Having painted himself into the proverbial corner, President Obama this weekend is grasping for a way to escape the impossible situation he had managed to place himself in vis-a-vis Syria. Having recently had little use for congress, he has now reversed course and decided to seek congressional approval for action against Assad with regards to the use of chemical weapons. Of course he is looking for cover. The likely outcome is that after much ado there will be little or no action approved by Congress, as Obama assumes the role of of the brash little man initiating a fight he knows will never happen because bystanders will intervene… “Hold me back, hold me back!”
It is a thinly veiled ploy, but probably the only play the President had available to him. There was a time when he might have ignored the popular opinion of a clear majority of voters, and indeed he did, but as his final days in the White House near, he may be thinking about his legacy, and probably doesn’t want it to include being lower in approval rating than George Bush, or being responsible for losing the Senate to the Republicans. Like David Cameron in Britain, President Obama has probably seen the writing on the wall. John Kerry’s address about all the things “we know” about what happened in Syria (amazing how much we know of what happened in Syria, and how little we know of what happened in Benghazi!) was likely a last ditch effort to sway public opinion, and was apparently unsuccessful.
The problem with intervention in Syria is that it’s hard to hurt one side without helping the other, and both sides are bad. It’s a little like the court trying to decide who to give custody of the children to, the abusive father, or the crack-head mother. Dropping a few cruise missiles might make us look like tough guys, but Assad is not likely to be impressed. If we ever did do something to affect the balance of power there, and the rebels gained power, the situation would be worse than before we became involved, and consider who would be in control of all those chemical weapons then! The only effective solution would be to launch a major military incursion and occupy the country, which would likely initiate World War III. Diplomacy with Russia would probably be the best route, as Syria is in their sphere of influence, but Putin and Obama don’t seem to be getting along right now.
IMHO: The dilemma in Syria is just part of a larger issue that has been baked in the cake for a while now. Almost the entire world has neither love nor respect for us anymore. Early on the President alienated allies like Great Britain and Israel, and courted the affections of the Muslim world, who only saw his overtures as weakness and opportunity. Russia and China see us as an impotent bumbling behemoth bound up with our debt and incompetence to the point that we are not to be feared or respected. We have few friends among nations, and our enemies’ children ridicule us on FaceBook; we are quickly becoming the Rodney Dangerfield of the global community. Whatever the reason for the President backing away from his hard line decision to attack Syria without congressional approval, it is good that he did. Neo-cons like McCain, Graham, and King are showing what dinosaurs they are, and how out of touch they are with the mood of the country, and the new Republican Party. Going forward backing off of Syria won’t really help Obama’s standing anyplace but at home, but at least it won’t make matters worse. Hopefully he will spend the rest of his term without starting another war; maybe he should dust off the old peace prize to remind himself of what people’s expectations were for him. He can not be effective in the global theater, so he should focus on just not messing things up in the far corners of the world, and stick to cleaning up the mess we have here. Better yet, maybe he could just stay out of the way here as well… get a hobby… go golfing?
