What is Obama's plan for Syria? Do whatever the UN tells him to do?
US/Syria options:
-drone strikes on selected targets where we think chemical weapons are stored
-problem: that's the US acting unilaterally against yet another Arab nation and they certainly have their weapons scattered and hidden all over the place.
-wait for UN inspectors to mess around for 6 months, then be the muscle in whatever solution the UN imagines will stop the killing.
-problem: if Bashar Assad doesn't want his chemical weapons found, they won't be found. it'll be the Saddam Hussein run-around all over again.
-institute a no-fly zone like John McCain advised to keep the lid on the Assad regime.
-problem: Assad isn't using his air force to deliver chemicals, he's using artillery.
-put US troops in Syria to keep distance between the Assad loyalists and the rebels.
-problem: Iran will, or has already, put her troops in Syria. Do we really want to get into a shooting war with Iran who is backed by Russia and China?
-Obama can pen a strongly worded letter to Assad demanding that he stop using chemical weapons. That should do it.
-problem: Nobody, anywhere in the world respects Obama or the Americans any more. They see us a weak and unmotivated, and on this issue, we should be unmotivated to do anything. It's not our job.
In short, there are no good options for the US in Syria. The UN has plenty of European countries who have militaries that can go be targets for snipers and terrorists in Syria. The US should sit this one out.
9 comments:
Ed, I concur.
Dj
"Assad isn't using his air force to deliver chemicals, he's using artillery."
Assad isn't delivering chemicals by any means. The terrorists, oops, I mean rebels, on the other hand....
GEN. WESLEY CLARK: So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, "Are we still going to war with Iraq?" And he said, "Oh, it's worse than that." He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, "I just got this down from upstairs" -- meaning the Secretary of Defense's office -- "today." And he said, "This is a memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then *** SYRIA ***, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran."
So you see, Syria has been on the drawing board for a long time. All that has been lacking has been a trumped-up excuse to sell the war to the American people. Now we have our excuse - chemical weapon usage.
That doesn't raise any red flags to you, Ed?
I'm sorry Isaac, but Wesley Clark is a kook. I don't believe Obama would continue a Bush conspiracy of toppling middle east countries in order to establish a new world order.
Anything foreign policy related is a nuisance to Obama as it distracts him from fundamentally transforming the nation he detests so much as evil.
What evidence do you have that four-star general and graduate of West Point, Wesley Clark, is a kook? Inquiring minds want to know.
Credentials does not inoculate someone from kook-dom. Wesley Clark is a red herring. The point is we have a ridiculous foreign policy (and I use the term policy very loosely). The "red line" is a joke and everyone knows it. Now we will try to overcome our ineptness by doing something we can do pretty well: blowing things up. We will NOT achieve either the desired outcome (whatever that is) or any other expected outcome in doing so. What we will do is further commit to a situation which WILL achieve some political agenda and bolster weapons sales while further sullying the image of the United States. It will appear separate and obtuse to the rest of the developed world.
I agree with that Dave. What's the objective? To spank the petulant Assad for using chemicals, by destroying an air force base?
If the strategic objective isn't regime change, and therefor the tactical ojbective being decapitation, then what's the point of doing anything? It might make Obama appear in the short term, more like the alpha male he's always pretended to be, but in the long term, it just makes the US even more hated in the middle east, if that's possible.
Breaking news:
"Syrian rebels [U.S. backed terrorists] admitted in an interview with Dale Gavlak, a Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press and Mint Press News, that they were responsible for last week’s chemical attack."
I don't think we're backing anybody right now, much to the disappointment of John McCain. The rebels in Syria are either Al Qaeda, Taliban, or Muslim Brotherhood......personally I think we should be backing Assad like we should have backed Mubarak, Saddam Hussein, and Qaddafi. The middle east would be far more stable right now.
Every time a member of our wretched media weeps on air about some atrocity, we end up siding with the losers in whatever civil war is going on.
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