President
Obama’s rationale for the need for a military strike against the Assad regime
in Syria poses a false choice, lacks logic, contains ludicrous guarantees and has
no legal basis. For the purposes of this
discussion, I am willing to concede that the Assad regime used chemical weapons
that resulted in over 1,000 deaths of innocent civilians, including
children. The rationale and arguments
that President Obama, Secretary Kerry and their supporters are using are
destroying their credibility and limiting the options available to the global
community to deal with this monumental humanitarian crisis.
President
Obama is posing a false choice. He
states that the choice is to do nothing or to use military force to hold Assad accountable
for using chemical weapons and to deter him and others from using them in the
future. Many of the members of Congress
who have voiced opposition to the President’s call for a military strike have
made it clear that they believe something must be done but believe that there
are non-military options available. Every
day members of Congress and others are offering non-military actions that could
be taken, but the Obama Administration continues to claim that the choice is do
nothing or military intervention.
President Obama and Secretary Kerry are both very smart people who are
being intellectually dishonest by continuing to pose this false choice and are severely
damaging their credibility.
President
Obama is known as a thoughtful, disciplined and logical person, but in this
case his argument for military intervention in Syria demonstrates flawed
logic. President Obama has said that the
timing for a military strike is not critical so we can wait for Congress to
have a debate and approve the action.
Using that logic, it would also be clear that we have time to wait for
the report of the UN weapons inspectors.
If President Obama is so certain that chemical weapons were used and
that the Assad regime is responsible, why not wait for the UN report which at
the very least would support the fact that chemical weapons were used? The UN report might also provide other
nations with cover to support action against Assad.
President
Obama indicates that the military strike will degrade Assad’s ability to use
chemical weapons in the future, will make it clear that there will be severe
consequences for using chemical weapons in the future and will also deter other
nations from developing and using chemical weapons, but the strike will be very
limited and will not be sufficient to impact the balance of power in the
ongoing civil war in Syria. If the
military attack is so limited as to have no impact on the balance of power in
the civil war, it will be a small slap on the wrist and hence not have any
significant impact on Mr. Assad’s future use of chemical weapons or deter
others. If the military attack is significant
enough to scare Mr. Assad and others into not using chemical weapons, then it
will certainly tip the balance of power in the civil war. If Mr. Assad sees himself losing the civil
war, that existential threat to his regime and to him personally will certainly
not force him to discontinue the use of chemical weapons and could force him to
use even more brutal tactics to win the war quickly.
The
Obama Administration refuses to answer the question of what will happen if we
go forward with the military strike and then Mr. Assad uses chemical weapons
again. It is impossible to make a
logical case for a military strike if you are unwilling or unable to answer the
question of what do you do if it does not have the intended results. When this question was put to Secretary
Kerry, he refused to answer and reverted to canned talking points about a
limited strike that would deter the future use of chemical weapons.
The
lack of logic is also evident in the ludicrous guarantees that Secretary Kerry
makes. He has said that he can “guarantee”
that there will be no direct military involvement by the United States in the
Syrian civil war and that there will be no US boots on the ground. By constantly using the word “direct”, Mr.
Kerry is clearly indicating that the United States will be indirectly
involved. Presumably our current
involvement of providing support to the opposition forces is “indirect”. It is unknowable what the response to a
military strike in Syria will be from Mr. Assad and his allies or where that
response will lead. Such a “guarantee”
is at best disingenuous and is certainly misleading.
Secretary
Kerry has also indicated that he believes that we can guarantee that Syrian
chemical weapons will not get into the hands of other bad guys. One of the real dangers of a collapse of the
Assad regime is that the chemical weapon stores will be unprotected, and there
can be no assurances that they will not fall into the hands of other bad
guys. Neither can there be any assurance
that Mr. Assad will not give chemical weapons to any group that he feels will
help him stay in power. To say that the
United States knows with any certainty what will happen after we bomb Syria, is
either the height of arrogance or an outright lie.
Secretary
Kerry also claims that he can guarantee that the United States is only supporting
the moderate opposition forces and not the extremists and that an attack on the
Assad regime will strengthen the moderate opposition forces. There may have been a time in this war that
one could differentiate between the good and bad opposition forces, but that
time has long since past. All segments
of the opposition forces are intermingled and have committed atrocities. To say that the United States can vet the
opposition forces to know who are the good guys and who are the bad guys and
keep our aid in the hands of the good guys only is once again either the height
of arrogance or an outright lie.
Secretary
Kerry’s claim that the United States is supported in this action by many other
nations is a ridiculous claim that further destroys his credibility. He sounds like President George W. Bush
talking about his coalition of the willing.
Canada is not supporting this approach. Great Britain is not supporting
this approach. Italy is not supporting this approach. Germany is silent as is much of the rest of
Europe. NATO is not supporting this approach.
Secretary Kerry cites France and Poland.
The Arab League says that something should be done but has not come out
in support of any military action. The
United States would be once again essentially acting on its own.
Secretary
Kerry has also argued that after the air strikes when Assad will no longer use
chemical weapons, the parties will reach a standstill with moderate opposition
forces negotiating for a transitional government that will lead to a free and
open democracy in Syria. Secretary Kerry
is too smart and understands history (to say nothing of the events of the last
few years) to well to actually believe in that scenario. While the picture he is painting would be
wonderful, it has no chance of actually coming true in any time other than
perhaps in decades. When the Obama
Administration and its supporters use the same fantasy views of the future
world that the Bush Administration did in connection with its nation building,
they are destroying their own credibility and making it clear that their
proposed course of action cannot be supported by facts and realistic
projections.
There
is no legal basis for a United States airstrike against Syria. News
reports have quoted UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon as indicating that such a
strike would only be authorized under the UN Charter if the United States were
acting in self-defense or such an attack were authorized by the Security
Council. Of course neither of those
conditions has been satisfied. President
Obama obviously knows this fact as he relies not on the legality but the
morality of a response and the fact that the United States and others have
acted illegally in the past.
The
moral outrage at what is going on in Syria should be increased because of the
use of chemical weapons, but it should be on top of the moral outrage that we
should be expressing at all of the killing and atrocities. The fighting in Syria has killed hundreds of
thousands of innocent people and has displaced millions. Under President Obama’s rationale, his airstrike
will do nothing to prevent or mitigate further killing and atrocities as long
as they are not committed with chemical weapons.
President
Obama’s course of action is based on the assumption that there is something
that the United States can do to solve the problem. As Jon Stewart has said, we are a superpower
with no super powers. I admit that all
the suggested actions that have been proposed as alternatives to a military airstrike
have flaws, just as there are many flaws in the idea of a military airstrike. The United States should be open to
diplomatic and political solutions as alternatives to military
intervention. Arms embargoes, no-fly
zones, international criminal court action, naval blockades, pressure on and
through Russia, sanctions and other ideas that have been suggested are all
flawed, but they are better choices than a military airstrike.
Supporters
of the Obama airstrikes are also claiming that if the United States does not
intervene militarily, we will be seen as weak and it will encourage Assad and
others to use chemical weapons. The
United States and the rest of the world can and should demonstrate strength in
non-military ways. Some supporters of
the Obama airstrikes also make the argument that if the Democrats in Congress
do not support his plan, then the President will be a lame duck for the rest of
his term and not be able to get anything done.
I am appalled that anyone would be willing to bomb another nation and
kill innocent civilians so that President Obama might be able to get some of
his domestic agenda through Congress.
The
arguments that President Obama, Secretary Kerry and others who support Obama’s
airstrikes are, in my view, hurting the their own credibility, damaging the
standing of the United States in the world and limiting the global community’s
options in dealing with a monumental humanitarian crisis.
Please
write President Obama, write your Representative and write your Senators so
that we can stop the United States from making a terrible mistake.
