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.

The conundrum of memory

By Capt. Fogg

Sometimes I get to wondering, sometimes I get confused about what our conservative brethren are trying to tell us. I was reminded recently that my former Republican congressman Tom Rooney (R-FL), amongst others, vociferously  threatened to impeach the president for having provided air traffic control for the UN incursions into Libya; for having exceeded his constitutional authority by arming Syrian rebels. Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) back in June of 2013, threatened to impeach President Obama if any U.S. troops are killed in Syria. Is there a relationship between rhetorical amplitude and political passion and the shortness of its half-life?

I ask because currently the same party is chastising him for not having gone into Syria thus allowing ISIS a breeding ground. We need those airstrikes -- why didn't he make those airstrikes? We need airstrikes, says John McCain, in his time-worn tradition of  damning Obama if he does or if he doesn't. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) wants to commit ground troops. This is all "due to our total inaction. And it's going to be one of the more shameful chapters in American history," says John McCain.

Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) said on Face the Nation that the president's limited foreign policy is no longer acceptable on. I have no idea whether that refers to the nearly a hundred airstrikes the Obama administration has unilaterally launched into Northern Iraq to help the hopelessly rickety and incompetent government Republicans bragged about setting up not long ago, but we can be assured of at least one thing: Republicans will damn him for doing it and damn him for not stepping in earlier back when they were trying to impeach him for it.

(Cross-posted at Human Voices.)

UN says chemical weapons used in Syria

By Frank Moraes

It does now look as though there really was a chemical weapons attack in Syria on 21 August. My skepticism has always been based on the Yellow Rain incident. This involved supposed attacks by the Vietnam and Laos governments against the Hmong who live in the mountains of that region. Something bad clearly happened to those people. But it does not appear to have been a chemical attack, even though everyone was certain at the time.

The problem is that a lot of people are harmed in a lot of different ways when a modern war is underway. And it is indiscriminate. One thing I really hate is how people talk about how we never intentionally kill civilians when we bomb. There is also the ridiculous notion of our "smart bombs" and their accuracy. The truth of the matter is that we don't actively try to kill civilians, but we don't make any concessions for them either. I don't consider our government particularly bad, of course; this is the nature of modern warfare and this is a big reason why we should do everything we can to avoid war.

Read more »

Hypocrisy, Obama, and war

By Frank Moraes

Steve Benen rightly points out that there is a great deal of hypocrisy on the right regarding Syria. He quotes Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Steve Israel as saying, "Does anyone truly believe that if Mitt Romney had been elected president and had asked House Republicans for exactly what President Obama is asking, that House Republicans would oppose it to the extent that they're opposed to what President Obama wants? The level of hypocrisy is what amazes me." Benen notes that it really isn't true that the Democrats are hypocrites in the opposite direction. When Bush Jr was in power, Congressional Democrats were really terrible when it came to issues of war and surveillance. And now, they are really terrible when it comes to issues of war and surveillance.

I think that the situation is far worse with the Republican base. These are people who are now and forever more for war whenever and wherever they can find it. And now that Charles Krauthammer is telling them that this is a Bad War, they are all falling in line. It isn't so much that the Republican base is hypocritical as that it is made up of a bunch of sheep who would gladly line up for castration if Fox News told them to. You can see this in a recent poll that found that 40% of Republican voters were against attacking Syria just two weeks ago and now 70% are against it.

The Democratic base is not as reliably anti-war as the Republican base is pro-war. But it is pretty reliable. It also seems that Democratic voters are less easily led. Two weeks ago 48% were against it and now 53% are against it.


Read more »

Hold that thought

By Mustang Bobby

President Obama’s speech last night on the possible attack on Syria was couched in moral terms, basically saying that the last thing he wanted to do was send missiles flying into Damascus, but he believed that America and America alone had both the obligation and authority to do so. As such, he portrayed us as both reluctant — reminding us that he campaigned as the anti-war candidate in 2008 — but devastating: “America doesn’t do pinpricks.”

The whole speech became more a discussion of possibilities rather than necessities thanks to the news that was breaking all day: there might be an agreement brokered by Russia for Syria to get rid of its stockpile of chemical weapons and for Syria to sign on to the convention that banned such weapons. The diplomacy is still going on, and while we don’t yet have a celebratory signing ceremony planned on the White House lawn, things look a lot more hopeful than they did a week ago. And the fact that he delivered the speech from the East Room rather than the Oval Office was encouraging: presidents never deliver bad news from the East Room.

Congress heaved a huge sigh of relief. With the diplomacy underway, the hot potato the president handed them last week cooled off: the vote on the resolution has been postponed pending the outcome of the talks. Now they no longer have to put up or shut up. It also gaveSenate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) the all-clear to finally say something about Syria — he’d been holding back because his instinctive rah-rah for war was being outweighed by his instinct for survival in his Senate race. The Tea Party is vehemently against the idea of an attack because The Black Guy is for it, and Mr. McConnell faces a primary challenge back home. Now he can be true to his pandering, and he unloaded on the president, going Rand Paul on him and sounding like the true toady to the nutsery that he has to be to stay alive politically.

Read more »

Reining them in

By Mustang Bobby

Putting aside the pros and cons of attacking Syria, a lot of people — and by that I mean the various and sun-dried pundits inside the Beltway — seem to be worried about what it will mean for the future of the presidency of Barack Obama and anyone else who should come after.

Frankly, it’s a silly argument to make, especially if you think that political considerations have always been in the mix when an administration decides to go to war, and this administration is no different. More’s the pity; there’s not a lot of attention paid to the actual consequences of unloading the 82nd Airborne on a country or the aftereffects on the soldiers and the families. But that’s usually left to the next guy.

At any rate, there’s a lot of faux hand-wringing over what a No vote will do for the image of President Obama. E.J. Dionne has gone so far as to say it will “incapacitate the president for three long years.” But if history is any guide, presidents who have lost votes on key issues in Congress have lived to fight another day and done pretty well after. Bill Clinton survived impeachment, and even George W. Bush managed to eke out a second term after his attempt to turn Social Security over to Wall Street died a quick and merciless death. And those guys had it easy compared to what President Obama has faced from a Republican Party that has objected to everything he’s done and threatened impeachment over his choice of breakfast cereal.

Read more »

Syria is an entry to war with Iran

By Frank Moraes

It is clear that John McCain wants a full out war in Syria with ground troops and the like because he wants a war with Iran. He is not alone in this. I believe that this is largely why most conservatives favor the war. And it is most certainly why all the neocons are on board with this. All of the Americans who claim to be such supporters of Israel are always for attacking Iran because the current conservative Israeli government wants that. But I think this goes deeper than just "protection of Israel." For one thing, it is not at all clear that attacking Iran is good for Israel.

I think this all goes back to 4 November 1979: the Iranian hostage crisis. Conservatives in America hold remarkably long grudges. We haven't had official relations with Cuba for over 50 years. Why? I really don't know. Certainly, we didn't have any more of a problem with them than we had with the Soviet Union. What is the big deal? Well, I suppose I know what the big deal is. Cuba is a small enough country that we could get away with our childish behavior. The Soviet Union was not.

The same thing is going on with Iran. As "evil" governments go, Iran is quite good. It has created great stability in the region. And if we want the country to liberalize, we ought to, you know, open up the lines of communication. Word is that the people of Iran are quite positive towards us. I am well aware that liberals as well as conservatives use the same trilogy of terror ("axis of evil") rhetoric. But I really think that if the conservatives like John McCain could just get over their ego hits about the embassy attack, we might be able to have a reasonable relationship with that country and do actual good for its people.

Read more »

It's only money

By Mustang Bobby

So how much is this foray into Syria going to cost?

A limited United States intervention in Syria would not require a supplemental appropriations bill from Congress, an Obama administration official told The Huffington Post on Wednesday.

The official’s assessment that a narrowly tailored operation could be paid for with “existing Department of Defense resources” was seconded by two high-ranking aides on Capitol Hill.

However, another Hill staffer argued that without a greater understanding of the operation, it would be impossible to settle on an exact price tag or means of payment.

“Who the f— knows what it will cost? It depends entirely on what happens,” said the staffer.

I’d write more, but I have to go to work and see how much more they’re cutting out of Head Start, IDEA, and Title II this year.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Bad choices

By Mustang Bobby

I watched a bit of the Senate hearings on the resolution on Syria yesterday afternoon, tuning in just in time to see Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) grilling Secretary of State John Kerry on whether or not President Obama would conduct a strike in Syria even if Congress voted against it.

Mr. Paul was at his Tea Party best, carrying on about how the president will violate the Constitution by going to war without the permission of Congress, hinting that Mr. Obama violates the Constitution without breaking a sweat, and visibly annoying Mr. Kerry, who seemed to be more interested in jotting down notes than actually listening to the senator, and when he did respond it was like he was talking to a ten-year-old. (Mr. Paul does bring that out in people.) He assured the gentleman from Kentucky that the Obama administration was not planning on a “classic declaration of war” but a limited capability to teach the Syrian government a lesson. But Sen. Paul kept insisting on getting an assurance from the Secretary that we weren’t going to go to war without Congressional approval.

The maddening thing about the whole discussion is that I and a lot of people agree with Mr. Paul’s view: one foot in the door with “limited action” is still a war, and that over the last sixty years or so we’ve seen presidents of both parties put forces in harm’s way — with or without boots on the ground — without the say-so of Congress, and this does not sound much different.

Read more »

We should negotiate to end the Syrian civil war

By Frank Moraes

I came upon an amazing article this weekend. It was from McClatchy back on 3 June 2013, Assad

Backers Reportedly Make Up 43 Percent of Dead in Syria. It is based upon work by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) which is based in London. The article claims that, "The observatory... is considered the most authoritative source for reports on the daily violence in Syria, and it's the only group that routinely attempts to categorize deaths according to whether the victims were civilians, rebels or government fighters."

The results are exactly what you would expect if you don't have an ax to grind. War is hell, and civil war is especially so. According to SOHR, 43.2% (41,648 total) of the deaths are Asaad forces and aligned militias; 36.8% (35,479 total) are civilians; and 17.3% (16,699) are anti-Asaad forces. We can't say who is responsible for the civilian deaths, but even if we assume that Asaad is responsible for all the civilian casualties, the deaths are pretty equally shared.

Of course, these numbers are not without doubt. The Syrian Network for Human Rights counts only rebel and civilian deaths, but their numbers are quite different: 75,992 civilians and 7,606 rebel deaths. I don't think that this changes the picture much, even if these numbers are correct. It is clear that there are massive casualties on both sides and among the civilians.

Read more »

Sunday war mongering

By Frank Moraes

Won't you look at that! Joe "War Is a Hell of a Lot of Fun!" Lieberman was on Fox News Sunday this morning. He is not happy that we aren't bombing Syria right now. He told Chris Wallace, "I'm sure that our enemies are cheering now as a result of this decision because they realize it's not clear the president will get authority, and our allies are worried." Who exactly are these "enemies" of which he speaks? It must be Syria and that speaks volumes about what is going on with him and others who are so hot for an attack. They just want to attack Syria and the chemical weapons allegations are just an excuse. As for our allies, he can't mean the UK. I guess he's talking about the rebels, but they are at best a mixed bag.

Now this the man who spent the 1960s avoiding the draft. First it was as an undergraduate. Then it was as a law student. Then, by the time he graduated, he was married with a kid so he got a deferment for that! But since then, he really has never seen a war he doesn't like. The man really should just have been a Republican. It's not like he represented a conservative state; Connecticut went for Obama by over 17 percentage points. So he really believes what he says.

Meanwhile, someone who actually did go to war and who was vilified for it by the Republican chicken hawks, John Kerry is appearing on 5 talk showsthis morning! Samuel Knight reported, "Kerry's hypocrisy, thinly veiled by an over-eager swagger—including a refusal, on This Week to consider the possibility that the administration's case for war will be rejected by Congress—is reminiscent of the dark days of 2002-2003." But it likely doesn't matter anyway. Kerry also said that Obama "has the right to do this no matter what Congress does."

Read more »

Benghazi still not a scandal

By Frank Moraes 

So what is this stuff about Benghazi I wrote about earlier? Last Thursday, CNN broke a story suggesting that the CIA was running guns from Libya to Syria out of the Benghazi proto-embassy. This, supposedly explains the administration's "cover up" of the attack. The big problem I see here is that the story is an answer to a question no reasonable person is asking. But okay, I'll bite.

CNN claims that they've learned that "dozens" of CIA operatives were "on the ground" in Benghazi the night of the attack. I want to start with the vague number "dozens." It literally means at least 24. Yet the article later claims that there were only 35 people total at the compound and that there were 21 at the annex, which is claimed to have been run by the CIA. Still, 21 is a lot of people.

But why would this make us believe that it had (1) anything to do with gun running and (2) anything to do with the attack? CNN doesn't even have a source for the first connection. All it says is this, "Speculation on Capitol Hill has included the possibility the U.S. agencies operating in Benghazi were secretly helping to move surface-to-air missiles out of Libya, through Turkey, and into the hands of Syrian rebels." Note all the weasel words here: speculation, included, possibility. As for the second connection there is nothing at all.

The article also gives major time to Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA). He believes that we need to have public hearings with everyone who was in Benghazi the night of the attack. I'm all for that, but I don't think that Wolf is an honest broker here. This is a man, after all, who thinks that Edward Snowden is a traitor. He's said some nice things against the surveillance state, but I suspect if a Republican where in the White House, he wouldn't even go that far.

It seems to me just another Republican witch hunt with the vaguest of targets. After all, even the CNN article provides no reason to believe that anything the CIA was doing had anything to do with the attack. So what would Wolf's hearings be but an open ended opportunity for the Republicans to snipe at the Democratic administration?

Read more »

Pentagon warns against military action in Syria

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Well, it can do any number of things, but there are, as expected, few if any good options if the goal is actually to make a difference in the ongoing civil war:

The Pentagon has provided Congress with its first detailed list of military options to stem the bloody civil war in Syria, suggesting that a campaign to tilt the balance from President Bashar al-Assad to the opposition would be a vast undertaking, costing billions of dollars, and could backfire on the United States. 

Of course, this isn't Rumsfeld's, or Cheney's, Pentagon anymore, and so one must expect it to be a tad more conservative, and realistic, in its outlook and approach to possible military action.

The counter-argument, from neocons as well as from liberal hawks, is that any such risk is worth it, because humanitarianism, or history, or geopolitics, or American hegemony, or whatever. And often I'm sympathetic to the liberal interventionist cause.

But the fact that the Pentagon's assessment of military action is so troubling should give us all pause. As much as we may not like it, there's just no easy way to topple Assad's horrendous regime, and of course no guarantee that its successor would be at all desirable in its own right.

Russia to protect Syria from "hot heads"

By Carl 

In scanning the news this morning, I found this headline:

Russia says it will help Syria deter "hot heads"

Now whom could they possibly mean, I wonder...

All kidding (on the square) aside, this is a bit troubling, although part of the problem could be in translation (or not). "Hot heads" is a pretty demeaning term, and about the only action apart from McCain's apparently unreported and foolish venture into Syria taken this weekend was taken, or rather not taken, by the European Union when it allowed the arms embargo with Syria to expire, thus allowing weapons manufacturers in the EU to sell openly to the rebels.

Already, there's been some backlash against Russia swiping its paws at the EU.

I've discussed in the past some of the background between Syria and Russia, but let me sum it up quickly: Syria buys Russian arms, maintains the sole Russian naval base in the Mediterranean (at Tartus), has energy development deals with Russia in both oil and natural gas, and is closely allied with Iran, also a major Russian arms customer, and also a big customer for Russian natural gas.

There. Not too painful, right?

Read more »

(Not President) McCain goes to Syria (and undermines U.S. policy)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Obviously, the situation in Syria is awful. According to French newspaper Le Monde, a "merciless war" is being waged on the outskirts of Damascus, with the Assad regime using chemical weapons against the rebels.

And, in general, I'm with the rebels. I'd love to see the Assad regime fall and for the Syrian people to be freed from the shackles of that brutal tyranny.

But the question isn't really which side you're on, because obviously most good and decent people want Assad to go, it's how you most appopriately respond to the current situation with the intent of supporting the rebels' goals.

The first question is easy. The second, not so much.

For warmongering conservatives like John McCain, however, it's always all so simple: Where there's a problem, as in Syria, war is the solution, and when some war isn't enough, more, ever more, is always the answer.

When they're in power, war is what we get. And when they're not, like now, they just won't shut up about it.

Yes, McCain has been leading the charge, directed with vengeful venom against the man who beat him for the presidency in 2008, for the U.S. to step up its support for the Syrian rebels as well as to get more directly involved in the conflict. He even made his way to Syria yesterday, meeting with General Salem Idris, the leader of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army, as well as with other rebel leaders.

On the ground yesterday, he was the United States. Or least he and others wanted it to appear that way. "The visit of Senator McCain to Syria is very important and very useful especially at this time," said Idris. "We need American help to have change on the ground; we are now in a very critical situation."

Yes, of course you are, but here's the thing. John McCain is not the president of the United States. And while you may be upset with what you see as lack of support from President Obama, McCain's self-aggrandizing globe-strutting isn't going to help.

Read more »

Should we be taking this Syriasly?

By Carl

It may, in fact, not be the Assad government using chemical weapons. It may actually be the rebels:

Carla del Ponte told Swiss TV there were "strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof".

However, she said her panel had not yet seen evidence of government forces using chemical weapons.

This all sounds suspiciously, or eerily, depending on your point of view, like the Hans Blik/Scott Ritter warnings that Saddam Hussein possessed no chemical or biological weapons and that there was no evidence he was even trying to obtain them. In the building drumbeat towards committing war with Syria, including Israeli airstrikes over the weekend, a lone dissenter of not unsubstantial authority and credibility steps forward to try to thwart the onset of war.

Which of course puts Democrats and liberals in a quandary: for the past decade or so, we've been chiding neocons and their fellow travelers about committing what amounts to a war crime, ginning up false charges then invading a sovereign nation that, while her leader may have wished us harm, was in no position to do anything to harm us.

This warning even amps that by one: Blik and Ritter stated Hussein had none. Del Ponte is suggesting the other side is the tyrannical aggressor here.

Long-time readers of my writing know that I stand foursquare against nearly all wars: unless our very existence is threatened or we are under a clear diplomatic mandate (e.g., a pact like NATO – but even then, we ought to be holding back), we should not be committing combat troops anyplace, anytime, anyhow. So it will come as no surprise that I would oppose Barack Obama's potential deployment of troops to Syria.

And yet, I don't envy President Obama's position here between Iraq and a hard case. It's hard to stand idly by, even as a pacifist liberal such as myself, and let citizens of a nation die from attacks by their own government using weapons banned by treaty.

And yet, I'm concerned about where this heads if we do commit troops. After all, there's an uptick in confrontation in the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa – some of it involving rival Islamist factions, it seems – that speak to treading very, very carefully.

Which makes del Ponte's report all the more vital for consideration. We clearly should not be treading in a place where both sides "do it." And yet, what happens in Syria might not stay in Syria. It certainly will spill over into Lebanon and Israel, and might spread into Jordan and Iraq. And from there? Who knows.

(Cross-posted at Simply Left Behind.)

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 »

The big gaffe: Mitt Romney doesn't know geography

By Michael J.W. Stickings

This wasn't widely discussed last night, but it was a major gaffe, and it's one Romney keeps making:

During the debate [last night], Mitt Romney mentioned that Syria is important because it's Iran's "route to the sea." The thing is, Iran doesn't even border Syria, as you can see our childishly-annotated map above. And Iran already has access to the sea on its southern border.

As confusing as the remark was, though, the Washington Post notes that tonight was hardly the first time Romney has made it, and the Romney campaign explains, "It's generally recognized that Syria offers Iran strategic basing/staging access to the Mediterranean as well as to terrorist proxies in the Levant. This is a large reason why Iran invests so much in Syria." This doesn't change the fact, however, that Iran has a "route to the sea" regardless of Syria. Americans are bad enough at geography already; they don't need a presidential candidate confusing them even more. 

It's actually worse than that. Iran has extensive coastline in the south. What's more, if it wanted to go through Syria, there are a couple of countries in between that don't much care for Iran: Iraq and Turkey.

I'm not saying this was any sort of decisive gaffe, but it reinforced the (truth-based) narrative of Romney as a foreign policy lightweight who's unprepared, unqualified, and unfit for the presidency.

Yes, you should expect better of a presidential candidate, but I'm really not sure you should expect anything else from such an ignorant fool.

Islamists vs. Islamists: a positive for Egypt? (Part 2)

By Ali Ezzatyar

(For Part I, from a few days ago, see here.)

The idea that the Muslim Brotherhood's ascent to power spelled the beginning of a dangerous era underestimated the complexities of the Egyptian landcape and overlooked a number of important nuances.

It is now clear that the Egyptian military establishment had no intention of letting the Brotherhood, or any party but its own, govern freely. While Mohamed Morsi is proving himself to be a competent tactician in the tug and war that has followed his election, his influence is still very limited. He and his party, backed by most Egyptians, are essentially locked in a power struggle with the military. The result of that struggle remains anyone's guess and will take many more months, if not years, to have any notion of permanence.

Further, insofar as Morsi is able to form and implement domestic and foreign policy, the circumstances under which he is forced to formulate such policy is necessarily bringing him away from the extreme elements in his own party. That should be an essential consideration for the international community, and particularly the West, in developing its own policies towards the new Egypt.

The Egyptian military, led symbolically by its president, is currently embarking on an operation that is being called the most significant military exercise by its armed forces in 30 years. That operation, which targets Islamic militants, genuinely flies in the face of the conventional wisdom the world applied to Egypt when its revolution began. At the helm of power, the Brotherhood presidency has at least temporarily abandoned a number of its core pan-Islamic ideals. While this is likely seen by the new president as necessary to maintain stability in the short term, it also serves as a boon for none other than Israel, a purported arch-nemesis, and stability in the region.

This demonstrates two key things. First, power is begetting moderation, and second, Islamists, as with other long-time opposition parties that ascend to power, are rational when their hard-fought and won positions are at stake.

Naturally, since suspicion about the Muslim Brotherhood has not subsided, the media's spin on the events of the last two weeks has painted the military operation as Morsi's way of outmaneuvering the military. But that neglects the reality that the military still wields the power in Egypt -- any maneuvering Morsi is involved in, including dismissing members of the military itself, is likely with the military's support. It is unclear what this all means for the Brotherhood's longevity or its domestic policy going forward, but the current balance of power between the democratically elected party and the military suits the international community, and that community can take a few key steps to help maintain that balance:

First, it can provide the Egyptian military what it needs, in terms of material and moral support, to maintain domestic order. Besides the obvious practical necessities of stability, this will push the image that the government still has the ability to maintain order. Israel has set an example by allowing unprecedented access to movement within the Sinai. What this serves to do is build national confidence in the functioning of the Egyptian bureaucracy, which trickles down to the presidency only if the president publicly supports such activity. Given the precariousness of Morsi's position, he is obliged to give that support. If he later backtracks on the anti-militant stance he has taken, he may ultimately undermine his own legitimacy.

Second, the international community should continue to call on the Egyptian military to allow for the democratic process in Egypt to play itself out. Unlike its decision to ostracize Hamas in the aftermath of its election in the Palestinian territories to no benefit of Israel or the Palestinians, it has so far maintained a pro-democracy stance in Egypt. This is the only rational public face that the West can assume without losing the favor of the Egyptian people, but it is also a win-win situation tactically speaking. It can help further moderate Egypt's new government as it seeks to evolve and grow in stature. And since the military has demonstrated that international pressure to reform must have its limits, it is also relatively risk-free. The West can rest assured that the military will not be handing power to an Islamist government in short order. Meanwhile, the dichotomy between Egypt's two main domestic forces may serve to moderate both, which has the best chance for long-term stability and reform towards a healthy democracy.

Talk of a healthy democracy is still premature, to be sure. But with Morsi and other prominent members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt recently calling for regime change in Syria, it would appear that some sort of order is emerging from the Egyptian chaos that can even serve as an example for Egypt's neighbors.

World War III

By Carl 

You think I speak in hyperbole. I do not.

Turkey deployed anti-aircraft guns and other weapons alongside its border with Syria, state television reported on Thursday, days after the downing of a Turkish military jet by Syrian forces heightened the tensions between the two countries.

A small convoy of military trucks, towing anti-aircraft guns, entered into a military outpost in the border village of Guvecci, which faces a Syrian military outpost across the border and where Syrian forces and rebels clashed in recent months, TRT television footage showed.

Several anti-aircraft guns have also been deployed elsewhere alongside the border. Some trucks were seen carrying self-propelled multiple rocket launchers, TRT footage showed. 

As a member of NATO, Turkey has called on that group to stand with it. The NATO charter is pretty explicit: an attack on one member shall be deemed an attack on the alliance. Turkey's complaint is kind of small beer, since it's fighter strayed into Syrian airspace, except...

Except based on current foreign policy, there's strategic advantage for NATO (or at least the United States) to take an active role in Turkey. By occupying Syria, the US would have a clear path of friendly-ish nations to roll tanks through: Israel, Jordan/Syria, and Iraq.

Right to the Iranian border. Remember the first rule of chess: to control your enemy and win, you must control the middle of the board. If Syria were to fall into NATO hands, this would put Iran in an island surrounded by western forces, save for the north and nations like Kazhakstan and Uzbekistan.

Check. And if Iran does actually have nuclear weapons, there really is no telling what's next. Heck, even if they don't, Pakistan (nominally our ally) does and it's a mere hop, skip, and a smuggle to get them.

The distractions within the nation, the bombings of a Syrian television station and today's Justice Ministry bombings are indicative that the Assad regime does not have clear control. This will embolden the rebels to be sure, and that Turkey is on the border will give them a refuge in the north. In exchange, Turkey will have an antagonistic position that could come into play if they sortie across the border, then claim Syrian forces attacked them on native soil.

It doesn't matter what the facts will be, the "truth" will be that Turkey's sovereignty was assaulted.

The key development here, the one thing that could prevent now a crisis later, is a meeting in Geneva this weekend among UN special envoy Kofi Annan, the Syrian representative to the Arab League, and the heads of the Five Families, I mean, leaders from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

But I doubt it. I have serious reservations that this game of chess is anywhere near ended. Russia and China must see the threat to Iran, and given their previous support for that corrupt regime, will give it aid and comfort now. I'm not sure what would impel them to give Ahmadinejad a divorce, but one can pretty much see it's not Syria.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)