The Unraveling - How Obama’s Syria policy fell apart

Great Debates
81

That’s close to what went down however, he never at any time, no matter what Congress did or did not do, had no other choice other than to back off. There’s plenty of reality that opposes any notion that Obama had to back down.

First: There is no compelling evidence that Congress was not going to authorize limited use of military force against the Assad regime. I say that because of the fact that Republican leadership in the House of Reps including Speaker Boehner and Eric Cantor came out publically in support of military strikes. And I say that also because Obama had not finished lobbying the Congress members for support of that action when the peaceful alternative came, and then Obama put the military option on hold, not entirely scrapped, to give the peace plan a chance to work out. The leadership in the House being Republican makes it very unlikely that Obama would have been impeached for launching a couple of days of punitive strikes against Syria.

Second: Even John Mace back in September had to acknowledge that the US publics opinion on use of force in Syria was polled within the margin of error to be even. Or as he said at the time, “closer than {he} would like it to be”

In a thread here titled, “Can anyone defend Obama’s Syria Drive” elucidator wrote, *“I’m sure the majority of Americans support a plan to get such weapons out of Assad’s hands if it can be easily done. But the “use of force” if that fails? Not so sure about that. Substantiate?” *

And then on 09-24-2013 at 04:34 PM John Mace replied to elucidator’s request to substantiate the public’s mood on ‘use of force’. John wrote in response, " Not supported, but closer than I would like it to be:"

And then John cite this:

“cite” > ABC News/Washington Post Poll. Sept. 12-15, 2013. N=1,004 adults nationwide. Margin of error ± 4. “If the diplomatic efforts to take control of Syria’s chemical weapons do not work, do you think Congress should or should not approve the use of military force against Syria?”
Should 44%
Should not 48%
Unsure 8%
< “cite”

-John Mace 09-24-2013 04:34 PM 267p0434 “Can anyone defend Obama’s Syria Drive”

On that basis even considering the backlash from the public against using military strikes, it was not that far off that Obama would have suffered more than fleeting political damage had he launched the strikes prior of after the US/Russian deal was announced coming out of Geneva.
Third: Unlike his predecessor and your Tony Blair, I have confidence that Obama would make the correct choice if the option rose that Syria could be disarmed peacefully and diplomatically by getting the UNSC and weapons inspectors involved that would make the civil war in Syria still tragic but with one huge less complication and danger by getting rid of the CW weapons and gone from the conflict. It is forgotten here that Obama is the one that first approached Putin in Mexico earlier in the year of 2013 that set in motion the idea of getting Assad to give up his CW arsenal. Putin did not act on that seriously until after the use of force was coming to a head in the US Senate and House of Representatives and then Kerry put the option out that the strikes could be avoided and then Putin jumped on that and the rest we pretty much know what happened.
I have and can cite more reasons that Obama would not have backed off from using the strikes if Putin had not changed his policy on disposing of Assad’s CW arsenal when he conveniently {for himself} did. But hopefully that is enough for now.

82

Had the gambit of getting Putin to come forward not worked out in the way that it did, my feeling is that Obama would not have gone forward with the strikes (in a meaningful way). I think the lack of worldwide support among allies had far more impact on his decision than the fact that congress and domestic opinion polls were not in support of strikes on Assad.

There is no winning strategy in Syria under any scenario of active US involvement. There is no winning strategy in Syria under Russian involvement with respect to neutralizing CW’s either. All that’s done is change the way people will continue to die in this ugly civil war. But if getting rid of CW is the best thing that could have been accomplished under the circumstances (and I think it is), then I applaud the way it’s been handled by both US and Russia.

But strictly for my own enlightenment, I’d like to see what cites/evidence there is for Obama going forward with the strikes if the deal with Russia had not succeeded. I’d also like to hear what (speculative) evidence there might be for the success of that course of action; what would success look like?

83

No, we don’t “mostly” know that. There has been a debate in this thread about the legal extent of President Obama’s war powers, and I am responding to that portion of the debate.

84

Why only “President Obama’s”?

Hasn’t that ship sailed several presidents ago?

85

Maybe. That’s what a Presidential Gloss (which is Obama’s argument) essentially is. We know that the President is Commander-in-Chief, because that’s explicitly spelled out in the Constitution. And we know that Congress has the power to declare war and appropriate funds for the military, because that’s also explicitly spelled out. Then there’s this whole gray area as to how everything else is divided up.

In layman’s terms, Presidential gloss is the idea that the President did something before, and Congress didn’t object, so that means the President has the power to do it. That’s essentially Obama’s argument in the legal memo I linked to.

Some legal minds think that once gloss has been established, Congress can’t revoke it. I don’t agree with that. But since Congress hasn’t really tried to do anything about the Presidential gloss in this area since they passed the War Powers Resolution, that’s a largely theoretical debate.

86

Sigh – yet another assertion that doesn’t fit in with anyone else’s view of reality. Majority of the House leaning no on Syria resolution. The same article shows that only 25 House members had anonuced support for the resoltuion, while 145 were undecided, and a majority leaning or announced noes. Plus, only 23 senators were leaning toward authorizing war, while 43 were announced or leaning not to. “No compelling evidence…” yeah, right.

Because if it is one thing House Republicans are known for, it’s sticking by constitutional principles and not impeaching Democratic presidents for paper-thin reasons.

WaPo polls from late August to mid-September show that support for airstrikes began at 36% and declined to 30%, while opposition ranged from 59 to 64%.

A Gallup poll asked similar questions twice in September, finding that support for war went from 36 percent to 28 percent, and opposition went from 51% to 62%.

CNN polls in September show the same thing, with support ranging from 30 to 36%, and opposition ranging from 58 to 66%.

McClatchy polled just once in early September, and found the public 32-58% against strikes. AP polled once and found that people did not want Congress to authorize strikes by a 26-61% margin. CBS polled once and got a 30-61% result.

Cites. The idea that people were evenly split on war is not credible.

Of course you do. Nobody would think anything other than that you have complete and total confidence in Obama on every issue.

87

And I’m saying that not only could he not do so, but he wouldn’t have to.

Not everything I post has something to do with what you’ve said. Just pointing out that there is disagreement on this issue, even within the same person sometimes.

88

We’ll have to disagree, because I think he could make an AUMF argument if he wanted to.

89

In the same spirit that iiandyiiii said that the President could issue unconstitutional orders and people would probably follow them, sure.

But for a claim that the AUMF would cover the bombing of Syria due to the use of chemical weapons against anti-government fighters, one would have to make a case that the bombing was targeted “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.”

So, for the claim to be credible, Obama would have to determine:

  1. That Syria planned, authorized, committed, or aided in the 9/11 attacks; or
  2. That Syria harbored such organizations or persons that carried out the attacks.

On the face of it, declaring that Syria crossed a red line by using chemical weapons in a civil war doesn’t have a damn thing to do with 9/11.

If you are making an argument that a Preisdent could, in theory, use the AUMF to invade Canada because he might try to make people believe that he has the authority to do anything he wants no matter what the law says; that’s one thing. If you actually believe that the AUMF is actually written so broadly as to have some actual application to the Syrian CW situation, well, it doesn’t by any objective reading.

By the way, Obama critics, I’m still waiting to hear who you consider “competent” on the Syria issue, and who had a policy prescription that would have led to better results. I haven’t seen any names mentioned at all… which is deeply shocking to me. I’m totally floored that the critics can’t mention one person who had a better idea of what to do about Syria.

90

I’ve already explained why I think the AUMF can be read to give him the authority to deploy into Syria. How about you actually respond to what I wrote, instead of making up nonsensical straw man arguments in your head to respond to? I’ve also stated that I don’t think it’s a great legal argument, just that I think it’s a plausible one he could make if he wanted to.

Aside from that, Obama is probably not relying on an AUMF argument anyway, so if you don’t like the AUMF argument, it doesn’t really make a difference.

91

If you mean the post at the top, then I don’t think you’ve done that at all. What does “deployment through the door” mean? What does “one deployment is underway” mean? And, how does one “expand” that to Assad in any meaningful way. That is, not like the famous cartoon where the mathematician is explaining the steps in his proof when he gets to the part where he says "and then a miracle happens’.

But really, what you need to do is point the section of the AUMF that you claim he could use, because I (and Ravenman) can’t see it.

With all due respect, the only “explanation” I’ve seen is some hand-waving. Now, if you want to drop it, fine. But lets not pretend than anything has been explained.

92

No, I didn’t hand-wave anything. If you didn’t understand the explanation, you could have asked for clarification. Instead, you just kept repeating that you didn’t agree.

But now that you’ve asked, I’ll try again.

Step 1: The administration claims that al Queda fighters are in Syria. They then claim that this gives them authorization under the AUMF to deploy assets into Syria against the al Qaeda fighters. They start bombing those fighters.

Step 2: Once military action is underway, the administration then expands the mission to include overthrow of the Assad regime. This Obama has to use inherent Article II powers to do. Since military action is already underway, Obama claims that as Commander-in-Chief, he has the authority to expand the mission.

Like I said, I don’t think it’s a great argument. But remember, that the original mission in Libya was to protect people on humanitarian grounds. Once the mission got underway, it then expanded to overthrowing the Qaddafi regime. Obama could expand an initial mission in Syria in the same manner.

93

Step 2 is completely disconnect from Step 1. Article II is not limited to “expanding” an existing mission. This is not an argument in any meaningful sense of the word, as it could be used to justify anything. So, if you’re saying that Obama could use this as an argument in the same sense that he could use advice from his Fairy Godmother as an argument, then OK. Otherwise it’s not just “not a great argument” it’s a nonsensical one. Unless, of course, Assad switched sides and started fighting alongside the al Qaeda elements.

The mission in Libya was never expanded to overthrowing the Qaddafi regime. But the initial action in Libya was against the regime itself, unlike the scenario you are proposing for Syria.

94

It is a shit argument. It’s like saying that Truman could legitimately “expand the mission” to attack Britain once Germany was defeated. Anyone who would try to twist permission to attack a group into permission to attack that group’s enemies needs to be removed from power.

95

Missed the edit window… Not to mention that the action in Libya had nothing to do with the AUMF, but was justified in terms of a humanitarian crisis. That is, under the newly minted idea of Responsibility to Protect.

96

Once military action is underway, the President has wide latitude to determine the whether or not to expand the mission. That’s simply inherent in his C-in-C power, and numerous Presidents have expanded missions in this manner. Just because you don’t like it, doesn’t mean it’s a “fairy godmother” argument.

That is not true. The UN authorized action against the Qaddafi regime only to protect civilians. Overthrowing the regime was a later expansion.

97

I never said Libya was authorized under the AUMF.

98

Look, I actually take a very narrow view of the President’s Commander-in-Chief powers, but the fact is that the President currently has extremely wide powers once military action is underway, and Congress hasn’t seen fit to reign in those powers.

99

The primary and only stated objective of surgical bombing was to compromise Assad’s military ability to use chemical weapons. I do not recall any discussions of subsequent mission creep that would involve attack on Al Queda forces. Why argue this hypothetical in the first place?

100

I was just pointing out that there were multiple legal arguments that the administration could make if it wanted to. I didn’t intend to hijack the thread. But as I’ve said numerous times, Obama is probably relying on a Presidential gloss argument, so everyone can feel free to ignore the AUMF argument if they want to.