Obama's cautious pragmatism is the best approach for dealing with Syria and ISIS

By Michael J.W. Stickings

There's a lot of talk today, the Friday before a long weekend, about President Obama's remark that "we don't have a strategy yet" regarding ISIS and the deteriorating situation in Syria and Iraq. The remark has identified as a "gaffe" by the press, Republicans jumped all over it (because they'll do or say anything to score political points at the president's expense), and the White House has gone into damage-control mode (because of course).

Now, to be sure, it was an inartful way of explaining the situation. The president was clearly talking about what to do about ISIS, not broadly about the region, but that hardly came across clearly. But it makes sense not to know quite what to do at this point. It's easy to be an armchair militarist like John McCain or Bill Kristol, much harder to the one who has to make the tough decisions, decisions that will result in significant loss of life, particularly when there are no clear answers to a problem that in and of itself is difficult to understand. How far do you go in dealing militarily with ISIS? Do you put troops on the ground? Do you rely solely on airstrikes, or on airstrikes with support for allies on the ground? But, then, who are those allies? ISIS is at war with Bashar al-Assad's Syrian regime, but that regime is hardly an American ally. Does the U.S. really want to get into yet another protracted war in Iraq, one with no clear outcomes? And what would airstrikes against ISIS accomplish anyway, particularly without clear allies on the ground?

And so on, and so on.

At a time like this, as most times, caution is a virtue, and President Obama's cautiousness, which very much defines who he is and how he governs, stands in stark, pragmatic contrast to the "bomb bomb bomb" recklessness of Republicans. Besides, it's not like the president has been soft on America's enemies -- just consider the extra-judicial drone war that he has been waging against various threats throughout the Middle East. Indeed, as Peter Beinart writes at The Atlantic, and I think he's right on this, President Obama is both a hawk and a dove, or neither, or somewhere in between: 

So was Obama more dovish than Clinton or more hawkish? The answer is both. On the one hand, Obama has shown a deep reluctance to use military force to try to solve Middle Eastern problems that don't directly threaten American lives. He's proved more open to a diplomatic compromise over Iran's nuclear program than many on Capitol Hill because he’s more reticent about going to war with Tehran. He's been reluctant to arm Syria's rebels or bomb Basher al-Assad because he doesn't want to get sucked into that country's civil war. After initially giving David Petraeus and company the yellow light to pursue an expanded counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan, he's wound down America's ground war against the Taliban. Even on Libya, he proved more reluctant to intervene than the leaders of Britain and France.

On the other hand, he's proven ferocious about using military force to kill suspected terrorists. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, he's basically adopted the policy Joe Biden proposed at the start of his administration: Don't focus on fighting the Taliban on the ground, since they don't really threaten the United States. Just bomb the hell out al-Qaeda from the air. Compared with George W. Bush, he's dramatically expanded drone strikes, even though they're unilateral, legally dubious, and morally disturbing. And, as promised, he sent special forces to kill Osama bin Laden without Pakistan's permission, even though his vice president and secretary of defense feared the risks were too high. When it comes to the Middle East, in other words, Obama is neither a dove nor a hawk. He's a fierce minimalist.

A minimalist. A cautious pragmatist, I'd say. And therein lies his strategy for dealing with the region, with ISIS, and with other such problems facing the United States, and indeed his strategy for dealing with pretty much everything. It's not good enough for Republicans, but, then, nothing he does is ever good enough for Republicans. And it's not really good enough for the media either, because it's not a clear, simplistic strategy, or, rather, not a clear, simplistic worldview. In contrast to the "bomb first, think later, if ever" approach preferred by McCain, Kristol, and their ilk, as well as to the "America as global hegemon" worldview espoused by Kristol and his neocon ilk and embraced by the likes of Dick Cheney, President Obama's approach is really the only approach that makes sense, and that could actually produce positive, lasting results, given the crazy state of the world today, given the challenges the country faces, given the complexities of the problems in places like Iraq and Syria.

No, you don't get that rush of bloodlust that comes with, and underpins, right-wing militarism, and you don't get that sense of purity that comes with pacifism and/or isolationism, nor the perceived, and self-deceiving, moral clarity that comes with any sort of absolutism, but what you do get is a chance of achieving some sort of success in a world where, given the choices available and outcomes likely, success is awfully hard to come by.

Maybe President Obama's "minimalism" won't work in this case, but it's far more preferable than the alternatives, because at least it recognizes that there are no easy solutions and that missteps could lead to catastrophe. As occasionally frustrating as his cautious pragmatism may be, he knows what he's doing, even when the words don't come out as artfully as desired.

Here we go

By Carl 

Maybe the Mayans were right after all...

Syrian forces have mixed chemical weapons and added them to bombs in preparation for possible use on President Bashar Assad's own people, Fox News confirms.

A senior U.S. official told Fox News that bombs were loaded with components of sarin gas, a deadly nerve gas. Syrian forces have 60 days to use these bombs until the chemical mixture expires and has to be destroyed.

The nerve agent has been loaded into canisters in aerosol form that can be dropped from planes, Fox said. A Fox reporter spoke with Pentagon officials, who expressed grave concern. Sarin is capable of killing many people in a short time. There is no antidote.

Earlier, Fox reported that U.S. troops were deploying to the Syrian border for defensive purposes.

Any solution to the Syrian conflict that comes before sarin is deployed will be tricky, and the pressure to deploy sarin has been anted up as rebels continue to advance on Damascus.

Already, Russia has warned Turkey about meddling in the internal politics of Syria, a major arms purchaser from Russia. Those differences have been papered over in recent days, but the use of sarin gas would cast a whole new light on the tenuous agreement.

Read more »

Egypt's important hour: Will democracy survive the weekend?

By Ali Ezzatyar

Nobody who has followed the Egyptian revolution would assert that it has progressed without a hitch. But with the Egyptian high court on Thursday invalidating Egypt's first democratically elected parliament and reinstating the candidacy of a former Mubarak crony to the presidency, the revolution has officially fallen off the rails. With the intentions of the previous regime and the military now clear, events of the next couple of months may prove to be among the most pivotal in Egypt's modern history, with implications for the entire region.

Since crowds in Tahrir Square lead to Mubarak's ouster over one year ago, the question of how much the rest of the former regime maintained control over the levers of power remained unanswered. There was an understanding that Mubarak was the leader and figurehead of a broader system, but still some hope remained that the old guard would choose to melt into the new democracy, rather than risk overt assertion of their arbitrary power again. The high court's recent decision is the most compelling evidence to date that the old guard is not only still there, but intends to stay, confirming the suspicions of the more pessimistic observers of the revolution both inside of Egypt and out. With the presidential run-off imminent, the future of Egypt's fragile democracy hangs in the balance.

While the Supreme Constitutional Court cited the unconstitutionality of a law allowing for partisan candidates to win seats designated for independents, there is little doubt that the Muslim Brotherhood's majority was the primary motivator of the decision. This sets the stage for this weekend's elections, where the Islamist candidate Mohammed Morsi will face off against Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak's former prime minister. Even the most optimistic of Egypt's revolutionaries will be concerned that Morsi, the favorite, will be prevented from ascending to power one way or another. Even before the election has even taken place, allegations of plans for vote-rigging have surfaced from Egypt's opposition. Indeed, it would make little sense for the high court to invalidate the Islamist parliament, only for the old guard to allow the Islamist candidate to come to power; without a parliament, Morsi's power will be virtually unrivaled until a parliament is reinstated.

That leaves Egypt in the most precarious of positions; anger and resentment towards the former regime is palatable, and any result that does not see the Islamist candidate come to power will be considered a return to dictatorship. Especially after the high-court's decision, even an unlikely victory for Shafiq that is fair will be viewed as unsupportable by a majority of Egyptians. So, after almost 18 months of revolution, transition, and congregations in Tahrir Square, Egypt can for all intents and purposes revert to dictatorship again this weekend.

It takes little imagination to perceive what this could mean for Egypt. Its young project of democracy has yet to beget civil society institutions that would allow Egyptians to challenge their government in a meaningful way; that leaves coercion, and potentially violence, as the only means to break dictatorship's cold and tight grasp once again. Is Egypt ready to go back to square one, and claw its way back out of dictatorship?

The State Department's musings on the subject have produced only a vague and general response, that the tide of democracy in Egypt cannot be turned back. But it is unclear how much influence even the United States can have at this juncture, with its closest patrons within Egypt partially marginalized, and no strong alignment with Egypt's opposition, of which it is suspicious.

Too bad, because if the next few months prove to turn back the tide of history in Cairo, it will be a monumental failure for the very project of the Arab spring, with ramifications likely to be seen everywhere. Libya's factions will grow more paranoid of one another. Syrians have persisted through over a year of civil war; failure in Egypt will send an ominous sign to Syria's opposition and be a boon for Assad. There is more riding on Egypt than Egypt alone. And it all begins to come down to the next couple of weeks. Watch this space.

The Syrian uprising's interested onlookers: Iran, Israel, Russia, and Saudi Arabia

By Ali Ezzatyar

The Arab Awakening has a common denominator: the people want the downfall of the regime. It is a pretty good one, too. While it ensures nothing, it is the first, and perhaps the most difficult, of many steps before democracy.

Bashar al-Assad, Tyrant of Syria

It goes without saying that each Arab country, with all of its distinctions, will see its individual route meet special hurdles and circumstances. An unfortunate reality is that many of these obstacles have nothing to do with domestic considerations at all, but rather international ones. We knew this. It's the story of the modern Middle East. But what has become increasingly clear over the last 14 months is just how important one of these countries actually is to everyone else. We get some color on the American perspective by reading the paper. But this is how the other important players are looking at the biggest prize of the Arab dictatorship club, Syria:

Iran: The world's initial fears that the Arab Spring would play into the hands of the champion of anti-Americanism, Iran, seem unfounded at this juncture. Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, for all of their imperfections, have not turned into hotbeds of terror ripe for Iranian influence. Syria is the one country in the Arab dictator family that was traditionally pro-Iranian all along. It was the only Arab country that provided material assistance to Iran during its war with Iraq, and it is an important buffer and ally in Iran's support of anti-Israeli groups. Syria and Iran share a disdain for the Saudi royal family; they also have had poor, often adversarial relations, with the Arab world's West-friendly dictators past and present. So while Iran touts itself as the champion of populist and Muslim revolution, lauding Egyptian and Bahraini revolutionaries as the continuation of the struggle for justice, it has kept its hands muddy and bloody in assisting Syria's crackdown against its own people. For Iran, the survival of the Ba'ath regime is imperative; it is its only genuine ally in the region, and it will stop at nothing, including assisting in the crackdown against innocent civilians, to ensure that Syria does not become the Arab Awakening's next casualty.

Israel: Israel often distinguishes itself as a democracy in a sea of dictatorships, but it was horrified by the Arab Spring when it began. The reality was, most of the Arab dictatorships had cooperative relationships with Israel, and their powerful armies had a leash on the anti-Israeli sentiment that is rampant among their respective populations. There are even reports that Israel explored the idea of sabotaging the revolution in Egypt in its early days in Tahrir square. But for the same reason that Egypt was a potential nightmare, the Syrian revolution is viewed more positively in Israel. Syria is, by any account, Israel's real arch-nemesis. The two countries have been to war multiple times, and Israel occupies Syrian land in the Golan Heights. A more democratic regime, in Israel's view, is less likely to support terrorism, and is less likely to align itself with Iran. There does remain the danger, however, of a more legitimate Syrian regime being more successful in convincing the world that Golan should be returned. That is bad for Israel. On account of this uncertainly, Israel is watching developments very closely in Syria, with a preference for the ouster of the Assad regime, replaced by a weak, fragmented Syrian government incapable of challenging Israel or harnessing support for anti-Israel groups in Lebanon.

Russia: We can always count on Russia to pull no punches with respect to disregarding human rights in the interest of geopolitics. And they are putting on a master-class display in Syria. Since the days of Hafez al-Assad, Syria has been Russia's most important ally in the Middle East; it houses an important army base there and has billions of dollars worth of commerce with the Assad regime. In addition, Bashar is a key element of the Moscow-Tehran-Damascus triangle, helping Russia compete with American dominance in regional affairs. For the same reason that Russia refuses to come down hard on Iran vis-à-vis its nuclear activity, it has singlehandedly (making use of its sizeable influence on China) paralyzed the international community's ability to institute a legal reprimand of the Assad regime. With Russia on the Security Council, thousands more can die in Syria without the United Nations getting involved in a meaningful way.

Saudi Arabia: The primary outside supporter of the Syrian uprising, Saudi Arabia is pouring cash and arms into the hands of anyone who will help hasten Bashar al-Assad's demise. It is the most worthy of missions, in the Saudi mindset, to eliminate Saudi Arabia's traditional Arab foe. Among the many proxy wars these two countries have fought against each other, including in Lebanon, the downfall of Syria helps further weaken Iran, the country that Saudi Arabia views as most dangerous to its survival. Iran has called the Saudi dictatorship the least legitimate of regimes, and dreams of the day Saudi Arabia's substantial Shi'ite population, which happens to be in one of the most oil-rich provinces of the country, will rise up against the Saudi regime. This is Saudi Arabia's doomsday scenario.

And the Arab world's longest-lasting uprising continues.