the Syrian capital of Damascus while its streets would run red with blood

    ****

    Instead of talk, there would be "regime change" for any government that would not fall into line. This strategy was articulated in 1996 when a group of American neocons, including Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, went to work for Benjamin Netanyahu's campaign in Israel and compiled a strategy paper, called "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm."

    Iraq was first on the neocon hit list, but next came Syria and Iran. The overriding idea was that once the regimes assisting the Palestinians and Hezbollah were removed or neutralized, then Israel could dictate peace terms to the Palestinians who would have no choice but to accept what was on the table.

    In 1998, the neocon Project for the New American Century, founded by neocons Robert Kagan and William Kristol, called for a U.S. invasion of Iraq, but President Bill Clinton balked at something that extreme. The situation changed, however, when President George W. Bush took office and the 9/11 attacks terrified and infuriated the American public.

    http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/32687-how-neoconservatives-destabilized-europe
     
    #2 glynch, Sep 10, 2015
  3. larsv8

    larsv8 Member

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    What a lazy article.

    "**** is messed up in some country across the world, Obama's fault."

    It's not our responsibility to police the world.
     
    #3 larsv8, Sep 10, 2015
  4. A_3PO

    A_3PO Member

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    So, the US should have bombed Assad out of power so ISIS or another kook Sunni group could have filled in the vacuum.

    Yeah right.
     
    #4 A_3PO, Sep 10, 2015
  5. Blake

    Blake Member

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    #5 Blake, Sep 10, 2015
  6. Invisible Fan

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    The difference in neo-con vs liberal Jewish penned Op/Eds falls in line with criticizing the Democrat President for not aggressively invading enough in the ME for the former or criticizing the Democrat President for not intervening enough in the ME for the latter.
     
    #6 Invisible Fan, Sep 10, 2015
  7. Bobbythegreat

    Bobbythegreat Member
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    I was talking about this before there really was an "ISIS", if the US had acted back when the Syrian rebels were a secular force, they'd have never gotten desperate enough to accept help from the radical Islamist. The rise of ISIS is a clear failure on the part of the US.....but also on the part of Syria for not either assisting the rebels and overthrowing Assad, or assisting Assad and crushing the rebellion. Syrians sitting on the fence along with the US sitting on their hands following the orders of Putin is the main reasons why things are such a mess.
     
    #7 Bobbythegreat, Sep 10, 2015
  8. Nook

    Nook Member

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    The United States had and has no obligation to Syria.

    The situation is complicated, and the removal of Assad most likely would have only left the door even more open for ISIS and other extremists.

    The majority of Syrians would gladly go back to the situation under Assad, rather than what there is now.
     
    #8 Nook, Sep 10, 2015
  9. Northside Storm

    Northside Storm Member

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    If people are going to play the blame game, why not assign the current debacle on Reagen pulling the marines out of Lebanon, or the American non-response to the Hama massacre of 1982. It'll be about as partisan and as irrelevant.
     
    #9 Northside Storm, Sep 10, 2015
  10. Dairy Ashford

    Dairy Ashford Member

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    I would give anything for a pre-Rambo/Private Ryan post-Vietnam foreign policy.
     
    #10 Dairy Ashford, Sep 10, 2015
  11. Harden2Capela

    Harden2Capela Member

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    Zionist Jews control Obama the middle east and the white house
     
    #11 Harden2Capela, Sep 10, 2015
  12. Buck Turgidson

    Buck Turgidson Member

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    Europeans? Balfour? WWII? USSR? There's lots of fun blame to throw around.
     
    #12 Buck Turgidson, Sep 10, 2015
  13. Nook

    Nook Member

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    There is a whole lot of blame to go around in that entire region. The choices made by Middle Eastern rulers during WWI and WWII. The local governments in the Middle East. The amount of Fundamentalist Islam, the English Empire's decision to carve the region up, US and Russian foreign policy.

    What happened in Syria did not happen in a vacuum. All I will say is that Assad is nothing compared to what the current state of Syria and what the future holds.
     
    #13 Nook, Sep 10, 2015
  14. Cohete Rojo

    Cohete Rojo Member

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    Why not blame FDR for showing up in Saudi Arabia with a battleship and inviting King Saud to come aboard and agree to exclusive protection and oil trade agreements with the US?

    <iframe width="1280" height="720" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9sqPDdk5XCg?start=88" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
     
    #14 Cohete Rojo, Sep 10, 2015
  15. glynch

    glynch Member

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    You are right that most Syrians would prefer to peace even with Assad even though he might not be the greatest democratic humanitarian. Toppling him will just make things worse.

    The US does have an obligation given our role in the mess since the US has been aiding various rebels trying to overthrow Assad and calling for regime change since the beginning. Just because Obama did not decide to use our air force to bomb Damascus does not change this.
     
    #15 glynch, Sep 10, 2015
  16. A_3PO

    A_3PO Member

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    This is a nonsensical pipe dream. Once Assad fell, Islamists would have avalanched Syria and taken over. You totally underestimate their appeal which is a very dangerous thing to do.

    Or maybe you are just leaving out the part where US troops occupy Syria for 5-10 years.

    Lastly, you seriously believe these "secular Sunnis" were unified and fully prepared to set up shop? Just stop.
     
    #16 A_3PO, Sep 11, 2015
  17. Invisible Fan

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    We'd be hailed as liberators.
     
    #17 Invisible Fan, Sep 11, 2015
  18. mc mark

    mc mark Member

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    These days it's best to read basso threads in Dick Cheney's voice.
     
    #18 mc mark, Sep 11, 2015
  19. Dubious

    Dubious Member

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    Obama's plan was chaos in Iraq and Syria. It's the best way to keep America safe.
     
    #19 Dubious, Sep 11, 2015
  20. Invisible Fan

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    More like he's being criticized as not being an all-knowing God who doesn't use his all-powerful American military to smite our foes into justice.

    Predator strikes might as well be considered as Thor's hammer.
     
    #20 Invisible Fan, Sep 11, 2015
    Last edited: Sep 11, 2015
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