Syria Choices- Root Canal or Slam your Hand in the Car Door?

Deciding what to do in Syria is like choosing between having a root canal and slamming your hand in the car door. Why, in heavens name, would we want to do either?  OK, Assad is a ruthless dictator.  Yet, for many years we have supported ruthless dictators all over the world- but mostly in the Arab countries. For a brief period, it looked as though the Arab Spring would save us from this mess we are confronted with today. If only Assad could’ve kept his chemical weapons in the depot- we’d still be on the sidelines. But damn, he had to call us out, and now we’re on the verge another war. Like Obama said, “... our military doesn’t do pin pricks...” and once the shooting starts all the plans go out the window.

I’m reminded of Lincoln’s advisors who insisted that our Civil War would be over in a matter of weeks. Well-to-do aristocrats picnicked on the hillside to watch the battle of Bull Run, hoping to catch a glimpse of the war before it was all over. They had no idea it was only the beginning and a half a million lives would be lost.

Johnson used a trumped up, fake crisis, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, to get Congress to authorize unlimited military force in Vietnam. Prior to that, Kennedy had only sent “advisors” - no boots on the ground. What one president promises doesn’t mean anything to another president.

America was exhausted from fighting WWII with every man in the country in uniform and every woman in a factory making the equipment of war. Peace had just begun to settle in; GIs were going to college, getting married, buying that dream house and making families. Neither Congress or the President had the stomach to go to war, so Korea became a “conflict”, so as to lessen the pain and win support for action. America hated Korea. Ike ran for president on a platform of getting us out, which he did ( although we still have 50,000 troops in Korea today, 60 years later!) . So weary of war was our greatest twentieth century general, he  managed to avoid it for  all eight years of his presidency. He knew hell, he had been there, and he did everything to avoid it.

If we do help the rebels overthrow the Assad regime, what are left with? Militant, Al-Qaeda sympathizers are sprinkled throughout the rebel organization. We could be just trading one bad dictator for another equally bad outcome.

Which all leads me back to my question. Why do we really want to get involved at all?  If Eisenhower could avoid war, Obama should be able to too. He should check his “red line” ego at the door and get on with a peaceful solution.

Syrian Crisis- Brinkmanship or Accidental Diplomacy?

Every president makes off the cuff remarks they regret.  Every once in a while these remarks  shape our history.  They reveal both the humanity and the conscience  of presidents. Can every statement a president says instantly and accurately pass through the filter of being consistent with policy, partisan platform, popular opinion, constitutional and international law,  personal judgement and morally right? Hardly.  

In the old days, presidents would meet with reporters and declare statements to be “off the record and not attributable”. Roosevelt was famous for confiding in the press and at the same time controlling what they reported. Those old days of presidents controlling the press  are long gone (thankfully). Yet, Obama’s “red line” comment was off the cuff, not a prepared policy statement.  The civilized world abhors indiscriminate killing with chemical weapons.

The President said what he believed to be the morally right thing to deter their use. The problem, of course is obvious; his comment instantly became policy of a world power with all the trimmings of honor, commitment, and worldly expectations;   the proverbial chip on the shoulder of a school yard bully flicked off before the eyes of the world. 

Presidents are usually pretty good at sticking to the script (they’re all politicians, that’s what they do), and they avoid letting policy statements  be trumped by personal conscience. When they do, it’s usually news!   They’re human.  And sometimes it shapes history. 

 Now another off the cuff remark, this time from Kerry, may have opened the door to avert a calamity. Kerry’s remark sounded more like a personal response of  moral conscience than policy, and he quickly caught himself in real-time as he was speaking by ending his sentence with the  political proviso that “of course it can’t be done”. 

Yet now a diplomatic solution (stalled  for years) appears to be feasible-- probably only because we are on the brink of military action ......... 24 hours after Kerry’s remark most politicians who were in favor of taking military action are now falling all over themselves in support of a diplomatic solution.  

But the real force in this crisis was the voice of America, screaming for a diplomatic solution. Obama even admitted, “the American people aren’t with me on this”.... and now he’s hopeful of a diplomatic solution. The conservative newspaper, Union Leader’s own poll (at last count) shows 81% of respondents do not support military action.  Military action is dead. 

The president will speak tonight. Yet, he's caught in a Twitter world where events move as quickly as tweets, and world opinion and policy is shaped in hours- not days or weeks! The President is no doubt re-writing his speech today. Originally  scheduled to win public approval for military action, rather than cancel the time slot, he will now most likely make an international policy statement of the diplomatic process to handover Syria’s chemical weapons to international control.  Let's hope the speech he writes this afternoon is still relevant tonight. These are interesting times!