Did signals from Tillerson and Trump lead to Assad's use of nerve gas?

Great Debates
81

This is a ridiculous oversimplification of the point. First, they were talking about Obama, so IF the US had decided to do air strikes directly at Assad’s air force (say), it would have just been Assad. No Putin involvement at all. Today, right now it would be much more complicated because the Russians are there AND because they have spent years now (and tons of money) building up Syria’s anti-air-craft defense. But, Assad has AGAIN used freaking chemical weapons against his population so…what? You don’t think that justifies some action because it’s hard?

As for Kim, it’s ridiculous to say that IF the US used military force it would be ‘Because bullies!’. Not saying we would or will or even that we should, but that’s a seriously ridiculous strawman of the myriad reasons we and our allies have to strike at the North Koreans.

82

I was responding to spifflog’s following comment:

83

I think he was making the point that Obama COULD have made a better and more assertive case (and probably that he should have), and, failing that, had the power to do strikes at Syria…but chose not to. Since this power has been used by numerous presidents and there is quite a lot of precedence in using it, I don’t see how throwing the fact that the other poster is a conservative up is useful. Both Republican and Democratic presidents have used this, after all…and Obama could have done the same, if, after making a more assertive and forceful case the congress would have denied it. Had Obama done so the Syrian air force wouldn’t have been in a position to be used to drop gas or barrel bombs in the future against its own citizens…and we wouldn’t be in the mess we now are in, since now we have that idiot Trump in the White House calling the shots, and the options are a lot more limited in what he can do without sending the whole mess off the deep end.

84

I didn’t say that.

I’ll say this. The power of the United States over the last 100 years, derived from it’s economic power, diplomatic skills, and military capabilities has helped contain tyrants and dictators. There have been errors and missteps. But I believe, (and you may not) more good than bad. In one case, as I’m fond of saying, there are 50 million South Koreans that are thankful for the leadership and action of the United States.

I think it’s clear that Assad and Putin have been emboldened by the lack of U.S. leadership over the last Administration. To be fair to Obama, he campaigned and was elected under the banner of “I’m not George Bush.” He was awarded the Nobel peace prize for the same reason. And that’s what the American people wanted. But that less aggressive approach while appealing to many after Bush, has a negative component in that dictators across the world felt they could act with impunity. And they did.

So where is the balance? I think it’s gone too far. You’re clearly happy where the pendulum has swung. Unfortunately, so are Putin and Assad. The people of the Ukraine and Syria, less so.

85

Ravenman, if you’re a constitutional authority on the War Power Resolution, don’t post statements like this:

I’m pretty middle of the road. And you have no idea if I’m a conservative or a liberal, a Democrat or a Republican, and no idea who I voted for. Why can’t you debate the issue at hand without bringing this into it?

Being the Constitutional authority that you are, I’m reluctant to point out that the War Powers Resolution is 45 years old, and Presidents of both parties have been using. Before that the Korean war was without a declaration. Is that really tyranny a this point? Tyranny? You really mean that? Would you have meant that for both parties?

86

The calculus in Syria vis-a-vis US involvement hasn’t changed in the past 5 years. Russia was just as vested then as it is now. The risks to US entering the conflict then, as now, are very high.

This is not a result of Obama administration’s position. I believe that this incident is largely due to the fact that Putin & Assad were emboldened by Trump & Co.'s recent hands-off rhetoric. As I speculated earlier, this is meant to be a test of this administration. We’ll soon see how it all plays out.

Oh, and I want to add, it’s not reasonable to assume that just because the US played a larger role in the past at being the world’s policeman, that it should/must/can continue to do so. The world is changing constantly.

87

Ok, Mr. Constitutional Authority, what part of section 3 of the WPR supports your unilateralism?

88

[QUOTE=QuickSilver]
The calculus in Syria vis-a-vis US involvement hasn’t changed in the past 5 years. Russia was just as vested then as it is now. The risks to US entering the conflict then, as now, are very high.
[/QUOTE]

This is just wrong. Russia is MUCH more vested in Syria today than they were in 2012. They have deployed troops and air squadrons, technicians and billions in equipment. Not only have they substantially upgraded Syrian air defenses far beyond what they had, but they are operating much of the equipment and have their people all over the place. An air strike by the US today against, say, the Syrian air force would be MUCH more risky, not just from a straight military operational level but also from a geopolitical level since there are Russians heavily involved and would be at risk of being caught in any strike.

Not sure what you mean risk to US being high…I assume you meant risk to Russia entering the conflict. I’d say that this was low to medium 5 years ago (Russia wouldn’t have been happy and would definitely pitched a fit, but entered the conflict? :dubious:), whereas today it’s VERY high just do to how intertwined they are in Syria currently.

Sorry, but I disagree with you here, again. It’s absolutely because of Obama’s admin position and the power vacuum we left in the region that Russia did what they did (and I don’t fully blame Obama here, btw…really, this is what the American people wanted, and Congress gave the President shit about this as well). And it scares the shit out of me that Trump is in charge in this very complex and complicated situation with realistically limited options that are all fraught with danger (unless he does nothing)…and, IMHO, a very limited understanding of these things or any idea of what to do.

If we don’t then we have to live with stuff like this. If you and the rest of the American voters are good with us basically sitting back and allowing a nation to use chemical weapons against their own citizens (then using follow-on air strikes to attack the clinics the survivors are taken too), well, this is the result. At this point we are kind of fucked, just like in North Korea…the boat for doing something about it has sailed now, and all our options are very much limited. When the US keeps it’s hands off then odds are some other power will get involved…such as Russia. Much as the US is bad at this sort of thing, Russia is and has been a hell of a lot more brutal and has allowed it’s ally a hell of a lot more latitude in doing horrific shit while standing on the sidelines and putting up a smoke screen of disinformation and horseshit to muddy the waters. YMMV, but I don’t think that’s worked out so well in this case.

89

Removing Assad from power would have put it at risk of falling in the hands of whoever came in to fill the vacuum. Russia was never going to allow the loss of their Naval port in Tartus go without a fight.

It may have been lower 5 years ago but that’s not the same as it being negligible. I believe that even then the risks outweighed the benefits.

You’re leaving out the possibility that there were no good options then, as now. It doesn’t have to be entirely Obama’s fault that things went the way they did. The world is not so cut and dry where we can say with absolute certainty, “Had we done something then, things would be different now”. Five years ago isn’t 50 years ago. I think the risks were nearly as high then as now.

I’m not good with stuff like this. But I don’t know if I’m good with sending more soldiers (Americans and allies) to die in more unnecessary wars either.

90

I keep coming back to this:

Assad is a monster, but he’s effectively won this civil war using some of the most brutal means. Why use chemical weapons now? Surely he could have used them to greater advantage in the past few years. Especially if he believed Obama wouldn’t follow through on the red line threat. Yet, he waited until this administration to do so.

91

[QUOTE=QuickSilver]
Removing Assad from power would have put it at risk of falling in the hands of whoever came in to fill the vacuum. Russia was never going to allow the loss of their Naval port in Tartus go without a fight.
[/QUOTE]

Well, two things. First off, I wasn’t talking about removing him from power. Obama had a LOT of options, and removing him from power was at the extreme end. What I was talking about was systematic strikes against the Syrian air force in retaliation to gas attacks.

Secondly, ‘fight’ is a flexible term in this case. Would Russia ‘fight’ to keep Assad in power? Sure. Diplomatically, through the UN, perhaps through trade sanctions and the like. No doubt about it. ‘Fight’ as in ‘go to war with the US’? No way.

Totally disagree. And disagree with your conclusion that the risks outweighed the benefits. Of course, you COULD be thinking that the only options were either do nothing or remove Assad in a full invasion…there were a lot more of a spectrum of options available that the US could have done.

No…I think YOU are leaving out the fact that the US had more than two options on the table.

And I totally suck at writing to convey my points, as has been noted a bunch of times. :wink: But, again, there were more options than doing nothing (or, more accurately, letting Russia take the lead on negotiating with Syria wrt the disposal of their supposed chemical weapons and being the watchdog on them afterward) and a full out invasion. Me, I think that the best option would have been US air strikes on Syrian air bases, command and control and known chemical weapons storage in direct retaliation to the first use of chemical weapons, with a US/allied no-fly zone imposed if the Syrians didn’t immediately agree to dismantle all chemical weapons under full UN (safety guaranteed by US/allied ground forces if needed) inspection. When Syria refused we set up a no fly zone and shoot down any Syrian air craft (fixed wing as well as helocopter) that even looks like it’s taking off.

92

I never claimed to be a War Powers Act authority, you did by stating you could quote sections from memory.

You can’t get all indignant over someone pointing out the War Power Act after you post this:

as if in 241 years the President never, ever acted without a declaration of war.

How can you state that you’re an expert on this, and yet seem to think that it can’t be used by the President. The two don’t mesh.
Are you going to answer my earlier question. Have you opposed every military action taken since, say, 1950, by both Republican and Democratic Presidents that involved military action but didn’t involve a declaration of war? Or are you just picking your spots.

But you know what, I’ll play:
"50 U.S. Code § 1543 - Reporting requirement

(a) Written report; time of submission; circumstances necessitating submission; information reported. In the absence of a declaration of war, in any case in which United States Armed Forces are introduced—

(1) into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances;

(2) into the territory, airspace or waters of a foreign nation, while equipped for combat, except for deployments which relate solely to supply, replacement, repair, or training of such forces; or

(3) in numbers which substantially enlarge United States Armed Forces equipped for combat already located in a foreign nation; the President shall submit within 48 hours to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and to the President pro tempore of the Senate a report, in writing, setting forth—

(A) the circumstances necessitating the introduction of United States Armed Forces;

(B) the constitutional and legislative authority under which such introduction took place; and

(C) the estimated scope and duration of the hostilities or involvement."
What part of this would prevent Presidential action without Congressional approval?

93

I think that threading the needle in the ways you suggest isn’t as easy in the way you suggest. Devil, as always, is in the details. I would be very surprised if the Obama administration, security council and intelligence community didn’t explore those at length.

I’m not sure there is any more support for putting boots on the ground in Syria now than there was 5 years ago.

94

[QUOTE=QuickSilver]
I think that threading the needle in the ways you suggest isn’t as easy in the way you suggest. Devil, as always, is in the details. I would be very surprised if the Obama administration, security council and intelligence community didn’t explore those at length.
[/QUOTE]

Oh, they did. In fact, what I’ve laid out is essentially what Obama was talking about doing. But he didn’t follow through. There were reasons, but none of them had to do with the difficulty or even the Russian reaction. Most had to do with the fact that, after years of Bush, America and the voters (and pretty much various levels of the government) didn’t want to get involved in another Middle East conflict. You also had Russia negotiating for Syria and Syrian disarmament of their chemical weapons. Obama went that route and backed off of US air strikes. It was, IMHO, one of his biggest mistakes.

Definitely wouldn’t be much support either now or then (my WAG is less then than now, in fact) for boots on the ground, especially in combat roles. But if you wanted UN inspections you’d have to protect them somehow. The alternative would have just been to go right into a no-fly zone and continued air strikes and interdiction missions.

95

Our former Constitutional Scholar in Chief disagrees with you.

Presidents routinely bomb other countries w/o approval from Congress. We can argue all day about whether it’s technically OK or not, but the fact is they do it without repercussions.

96

Again, I think it’s far more complicated than what you’ve outlined. I think there is additional complexity involving Iran to consider as well.

But as I’m watching McCain and various other hawks on the news are making your case. So we may yet find out how that approach plays out.

97

Well of course I’m glossing over quite a bit. But we are talking about 5 years ago…what Iran did or didn’t think about it then was of little real concern to the US. Russia was more on the sidelines as well at that time. Again, this is wide brush territory, but the reality was that the US could have done air strikes directed at Syria and Syrian C&C, air fields and especially chemical storage bunkers without any real resistance, especially in the wake of those first attacks. We CHOSE not to.

Well, see, the irony is that you are quite correct in your assessment if you are talking about today verse 5 years ago. Today, it IS very complex and complicated. Iran does matter today as they also have forced in-theater. Russia is huge since they have a LOT of forces and personnel in Syria. It’s also a much more complex picture from a purely military perspective, even leaving aside the minefield of Iranian and Russian forces there. Russia has put in some of their most advanced missile defense systems in a huge multi-tiered and multi-layered defensive grid that would be a pretty tough nut to crack, even if we didn’t care that we might be killing Russian tech by hitting their missile defense systems or killing Russian pilots flying the exact same air craft as the Syrians…which we do care about.

98

Giving them benefit of the doubt in that they understand the (additional) complexities involved, why are they advocating for the same solution as the one from 5 years ago?

99

I don’t give them the benefit of the doubt, sadly. But, realistically, it’s because they have the plans for it already…and it’s easy to fire something like this off to the press. My WAG is, at least wrt the administration, they have no idea what to do and are totally flat-footed by this, as I said earlier. As for Congress, the Dems (and maybe the 'Pubs too) are basically angling to have Trump request from them authorization for military options (which they will most likely give), but the details would need to be hashed out. McCain? Who knows about him.

That’s my WAG, FWIW.

100

I doubt he will go to congress for authorization. He can’t wait to use his bigly executive powers to bomb the shit out of stuff in the middle east.

If he does, it’ll be a feel good reaction. It will have no lasting political objectives as far as making things any better in Syria. It could very well make things worse.

That’s my WAG.