This whole thing reminds me of the story cooked up by the USA, that North Vietnam was using chemical weapons in Cambodia.
It turned out that the “poison” was actually bee droppings.
It sounds like Obama wants some excuse to get involved in this…don’t ask me why.
How about this speculation.
He uses chemical weapons in a limited manner, the world fulminates (but does nothing), or lobs a few ineffective cruise missiles. Rinse and repeat, play fast & loose with deniability and inspectors, keeping a close eye on (particularly) US popularity re intervention in Syria. Watches as time goes by as US willingness to do anything costly about Syria decreases and weariness/boredom on the part of the US public with the situation increases.
When he’s sure that the US has given up any real notion of effective intervention, he then moves on to bigger and better nastiness, like chemical weapons on a grander scale with (hopefully for him) true war-winning intimidation capacity, knowing that the world will not do diddly squat if the US won’t foot most of the bill.
Remember, he has his dad’s example of the Hama massacre, as mentioned above. The world did diddly squat then, and the intimidation seemed to work.
I really would like to think you know better.
But he also has the more recent example of Khadafi, where the world did more. Not to mention Milosevic. And he knows that Obama has declared chemical weapons to be a red line - there’s been a lot of press about this line, and Obama risks looking foolish if he does nothing, so he’s under pressure from that alone.
It’s a high risk strategy for Assad to take.
His alternative is to get Ceasescued, so maybe it isn’t high risk at all for him.
I think you are mistaken, twice.
Kerry is not AFAIK claiming to have seen the chemical weapons being used with his own eyes, but he alleges there is “clear evidence” of their use. And he is rather unambiguously blaming it, not on the rebels, but on the Syrian government -
Cite.
Regards,
Shodan
I don’t think so, and none of the recent analysis has been along these lines. Assad has ad the momentum of late, backed strongly by Iran and Hezbollah, and it’s been widely said that there was little chance that he would be ousted from his own home turf in Syria. (Conquering back the entire country is a tougher challenge.)
Not really. From the same article -
Obama isn’t going to do nothing. He’s going to do nothing effective. This will not swing the balance back to the rebels, nor will it prevent future use of WMDs, which Assad is currently hiding for next time. But it will allow Obama to say that he did something about crossing the red line of WMDs.
Regards,
Shodan
Well sure. But he can read the stuff on the internet as well as we can. He knows that the US public believes, in general, that intervention in Syria is more pointless than intervention in Lybia or Serbia.
Certainly it is high risk, but remember, the US has so far done little even though there has been evidence around for some time that the Syrians have used chemical weapons (albeit on a small scale). He’s gambilng that the US will continue to do little in the future, or restrict itself to mostly symbolic gestures. He knows actual appetite for long-term, intensive military intervention is small.
Yes, because he has a history of doing nothing effective. :rolleyes:
No, it’s because lobbing missiles isn’t likely to be effective. So no matter what his history, this is not going to be effective. Even the New York Times says it isn’t going to alter the nature of the conflict. So save the rolleyes.
Regards,
Shodan
I read this morning that one theory on why Assad used CW was due to a recent assassination attempt that shook him up. This supposedly happened in early August and the recent CW attack was allegedly in retaliation for that.
I’m not sure Assad is in complete control anymore. Some of his generals may be fighting the war the way they see fit. The military may not answer directly to Assad anymore.
This article claims even the defense chief was in the dark.
This suggests that people of US are fine, its the government which is rogue.
good news…the UK Parliament has told Cameron :“No War”; now Obama is floundering and backtracking. Its the perfect ending to a screwed up idea. Maybe Congress is starting to listen to their constituents!
You can’t talk about government as being separate from the people.
We are the government, you and I. We the people.
Did the president bite off more than he can chew by making strident “red line” statements? Yeah, I think so. Is he being taken to task for them? Looks that way and rightly so. But it seems to me that he’s listening and taking it all in and weighing the options. Good for him in doing so. To do otherwise in the face of prevailing wisdom and good judgement would be a sign of a foolish and arrogant man. He doesn’t strike me as that sort.
Interesting how the last “US ally” mentioned in that article – “ally” here meaning “entity outraged by Assad’s chemical weapons attack, and vowing a serious and perhaps deadly response” – is none other than Al Quaeda.
The problem here is that losing credibility is a serious thing too.
You have a strong military but you don’t want to need to actually go to war when you really need something done, you need to have your threats be taken seriously so that you can avoid actual wars. By making a big deal about how something is a red line - which is commonly understood to mean you will absolutely do something serious about it - and then backing off, you increase the likelihood that people will call your bluff again next time, perhaps on something even more crucial. Which increases the likelihood that you’ll have to go to war on a broader scale versus threatening people into line.
Obama’s challenge is to try to thread the needle here, in doing something to preserve his - and by extension the country’s - credibility, while not doing anything which is otherwise counterproductive. It’s a tough all.