The left's irrational fear of

American intervention
In Syria, as elsewhere, US military might is the best
available means of preventing crimes against humanity

2


Protesters in Seattle pictured during a march against US intervention in Syria.
Photograph: Rick Barry/Demotix/Corbis
Not for the first time, human rights violations by a Middle Eastern
tyrant pose a dilemma for leftists on both sides of the Atlantic. On
the one hand, they don't like reading about people being gassed.
On the other, they are deeply reluctant to will the means to end the
killing, for fear of acknowledging that western meaning, in
practice, American military power can be a force for good.

Ever since the 1990s, when the United States finally bestirred itself
to end the post-Yugoslav violence in the Balkans, I have made
three arguments that the left cannot abide. The first is that
American military power is the best available means of preventing
crimes against humanity. The second is that, unfortunately, the US
is a reluctant "liberal empire" because of three deficits: of
manpower, money and attention. And the third is that, when it
retreats from global hegemony, we shall see more not less
violence.

More recently, almost exactly year ago, I was lambasted for

arguing that Barack Obama's principal weaknesses were a
tendency to defer difficult decisions to Congress and a lack of
coherent strategy in the Middle East. Events have confirmed the
predictive power of all this analysis.

To the isolationists on both left and right, Obama's addiction to

half- and quarter-measures is just fine anything rather than risk
"another Iraq". But such complacency (not to say callousness)
understates the danger of the dynamics at work in the Middle East
today. Just because the US is being led by the geopolitical
equivalent of Hamlet doesn't mean stasis on the global stage. On
the contrary, the less the US does, the more rapidly the region
changes, as the various actors jostle for position in a post-
American Middle East.

Syria today is in the process of being partitioned. Note that

something similar has already happened in Iraq. What we are
witnessing is not just the end of the Middle East of the 1970s. This
could be the end of the Middle East of the 1920s. The borders of
today, as is well known, can be traced back to the work of British
and French diplomats during the first world war. The infamous
Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 was the first of a series of steps
that led to the breakup of the Ottoman empire and the creation of
the states we know today as Syria and Iraq, as well as Jordan,
Lebanon and Israel.

As we approach the centenary of the outbreak of the first world

war, there is no obvious reason why these states should all survive
in their present form.

It is tempting to think of this as a re-Ottomanisation process, as the

region reverts to its pre-1914 borders. But it may be more accurate
to see this as a second Yugoslavia, with sectarian conflict leading
to "ethnic cleansing" and a permanent redrawing of the maps. In
the case of Bosnia and Kosovo, it took another Democrat US
president an agonisingly long time to face up to the need for
intervention. But he eventually did. I would not be surprised to see
a repeat performance if that president's wife should end up
succeeding Obama in the White House. After all, there is strong
evidence to suggest Obama agreed to the original chemical
weapons "red line" only under pressure from Hillary Clinton's state
department.

Yet the president may not be able to sustain his brand of

minimalist interventionism until 2016. While all eyes are focused
on chemical weapons in Syria, the mullahs in Iran continue with
their efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. The latest IAEA report on
this subject makes for disturbing reading. I find it hard to believe
that even the pusillanimous Obama would be able to ignore
evidence that Tehran had crossed that red line, even if it was
drawn by the Israeli prime minister rather than by him.

The Iranian factor is one of a number of key differences between

the break up of Yugoslavia and the breakup of countries like Syria
and Iraq.

The Middle East is not the Balkans. The population is larger,

younger, poorer and less educated. The forces of radical Islam are
far more powerful. It is impossible to identify a single "bad guy" in
the way that Slobodan Milosevic became the west's bete noire.
And there are multiple regional players Iran, Turkey, the Saudis,
as well as the Russians with deep pockets and serious military
capabilities. All in all, the end of pan-Arabism is a much scarier
process than the end of pan-Slavism. And the longer the US
dithers, the bigger the sectarian conflicts in the region are likely to
become.

The proponents of non-intervention or, indeed, of ineffectual

intervention need to face a simple reality. Inaction is a policy that
also has consequences measurable in terms of human life. The
assumption that there is nothing worse in the world than American
empire is an article of leftwing faith. It is not supported by the
historical record.

On Syria, Words Have
Consequences
Striking at Assad wont end the conflict. But it may drag
the U.S. into a complex civil war.
By Fareed Zakaria Sept. 04, 201342 Comments

From the start of the Syrian -conflict, President Obama has wanted
to take two very different approaches to it. On the one hand, he has
been disciplined about the definition of American interests and the
use of force. On the other hand, he has sought a way to respond to
Bashar Assads -human--rights atrocities. But sometimes you
cannot split the difference. The tension between the two paths
continues to beset American policy as the Administration prepares
the ground for a military strike. Selling the U.S. and the world on
the need for action while at the same time keeping its mission
limited will prove difficult.

Two years ago, Obama declared loftily that Assad had to go. A year
ago, he announced that the use of chemical weapons was a red line.
For a while it was possible to keep the juggling act going, talking
tough while doing little. But presidential rhetoric creates
expectations, and, as I wrote in June, eventually, the
contradictions in U.S. policy will emerge and the Obama
Administration will face calls for further escalation. The recent,
horrific chemical--weapons attack has been the proximate cause,
but there would have been others. As a result, we might be inching
into a complex civil war, all the while denying that we are doing so.

Just as Obamas past rhetoric has pushed America more deeply

into this struggle, the current efforts to win congressional support
are already producing mission creep. At a meeting with House
leaders, the President spoke explicitly about a limited strike that
would send a clear message. The same day, his Secretary of State
had to assure hawkish members of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee that this is not sending a message per se, implying
that the strikes would be more substantial. Republicans like John
McCain have indicated that they have also been given more
detailed assurances of a more intense intervention.

The Administration might want to keep the mission limited and

proportional, as Obama initially promised, but it will be a
challenge. In making the case to Congress, Secretary of State John
Kerry and his colleagues have described what is at stake in
monumental terms-vital national security, 100 years of
international law, core credibility. It is a Munich moment, says
Kerry. In that case, how could American policy be merely a stiff
warning, a shot across the bow, in the Presidents words? If it
doesnt work, if there is another atrocity-chemical or otherwise
can the Administration sit back and not do more? After all, the
Secretary of State has compared the situation to the road to World
War II. (A note on the analogy: it is worth remembering that Adolf
Hitler was in charge of the worlds largest army and one of its
richest countries and was seeking conquest of Europe and perhaps
the world. Assad, by contrast, runs one of the worlds poorest
countries and is struggling desperately to remain in control of it.)

What remains unclear in all of this is, What exactly is the goal of
this military action? The Administration says it is simply to
reinforce a global norm against the use of chemical weapons. But is
it really just that? Were the Syrian civil war to continue, Assad to
gain the upper hand and tens of thousands more to diebut
without the further use of chemical weaponswould the
Administration really say, Mission accomplished?

The reality is, the U.S. has now put its credibility on the line. It will
find it extremely difficult to keep its actions limited in a volatile
situation. And were it to succeed in ousting Assad, it would be
implicated in the next phase of this war, which would almost
certainly lead to chaos and the slaughter or ethnic cleansing of the
Alawite sect (to which Assad belongs) and perhaps of other
minorities, as happened in Iraq.

Obama has said repeatedly that the President he most admires for
his foreign policy is the elder George Bush. Bushs signature
achievement was to manage the end of the Cold War peacefully
and without major incident. But he was sharply criticized at the
time for refusing to speak out in support of the ongoing liberation
of Eastern Europe as the Iron Curtain cracked and crumbled. He
later explained that he was always conscious that with hundreds of
thousands of Soviet troops still in Eastern Europe, there could
have been reversals, crackdowns, even full-scale conflict. He didnt
want to signal American commitments that he couldnt fulfill.
Better, he thought, to have people think he was dispassionate or
even cold-blooded. The first President Bush had his flaws, but he
did understand that in foreign policy, words have -consequences.

Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2013/09/04/on-

syria-words-have-consequences/#ixzz2eRtw15bw
Syrian Opposition Leaders
Interested in Making Case
Before Congress
The Syrian National Coalition President Ahmed Assi al
Jarba and Free Syrian Army General Salim Idris would
"be happy to be here"
By Alex Rogers @arogDCSept. 06, 20134 Comments
RELATED
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Updated on September 9

Top officials from the Syrian opposition coalition are interested in

coming to the United States and speaking with Congress,
Mohammed Ghanem, Director of Government Relations for the
Syrian American Council, said Friday at the National Press Club.

We think this would make an impact, Ghanem said. We call on

the Administration to extend an invitation to them so they can
come here and make a compelling and persuasive case to members
of the House and the Senate. The Syrian National Coalition
President Ahmed Assi al Jarba and Free Syrian Army General
Salim Idris would be happy to be here at the White Houses
invitation, Ghanem added.

The Syrian American Council, an advocacy organization of Syrian-

Americans, supports a vigorous U.S. military response to turn the
civil war in the oppositions favor. It largely favors the Senate
resolution passed Wednesday, including surgical strikes on
military targets, lethal and non-lethal aid to the moderates in the
opposition, and efforts to degrade Syrian President Bashar Assads
capability to use chemical weapons. Were hoping that this will be
sufficient pressure to bring Assad to the negotiating table, says
Ghanem. Now do I know for sure that Assad wont be another
Qaddafi and decide to fight until the bitter end? No. And to be
honest with you I have no faith in him.

The event also set up via Skype contact with a Syrian doctor who
served patients suffering from the chemical attack the Obama
administration claims Assad launched on August 21. Dr. Sakhr al-
Dimashqy, the President of the Unified Medical Center in East
Ghouta, said he was shocked to see hundred of patients, men
and women of all ages, exhibiting symptoms such as pin-point
pupils, blurred vision, hysteria, and foaming at the mouth and
nose.

The total number of cases that medical points and field hospitals
had received was about 10,000, Dr. al-Dimashqy said through an
interpreter, saying that he helped document 165 deaths, out of
around 1,400 total. I will never be able to erase the memory, the
scene of the children lying lifeless on the floor. Just a few hours
before, they were having dreams about bread and about toys.

Were not calling on the international community to help us with

medical supplies to treat future cases, were calling on the
international community to make sure that there will be no such
future cases, added Dr. al-Dimashqy. Stop the monster.

UPDATE: A Syrian opposition activist in Washington tells TIME:

Theres a lot of disappointment among opposition activists in

Washington and around the country. That President al Jarba and
General Idris are not able to come and make the case to Congress
directlyMy guess is that theyre [the Administration] worried that
the focus will shift from national security grounds for the rationale
[to attack], American credibility and leadership, to Who are these
guys? Subjecting them to intense media scrutiny, and the
potential for gotcha moments, is probably not in the best interests
of getting this vote passed. And to be honest with you, I kind of
agreeNeither of them are longtime professional politicians who
are sophisticated, seasoned operatives who have been through
stuff like this before. Theyre both modest, humble, pretty new in
these roles. They could be eaten up alive if they came to the U.S.
Read more:
http://swampland.time.com/2013/09/06/syrian-opposition-
leaders-interested-in-making-case-before-
congress/#ixzz2eRuRlVml