What He Said

Saving face, or his political ass

In August of 2012 President Obama drew a Red Line with the Assad regime in Syria.  Whatever the reason behind it, we may never know.  He obviously wasn’t reading his teleprompter (TOTUS).  Now Obama has painted himself into a corner, and he needs someone to blame.  He needs to save face.  He needs political redemption.  How does President Obama accomplish this?

President Obama wants to attack Syria because someone used chemical weapons against Syrians.  Currently, there is much debate about who used these weapons, but no concrete proof.  The administration consistently states that Bashar al-Assad used the weapons against his own people.  This has to be their position so that they can justify attacking a nation in the midst of a civil war.  Other countries and other sources allege that the Syrian rebels used chemical weapons.

President Obama wants to “Fire a shot across the bow” of President Assad’s regime.  By definition, a shot across the bow is a deliberate miss.  President Obama says he wants to degrade Assad’s capabilities to used chemical weapons, yet the proposed, and heavily leaked, strikes will not target chemical weapon stockpiles.  He has stated that regime change is not his objective.  The administration has said there will be no American boots on the ground, but there always seems to be a caveat attached.  

Because the White House has leaked so much information about how the strikes will be conducted, and the weapons systems to be used for these strikes, President Assad has had ample time (weeks) to relocate strategic assets into highly populated areas that the United States dare not strike.  

IF, and this is a stretch, IF the use of chemical weapons by someone in Syria was such an emergency, why did President Obama decide to take his case to Congress for approval?  He certainly had no such compunctions when he attacked Libya.  And if this was such an emergency requiring immediate action (after leaking every possible attack strategy) why did he decide to let Congress finish their summer vacation before having them take up this issue?  In this case, the answer is simple; the President will blame Congress if they do not give him the approval he wants to attack a sovereign nation without cause.

It seems that everyone agrees that if the President of the United States takes it upon himself to strike Syria, the strikes will do nothing to change what is happening in Syria.  Tomahawk missile strikes will kill some camels and most likely innocent civilians.  Now there is talk of a bombing campaign.  Any bombing campaign, even with precision guided weapons will most likely result in unintentional civilian casualties.

A United States military strike will not remove Bashar al-Assad from office.

A United States military strike will not remove the threat of chemical weapons being used again.

A United States military strike will not end the civil war in Syria.

Syrians will keep right on killing each other.  The Assad regime and the twenty odd rebel groups will not lay down their arms.  They will just go back to killing each other with conventional weapons.  It seems that killing hundreds of thousands of people with conventional weapons does not bother anyone.  At least that didn’t prompt President Obama to draw a Red Line.