What Now for Obama and Syria?

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

There’s a reason German statesman Otto von Bismarck, the “Iron Chancellor,” once advised an emissary to “strike while the iron is hot.” Because if you are indecisive, hesitate and temporise, you lose the moment and prove yourself weak.

It has now been two weeks since Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad crossed Barack Obama’s “red line” regarding chemical weapons and gassed almost 1,500 of his own people, including hundreds of children, on Aug. 21. That red line must have been drawn in shifting sands, because Obama has now announced that, while he remains prepared to punish the Syrian regime for this war crime, which he once declared would be a “game-changer,” he will seek approval from the U.S. Congress first.

According to various sources, he has nurtured doubts about the political and legal justification for action, even one of limited scope and duration, given that the United Nations Security Council had refused to sanction a military strike that he had not put before Congress.

Critics called it an example of a less than flattering Obama characteristic: delaying major decisions, muddling the power of his argument and, in this case, perhaps blunting the effectiveness of military action. After all, the delay allows Assad to move his assets elsewhere and strengthen his defences.

Meanwhile, there has been growing opposition in the United States and around the world from right-wing isolationists, pacifists, and assorted anti-Americans, including the Russians, who have effectively disabled the UN. (Vladimir Putin called the planned attack “foolish nonsense.”)

Even the American military, despite the bloated annual defence budget of more than $600 billion, are reluctant warriors – are they really afraid of Syria? Or is it Iran that looms in their vision?

What if the Congress votes to oppose Obama? There are many Republicans and left-wing Democrats, especially in the House of Representatives, opposed to any more involvement in overseas wars after the negative experiences of Iraq and Afghanistan. After all, British Prime Minister David Cameron lost a similar vote in his parliament on Aug. 29.

Obama claims that he doesn’t need congressional approval, but seeks it merely to make certain that the country is behind him. But will a defeat allow him to back down from his commitment to hold Syria accountable for this clear breach of long-standing international norms?

Obama himself in 2008 ran for the presidency as the “anti-Bush.” Is this now going to come back to bite him? That would indeed be ironic.

The president is an example of the worst muddle-headed thinking that came out of the 1960s – the concern about “exit strategies” and “quagmires” and “escalations” and “timelines” is as much a reaction – still -- to the disaster of the Vietnam War as it is to Iraq and Afghanistan.

During the Kosovo War, the United States bombed Serbia for 78 straight days, and Slobodan Milosevic never used chemical weapons. Madeleine Albright, the then Secretary of state, called the U.S. the “indispensable nation.” Under Obama, it’s no longer indispensable.