The Middle East has always been thus and thus it shall always be (for the forseeable future, anyway). No reason to head for the nuclear fallout shelter just yet as the Syrian dispute remains firmly inside Syria’s borders and neighbouring countries are not currently making any moves that would expand the conflict. Egypt in particular has a host of its own problems right now and is not likely to get embroiled in Syria’s civil war. Iraq is another neighbour with plenty of domestic issues to deal with right now. Turkey has no reason to get involved militarily either. Everyone else, including Russia and the US are not going to start lobbing nuclear rockets over this conflict either.
Doesn’t mean it’s wrong to care, just that you might want to turn back the doomsday clock a few notches.
Well no, I’m not kidding. That’s part of my Formal Warning proposal. If we really believe Assad is going to kill his population with poison gas (and then threaten us or his neighbors with it), it doesn’t much matter if we kill them a little faster for a good cause. If we are going to commit acts of war over WMDs, it had better be to solve a problem. Launching a few tomahawks isn’t going to do anything. Turning the place into rubble from which the WMDs have been removed solves the problem.
The question is: Is sarin gas a big enough worry to take real action? Yes or no. Wreck the place if we’re going in, but don’t stick our toe in, stand there looking stupid and wait for someone to hit us on the head with a stick. If we’re not really going to do anything, make the decision to really do nothing.
I’ll be damned, I underestimated the Russians, who’d have thought they’d send their warships to where the Allies are? Unfortunately, we’re in it, there’s no way America should flinch, ever.
The strike is not about the chemical weapons, it’s about the red-line* that the U.S emphatically drawn, and how if our actions and conduct don’t match our words, no one will never take us seriously again.
With all of this talk about Israel, where the fuck are their warships and aircraft carriers? God knows Israel has the capability to defend the Gaza Strip from the ballistic onslaught of food and medicine from Turkish ships, will they defend the U.S - a “friend and ally”- from the Russian warships in Mediterranean Sea? This year, the U.S federal government transferred $3.2 billion dollars from our poorest citizens to a sovereign nation; so for me, this is an colorful and apt opportunity to see if Israel’s words match Her conduct.
Honesty
The U.S should have never drawn the line to begin with, but what’s done is done.
Not sure what you’re saying. All I meant by my post was that Obama would be well served by emulating Bush and getting a Congressional fig leaf authorization for the air strikes that we all think are coming. I brought up the Maine as an example of the USN losing a capital ship unexpectedly. I guess I could have mentioned Pearl Harbor. The U.S. has had its way militarily for the last 35 years or so, with loss-less cruise missile diplomacy being the rule for at least the last 20. The U.S. has gotten used to the idea that they can stroll up to a foreign country, drop high explosives within it, attempt to kill whomever they wish, and the subjects of that treatment can’t do anything about it. They can’t shoot down more than a handful of aircraft, they can’t sink any of the warships off their shore, and they certainly wouldn’t dream of sending irregular troops into the United States to attack targets here.
That can change. I listed one way—modern precision anti-ship missiles—that I think has a small, very small, possibility of doing so. I listed the Stark to show that the USN is not omniscient on the high seas. Like you, I don’t think it’s likely we’ll lose a carrier. Even hitting it is at least one or two orders of magnitude tougher than ambushing a lone frigate, but it’s not utterly inconceivable. If it happens, and 75% of the crew get killed as happened with the Maine, thousands of sailors will die.
If Hezbollah still is able to perform terrorist strikes far away from Lebanon; say, within the U.S., that’s another way the loss-less model can change. I don’t think Assad, assuming he even has the power to control whatever terrorists Hezbollah can wield, would green light terror attacks within the U.S. Unless he thinks he’s going down anyway. After Saddam, and Khadafy, and to a lesser extent, Milosevic, dictators know that the only thing waiting for them when they lose, is the noose. If they’re lucky. They don’t get a USAF flight to Honolulu or Paris. So from their point of view, if they’re going to go down anyway—which a cruise missile attack by itself probably won’t do—why not do as much damage as possible to your killer? That it hasn’t occurred yet to any of the dictators the U.S. has deposed so far, does not mean it won’t occur to Assad if he thinks he’s going to end up like Khadafi.
I would prefer that the red line claim not have been made to begin with, and not striking at all now even though it’s been made. But if he’s set on bombing Syria, then I think getting an AUMF and diluting the blame for any potential disaster is the way to go. A benefit is that there’s no chance in Hell that the Congress would sign off on an AUMF, so this would allow the Administration a face-saving way to not commit to military action.
We have this idea in the U.S. that bombs are something that happen to other people; that the U.S. homefront won’t suffer in any way the same kinds of destruction the U.S. military inflicts on other countries. Nothing says it has to stay that way. Make the goal of the military activity worth the risks you run by undertaking it. Getting involved in another country’s civil war, even if gas was used, where both sides are largely made up of loathsome people, doesn’t seem worth it.
Umm… first of all, the reason you don’t hear news about Israeli ships arriving in the Eastern Mediterranean is that they’re already there. I mean, where else would they be?
Second of all, Israel’s aircraft carrier has already been deployed. It’s called “Israel”.
Third: Israel supports Assad as so they should. He’s the secular Devil They Know who lets them bomb his stuff from time to time without making a peep. They won’t want an Islamic Republic in Syria and they don’t want the kind of chaos that lets wmd’s fall into either lunatic or unscrupulous hands.
If Obama is gonna send missiles over and bomb the Syrian chemical weapons, he better hurry. Because if I were Assad, I would be moving those chemical weapons [list=a][li]someplace underground or hidden. As well as right next to schools, hospitals, playgrounds, mosques, and marketplaces, especially in places friendly to the rebels.[/list]Then invite al-Jazeera over for tea and cookies and pictures.[/li]
Regards,
Shodan
There’s some truth in that, with two crucial caveats:
Israel may prefer Assad to some of the alternatives, but our biggest enemies are still Iran and Hizballah, both of which support the Assad regime. It’s OK if *he *wins, but we don’t want *them *to grow any stronger.
We seriously do NOT want chemical weapons used in our neighborhood. It lowers property values.
I don’t think he will either, but it’s a reasonable inference. And, coldly, if they are bombed, then they can’t be used by either Assad against civilians, nor by AQ elements in the rebels, against the U.S.
It sucks for anyone living next to the depots, of course.
Quite. If I were Assad I’d have some primed and ready to be dropped anywhere the US bombs. The propaganda value would be huge and stoke Muslim anger all over the world including in western countries. It’ll create new and motivated terrorists.
I was assuming that Obama wants to bomb something at least marginally related to the red line that Assad crossed by using chemical weapons. It’s more symbolic than anything else, since bombing troop concentrations or ammo dumps isn’t going to achieve anything more to unseat Assad or prevent future use of WMDs either.