The Trouble With Tyrants

In a classic example of the old adage that it’s better to be lucky than good, John Kerry appears to have accidentally stumbled into an exit route for the corner President Obama had painted himself into regarding Syria. Make no mistake, this is hardly the miracle cure for the Syrian situation that the President is so lamely trying to convince us he has engineered. The chances a resolution agreeable to the U.S., Assad, and Russia will ever be reached is dubious. If there is an agreement, the verification process that Kerry and Obama keep touting as essential will become the all too familiar cat and mouse scenario where the cat is Garfield, and the mouse is Speedy Gonzales. Even in Libya, where Qaddafi volunteered to surrender chemical weapons in the wake of our invasion of Iraq, the verification process is not complete after eight years.

How it it will be possible to verify chemical weapons compliance in a country wracked by violence and civil war is a mystery. If it could be done, it would only serve to cement the legitimacy of Assad’s reign, and trust me, he will still have plenty of other types of weapons in his arsenal to kill his own people. If somehow we could miraculously get rid of Assad, the rebels who would take his place would likely prove to be the fire we find in escaping the frying pan. It’s hard to imagine a scenario where you could get rid of both the chemical weapons and Assad. Unfortunately, the best solutions for this mess lie in the past, and, failing the invention of a time machine, bad decisions have consequences… election 2012 a case in point.

No one except the most mindless partisans believe that Obama has served the country well in this matter, but he has at least had the good fortune to have blundered into a way to escape embroiling the nation in a conflict replete with all the ingredients necessary to escalate into World War III. The escape is short on substance, but sufficient to buy him the time he needs to divert the nation’s attention from his incompetence on this matter, to his less glaring incompetence on something else… Obamacare, the debt crisis, the economy… anything but Syria; he only needs a week or two, and the tentative agreement with Russia buys him until 2014. The Syria story won’t even be a story by the end of the month.

The fortunate escape route for the President’s red line debacle does not come without a price, and a significant one at that. Putin has seized the opportunity to extend Russia’s influence in the region, even as we have created the image of impotence in this part of the world and beyond. Tyrants and terrorists will no doubt be emboldened by the chaotic, flip-flopping, directionless, policy of a leader who clearly was not ready for prime time. He tried to make us the world’s policemen, and instead showed us to be the Keystone cops. Increasingly we look to be a feeble behemoth that can be safely disregarded.

IMHO: While we seem to have averted disaster for the time being in Syria, don’t underestimate the ability of tyrants to eliminate the silver lining from any cloud. It may be a little optimistic to assume that Assad will start acting like a rational human being, and cooperate with the deal Putin has brokered. While Putin may seem like the grown-up in the room, it’s arguable whether this ex-KGB head has found religion and has anything but Russia’s and his own power base at heart. And finally our own home-grown tyrant; the same arrogance and incompetence that put the President in this pickle to begin with could easily cause him to screw up the escape as well. That is the trouble with tyrants. Too much unchecked power in one man’s hands; hundreds, thousands, sometimes millions suffer and die. The examples of benevolent dictators are few and far between. We may not be able to solve the problem with Assad. Putin is beyond our reach, but at least seems rational. Our own tyrant we can deal with, we can clip his wings. Unfortunately, there seems little on the President’s agenda that would not be made better with a healthy dose of gridlock. There appears to be no Clinton style moderation coming on the horizon, so slowing him down seems to be the best alternative. It would be better if there was less time remaining to him, three years seems forever, I know. But next year’s election can help, and 2016 is not so far away. As quickly as we have spiraled the proverbial drain we can be rescued and restored. All is not lost, hope remains. We can still fix this… we fixed Carter.