6 May 2002. US expands ‘axis of evil’
You have much better thoughts than several of my fellow Americans have on this subject. The US has not had any genuine leverage or influence on Syria since befpre 2002. Outside leverage on the Assad regime has long been the Russians and the Iranians who are somewhat indebted to the Russians and long have been. The Russian have a port in Syria (I cant use adjectives to describe the port’s importance because it starts sub-plots of the thread topic about adjectives) that they, Russians, would like to keep and Assad is the assurance that they keep it. So it is a weak argument to claim that Obama caused the US to lose leverage on the Assad regime or influence. Apparently Obama has used the best and only leverage on Assad and Putin that was available. And that is the threat of US Military Strikes on Assad’s military installations in order to achieve the peaceful (US Involvement peaceful) full disarmament of the Assad’s CW arsenal by Mid-Year this year.
It is Obama’s political courage to buck the political winds about bombing Syria over the red line that Assad crossed that showed (oops almost threw in an adjective) Presidential leadership in a sense not seen for a while. That strong message sent to Assad and Putin that he was going to do it with or without Congress is what forced the current diplomatic resolution of disarming Syria peacefully and without firing a shot. Obama’s decision to take the peaceful route when it opened up shows a great deal of wisdom and control of America’s military power than his predecessor and for that I am very appreciative and respectful for what’s been done thus far on Syria.
Ridding the civil war is a big deal but many of my countrymen as seen on this and a few other threads about Syria don’t think so. So we will just have to wait the naysayers out on that score.
Some don’t find fault with the Administration but they have an over abundance of finding fault with anyone who vigorously supports the Administration on certain matters going in a different direction than the herd. And by herd I mean in general left of center anti-war sentiment. Obama has not pleased that crowed at all. They got all excited on Syria because many Republicans and Independents and some hawkish Democrats got together and got all Ron and Rand Paul-ish on the Syria political firestorm and debate on whether to Two-Day-bomb Syria.
Then when Kerry and Lavrov worked out a super CW disarmament deal in Geneva in September last year all that joviality and camaraderie between anti-war Dems and anti-Obama Republicans that suddenly found a thirst for isolationist policy went kapoot . And then Obama took the diplomatic peaceful route (without taking his finger off the military strikes button) so the coalition of anti-war descended into a phase of Obama made America look weak and Putin masterfully got exactly what he wanted and many other sensational claims about Obama’s faulty handling of this series of events. It is currently focused on a delay in transporting Syria’s CW out of Syria as more evidence of Obama getting the worst of the masterful Putiin which weakens the US and strengthens Russia in Syria and the surrounding nations. Pretty much bologna I knew but what can we do?
From a realpolitik view, is the current situation bad for the U.S.? An advesary in the region is expending money and bodies. Assad will likely stay in power, keeping regional stability,but poorer and possibly facing “insurgents” and a humanitarian crisis for some time after major fighting has stopped. With a chemical weapons surrender in the offing the West doesn’t have to fear them getting into terrorist hands during the current chaos. Syria and Hezbollah are left with deteriorating relations with Lebanon. What is the U.S. centric downside to this “unraveling”?
You know, other than all the dead people of course.
Let’s deal with your first Obama action that you say made America look weak. On what basis do you claim that Obama could not enforce it? I hear this repeated all the time and there I no established evidence that the Joint Chiefs of Staff would not have carried out a military attack on Congress had the Commander in Chief ordered it. No matter what the political situation was at the time.
If you were right about Obama’s inability to enforce the red line because Congress could stop him somehow, then I guess you are saying that Congress chose to make America look weak then. So why with your weak argument on its foundation are you blaming 'him" for making the US be weak and silly.
You do know that during the campaign for president Obama’s opponent Mitt Romney said he would send in US troops to secure Syria’s Chemical Weapons. My point there is that Obama was not ‘out there’ in some kind of la-la land when he spoke about the red line on the campaign trail.
David Ignatius of the Washington Post did what you asked, except it was three months ago:
On the other Syria thread about the US/Russian Deal in Geneva and what a good deal that is, I posted this on 09-19-2013 10:36 PM
-By David Ignatius, Published: September 18 http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...549_story.html
[QUOTE=David Ignatius]
What’s puzzling about this latest bout of Obama-phobia is that recent developments in Syria have generally been positive from the standpoint of U.S. interests. Obama has accomplished goals that most Americans endorse, given the unpalatable menu of choices. Polls suggest that the public overwhelmingly backs the course Obama has chosen. APost-ABC News survey asked Americans if they endorsed the U.S.-Russian plan to dismantle Syrian chemical weapons as an alternative to missile strikes; 79 percent were supportive.
[/QUOTE]
Shouldn’t that be “The US-Russian plan to dismantle Syrian chemical weapons as an alternative to Obama’s plan to perform missile strikes”?
Maybe if you quit giving Obama credit for the course of action created to oppose him, you and Ignatius will be less puzzled.
Lets analyze your author’s opening salvo of questions shall we?
“It’s hard to pinpoint just when, exactly, Barack Obama’s Syria policy fell apart.”
*A Was it in December, when Islamists humiliated U.S.-backed rebels by seizing what limited supplies America had given them?
*B Was it back in September, when Obama telegraphed his reluctance to enforce his own “red line” after the Syrian regime used chemical weapons on its own people?
*C Was it in the months beforehand, when the administration quietly and mysteriously failed to make good on its pledge to directly arm the rebels?
*D Or did it collapse in August 2011, when Obama called on Syrian dictator Bashar Assad to go, only to do almost nothing to make it happen?
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/01/how-obamas-syria-policy-fell-apart-101704.html#ixzz2pUsImorM
But first Michael Weiss needs to be put into perspective before I will consider him as an objective commentator on Syria and Obama’s handling of it.
Here’s what Weiss said about Obama in 2008:
Read More: http://pjmedia.com/blog/obamas-iraq-minefield/
Weiss back in 2008 says Obama was ignorant on Iraq. When Weiss wrote that, his fellow columnists included Michael Ledeen and Victor Davis Hanson. Shall we assume that Wess shares a political philosophy with Ledeen and Hanson and that he believes those two were *‘brilliant on Iraq’? *
Obama is the US part of the US/Russian plan. I don’t get what you are driving at. Please clarify.
My view has been that it was Obama’s use of the threat of military strikes that forced the Russian side into a plan. Ignatius says that too.
perhaps you missed that part: "Russia has been drawn into a process of collecting and destroying Syria’s chemical arsenal. This has been a goal of U.S. policy for two years. It finally worked, thanks in part to Obama’s pledge to use military force to punish Syria if the Russians didn’t step up."
Lot’s here make fun of that when I say, but Ignatius is a highly respected journalist on these types of issues. So… I agree with him on this and have since the beginning.
The AUMF is worded broadly enough that if Obama wanted, he could have justified the use of force under that law. Aside from that, from the Presidential Gloss arguments the Obama administration made during the Libyan intervention, it seems fairly clear that the administration believes it has the constitutional authority to act without prior Congressional approval in these types of situation.
I personally don’t think that the Constitution allows the President to deploy military assets without prior Congressional approval except for self-defense, or where American lives might need rescuing. But very few people agree with my interpretation on that.
Can you flesh that reasoning out? I’m not seeing it.
Well, I don’t think its a great legal argument (but then I don’t think the Presidential Gloss arguments are that great either, and nobody important cares what I think on these issues). But, all he would have to do is demonstrate a link between what’s going on in Syria and either past or potentially future international terrorism.
[QUOTE=AUMF]
That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.
[/QUOTE]
Since, supposedly, some of the participants in Syria are al Queda affiliated, then use of force against those fighters would be authorized under the AUMF. If he did deploy under the AUMF, then he could later expand the involvement under general Article II C-in-C powers.
Except Obama never advocated using force against the insurgents, many of whom are affiliated with al Qaeda. He was trying to get permission to use force against the Assad regime, and say what you will about Assad, he’s night affiliated with al Qaeda.
The al Qaeda rationalization gets deployment through the door. One deployment is underway, he can then expand to the Assad regime using general C-in-C powers. But if you don’t like the argument, like I said, it’s not a great one.
I don’t think he would rely on it anyway, since he basically used a Presidential gloss argument for Libya. My guess is that’s the reasoning behind his making statements that he has the authority to deploy in Syria.
Obama, the president, claims to have inherent authority as CiC to use military force without the consent of Congress. This has nothing to do with the AUMF.
That is in contract to Obama, the candidate, who claimed the president did not have such authority.
Yes, which is the Presidential Gloss argument that I have referred to several times.
I am saying that he could make an AUMF argument if he wanted to (in addition to the gloss argument). I also clearly stated that I don’t think he’s making that argument.
Ok, what does that have to do with anything I’ve said here?
I don’t recall events as described at all. When the UK Parliament voted on 30th August the timescale touted was 10 days to airstrikes. These were the key stages:
Obama was all set for military action as of the second week of September. Once he lost the UK, he seemingly probably lost Congress as well.
So from 30th August, Obama lost control and he had no choices at all other than to back off.
Isn’t that how it went down?
Here is the administrations memo on the Libya intervention:
http://www.justice.gov/olc/2011/authority-military-use-in-libya.pdf
and
Based on this memo, it seems pretty clear to me that the administration thinks they can act in Syria without prior Congressional approval. Obama may have chosen to seek Congressional approval for political reasons, but he doesn’t think it’s legally required.
As could the UK PM, but I think we mostly know that.
What they generally do instead, however, with these ‘policing’ actions (as opposed to the full scale invasions) is seek validity through each other (‘hey, the UK is supporting us’, etc) - when the ‘UK’ is actually an executive decision by the PM, but that failed in this case because Cameron went to Parliament.
I definitely recall this ‘10-day timetable’ being touted by media, but on a quick search nothing came up …
As a rough but valid generalization, Republicans are more likely to support a military intervention than Democrats. There are enough peace-loving Democrats that, for anything short of an attack on the U.S. a President needs Republican votes to get Congressional approval for major military action.
(I’d be curious what the people making nasty ill-informed comments against Obama would have to say about Bush’s criminally stupid War in Iraq.)
Unlike the nasty ill-informed people, I don’t claim to know what U.S. action should have been. Obama seemed to support military strike; his opinion is certainly worth more than all the Dopers in this thread put together. Politico.com and the nasty people seem to agree with Obama that strikes were appropriate. Debate in this thread now centers on whether the President could/should have intervened without Congressional approval.
Can you imagine the outcry from these same right-wing pundits had Obama pursued military action without the support of Republican Congress ??
There’d probably be impeachment hearings by now.
That’s right; the very same people who, rightly or wrongly, supported military strikes refused to consent to Obama. They saw an opportunity to embarrass their nemesis and make their electoral chances better; geopolitics and the Syrian people be damned. “[They] want the Obama Administration to fail.”
Geeez.