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Saturday, April 2, 2011

Let's see what happens now with Syria

Word out of Syria is that yesterday government forces in numerous cities opened fire on anti-government, pro-democracy demonstrators killing dozens. this sound suspiciously like the reason that president Obama gave in his speech the other day for the Libyan intervention, namely: the government is killing its own people. It is true that Assad's forces have not yet used the airforce or tanks to combat the demonstrators, but it seems to me that to paraphrase Getrude Stein, a dead demonstrator is a dead demonstrator is a dead demonstrator. Will Obama now start calling for Assad to go? After all, Bashir Assad is the main ally of Iran in the arab world. Syria is a majority Sunni country, although Assad is an Alawaite. Nevertheless, syria acts as a major bridge into the Sunni heartland of the arab world for Iran. Removal of Assad and his government might well block Iran from being able to support Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon. It might also provide the opeing for a peace deal between Syria and Israel. Of course, it could go the other way and make both problems worse if Syria comes to be government by an Iranian puppet or a radical Islamist. Just like in Libya, no one knows who the protesters really are or what would result if they are successful.

The point, however, is that right now Syria fits the pattern that Obama described as the reason for US involvement. Simply put, this shows that Obama either did not think through his basis for intervention in Libya or he was not honest with the American people. Otherwise, US forces should be mobilizing to establish a no fly zone over Syria, a most unlikely event.

As any reader of this blog knows, I was in favor of intervention in Libya, although I wanted action much sooner than was actually the case. When Gaddafi was on the ropes a month ago, immediate US intervention would probably have caused his support to completely collapse and driven him out. Instead, Obama dithered for weeks as he sought UN support and the ability for the US to say that NATO was in charge. As a result of the delay, Gaddafi was able to recover from the initial setback and he has been able to kill many more people and hold or take new territory despite the NATO involvement. So Obama's dithering had detrimental consequences to a policy ennunciated as "Gaddafi must go!"

To a large extent, the delay in Libya was the result of Obama acting more for supposed humanitarian relief and less on the basis of the national interests of the USA. Gaddafi was and is a terrorist responsible for killing hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans. His removal is in the best interests of the USA. Obama should have been able to state these reasons for action and move forward. He could not bring himself to do this, however, and came up with the new mantra of "he's killing his own people." But we all know that this rationale for action is evanescent at best. Now that the next middle eastern despot is killing his own people, the USA is deploring the violence but calling the perpetrator a "reformer".

During the Bush years, Obama said repeatedly that the US could not go off on cowboy missions but needed to conduct its foreign policy based upon the realities of the world situation. According to Obama, Bush was living in a phony world where platitudes about democracy replaced the realities on the ground in the arab world. Bush was living a lie. So now Obama is president, and he is actually doing what he accused Bush of doing. The president's policy in the middle east is a lie.

The American people deserve better than this. If we are putting troops into the path of danger and spending enormous sums of money, we deserve to know the true reasoning behind the war effort. Right now, Obama's announced basis for the war has been shown to be a phony. It is as if Obama announced that he wanted to fight any country whose leader had a name that could be spelled more than one way. At least in that case, only Libya would be targeted. for a man touted to be so amazingly smart, Obama sure acts dumb.

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