Democrats can’t concern themselves with how opposing strikes against Syria might harm the president. Nothing harms a president more than embroiling this country in a foreign conflict that we cannot resolve satisfactorily. It’s a mistake to think too hard about what a ‘no’ vote will mean for the president or the country or for future presidents. If we don’t intervene in Syria, we will have made an incredibly smart choice and we will reap benefits from that choice every single day. Should we discover that Iran is making a nuclear weapon, it will be easier to deal with it if we don’t have troops dedicated to Syria. If we refrain from taking a unilateral action now that has little international support, we will have more capital to take such an action, if needed, in the future.
If your friend promises to jump off a bridge, no one says that they’re worse off when you talk them out of it because their credibility has been damaged. Everyone knows that they are better off.
The exact same thing is true with this situation.
Don’t think too hard!! https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mokoolapps.australiapuzzles
I do not understand pretending there are no downsides to that stance.
If this President asks for military action and Congress rejects him out of hand, he will be a caretaker President. No amount of diplomacy will sway hostile foreign actors. His “soft speaking” will have no credibility because all will know he has no “big stick”. The US will be better positioned to influence Iran?!?! That is ludicrous.
The same is true on a domestic front. The GOP is already entrenched in knee-jerk opposition to anything this President does. Winning this debate will only harden their resolve. Mark the 113th Congress down for no accomplishments.
Mid-term elections almost always favor the non-Presidential party. Momentum had been slowly building to rally DEMs to stage a serious try at the House. But in the wake of this weakened President, look for a return of historical patterns. DEM turnout will be demoralized and the GOP holds the House, maybe gains in the Senate too.
Then two more years of lame duck President, a hostile Congress, and no more accomplishments. American political history says Americans are unimpressed with weak Presidents who do not accomplish much. Barak Obama will be crippled politically, on both the international and domestic stages.
Pretending otherwise does not benefit anyone. Oppose this President’s call to action if you feel you must, but don’t pretend an Obama failure will not bring with it grave repercussions.
In 2001, the Republicans drew safe districts for themselves.
In 2002, they retained control of Congress.
in 2004, they retained control of Congress.
In 2006, a demoralized GOP base did not show up and they lost everything.
Starting wars in Asia that we can’t end, or jumping into a war that we cannot end, has never benefited a political party. Ever.
In 2006, was the GOP base depressed because of Iraq? I believe that was a factor, but the bigger factors IMO were Katrina and the fact that social conservative thought that a Bush 2004 win meant sweeping policy changes regarding abortion and homosexuality and all they got for their efforts was a tax cut and Medicare Part D, so they stayed home.
I think the parallel here would be to those who thought they were electing a Noble Peace Prize laureate who then engages in a land war in Asia – I could see portions of the president’s base staying home on that basis, but I don’t think the war issue was as big of an issue for the GOP’s base in 2006.
My memory on that could be a bit fuzzy though.
But wait, he could only engage in a land war in Asia if he did get approval from Congress. The issue here is what happens if he doesn’t get congressional approval.
I don’t know, the idea of the United States opting not to go to war is so novel that it’s pretty foolish for any of us to think we know what the consequences will be.
Katrina was important, but it was pretty much universally agreed upon during the 2006 midterms that Iraq was a total colossal clusterfuck, which is why The Surge in 2007 was a WTF moment for the country. It was in 2006 when the GOP lost the ability to plausibly say that progress was being made in Iraq, and their candidates paid a heavy price for not separating themselves from Rumsfeld and the rest of those animals.
I’ve got to agree with you, Booman. At the end of the day, the only real question is whether or not this is the right thing to do. And if the answer is no, then supporting it just because losing on this issue will hurt the President isn’t a convincing reason to just go ahead with it. On the other hand, I have to also agree with a comment I read somewhere that asked “why is Obama receiving more pressure on this than Assad?”
That’s a great question.
Because the only person that can put pressure on Assad is Putin? Certainly not any American voter.
This isn’t true. There’s an entire international community that seems to be shrugging off what Assad did, but they could absolutely be bringing pressure right now.. I don’t think there’s any justification for this. Even if I don’t support a strike on Syria, I can respect the President’s goals here. And I think if more people were sounding the alarms against Assad we’d be having a different conversation right now.
There’s an entire international community waiting for the UN inspectors to deliver their report on the evidence they collected two weeks ago. Because outside the United States, there is less certainty about how the attack came about. The main certainty is that something happened that killed hundreds of people.
The behavior of the United States in the way it has presented its information has not helped the US case.
There seems to be a stampede of emotional workup to war and if you aren’t waving those red, white, and blue pom-poms then you must be a heartless person who doesn’t care about the victims of the attack and especially the widdle biddy babies. That is a dangerous way to approach a decision about war and peace.
Especially with Iran having a mutual defense treaty with Syria, Syria having sophisticated anti-ship missiles (they learned from Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gadhafi), and Russia taking a strong stand against intervention this time.
When there is clear evidence that the Syrian government was responsible for the attacks, major portions of the international community will shift. But after the US behavior for the past two weeks, that shift will not be to have international authorization of the US to do anything.
So the US is faced with breaking the UN Charter if it seeks to act unilaterally. And that might in fact bring pressure for sanctions on the US, a first.
The United States is no longer feared as the sole global superpower. George W. Bush blew that wad bigtime. The United States is no longer respected as a champion of international law and human rights. George W. Bush destroyed that reputation big time. And President Obama did not fight hard to build that reputation back. Those are serious unforced errors in US foreign policy.
And Syria is a transparent case of using our humanitarian sentiments when it helps to follow whatever “national interest” the Senate sees in Syria.
No, the international community is not shrugging of what happend. We just want proof that it was actually Assad and not the rebels who commited it.
The international community is also aware of all those attrocities commited by the US, all those children killed by drones, sick because of DU and so on.
Where was the US in March when there was another CW attack in Syria, but one that was associated with the rebels – all I heard was crickets.
It makes me think of the first Gulf war when that movie showed up of Iraqie soldiers pulling babies out of incubators – just to learn some time later that the movie was made in the US by a PR company.
Maybe the international community just has a longer memory where the US is concerned than the US citizens have.
Absolutely!!!
I started a reply to your comment, Unabogie.
It grew.
Now a stand-alone post.
Lame Duck Obama-Prelude to a Sea Change?
Let us pray.
AG
first we’re not starting a war, war is already happening and second I don’t see the President has any intention of committing ground troops (that’s more to your original post)
We are not at war and contemplating acts of war to intervene in someone else’s civil war. That’s starting a war.
Nothing you say here refutes my rebuttal of your essay’s predictions that this lost vote will not cripple PBO politically.
Extremely well stated, I couldn’t agree with you more.
I am in almost 100% agreement with this. My only disagreement is that his case is too absolutist and doesn’t contemplate what it means to have a UN veto cripple humanitarian intervention. The world is complicated, and it is arguably better to have a country, like America, that is prepared to occasionally take actions outside of international law while still mainly operating within and supporting the system of collective security. That doesn’t make humanitarian bombing a good idea, but paralysis in the face of evil will eventually undermine the United Nations just as it did the League of Nations.
.
Except going to war is no laughing matter especially when the risks are not thought through. I wonder what General Dempsey advised the President and why Obama’s “humanitarian hawks” won the fight in the Oval Office. The White House based the legality to act on the Responsibility to Act (R2P) doctrine which states a limited military action to protect civilians and no stated goal of regime change. Unless Bashar Assad is “declared” an Adolf Hitler of course.
I’m glad someone sees thinhgs that way. Amkes me feel better about taking the time to write it.
They already haven’t rejected him out of hand, since the Senate Foreign Relations committee approved a resolution.
At any rate, I think it’s a little premature to assume that Syria is going to be the main thing on voters’ minds 14 months from now. A “failure” to get a war nobody wanted anyway is going to outweigh the economy, immigration, ObamaCare, voter suppression, gun control, and the continued descent of the GOP into raving lunacy?
It’s also worth noting that we’re not just spectators when it comes to these grave expectations. He’ll be crippled politically? I can only speak for myself, but a No vote here isn’t going to change my opinion of Barack Obama one way or the other.
My own prediction is that no one’s even going to be thinking about Syria a year from now. But we’l see.
I’m pretty sure that if we go to war now, we will still be at war 14 months from now and then it will be on everyone’s minds.
Your estimates of the length of war may vary, but perhaps you think the Syrian people will greet us with flowers.
I’m talking about not going to war. My point was that if we don’t go to war, or more specifically if we don’t even shoot missiles at Syria, then no one’s going to be thinking about it 14 months from now.
great who with flowers? we’re going to send cruise missiles from the Med or have air strikes
Exactly!
You’re ignoring the repercussions of an Obama “success” which could result in some of the same things. I think many respect Obama for taking this to Congress and will even more so for respecting its decision.
If the debate now becomes about rescuing Obama’s legacy then I’d prefer to see him defeated. That’s hubris winning out over wisdom.
.
A must read, quite excellent investigative journalism by Max Blumenthal @Mondoweiss. Article established for a fact what my suspicion has been from the outset.
○ Vladimir Putin calls John Kerry liar on Syrian opposition at Senate hearing
Inquiring minds would like to know if Kerry knew who he was quoting and expected observers to be too dumb to figure out the ruse, if he was too lazy and or incompetent to do his homework, or if he’s intentionally screwing up so that public opinion will stop team Obama from this folly?
Do not give Kerry that kind of credit, Marie2. He’s just another plodding PermaGov functionary, doing his job. He caved when the election was stolen from him by Bush because that was his job then, and now he’s doing PR for the Obama-fronted version of the same system.
He’s simply Lieutenant Kerry, obeying orders.
Just as it has always been.
Bet on it.
AG
This also inadvertently exposes the R2P big lie, along with the claim that it’s the release of CW that has forced the US hand:
Neither R2P nor CW violations are dependent on the status of the victims. Principles don’t work that way.
But history tells us that a US friendly has some level of impunity wrt “killing their own people” with CW.
.
Both McCain and Kerry quoted from O’Bagy’s op-ed article. Kerry has worded all his statements on Syria very carefully, therefore all would have been vetted. Someone on his team let this pass? No, not really. This whole propaganda stunt is based on numerous lies and plain deceit. Had Obama not postponed the intented date to strike Syria, who would be talking about the lies going to war? The media would be filled with “shock and awe” Obama style. War is A Lie.
Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised, the once quality paper The Wall Street Journalis now in the possession of Murdock and all is focused on supporting right-wing US policy (Israel included) and more anti-Obama editorial stance.
○ WSJ on Real Cause of Homelessness in America
○ WSJ on ObamaCare’s Broken Promises
○ The MurdochStreet Journal, Not for Me, Thanks.
.
○ Report: Israel to Seek US Attack on Syria, or Freedom to Do So March 18, 2013
Cross-posted from my diary – It Stinks A Mile In the Wind.
I am talkking about getting nothing significant accmplished in the next 3.5 years. His legacy be damned.
As far as I can tell, the main downside is that Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, and Israel will be furious and will probably draw certain conclusions that we might not like.
Any actual political fallout from that will be indirect and hard to detect.
The president will have to endure ridicule, but most of the rhetoric will go far beyond the reality.
I think Assad will be effectively deterred either way. If he uses CW again, Obama will have a strengthened hand to act, with or without Congress.
The Iranians have much to lose from American restraint. They won’t be able to get us tied down in Syria. They won’t get a public relations bonanza. They won’t be able to rally Shiites worldwide for a jihad campaign against Sunnis and the West. They’ll have an easier time making concessions that might get the sanctions lifted or relaxed.
It’s true that they don’t want to lose Assad as an ally or see a Sunni-run Syria, but that would involve actual regime change, which we are pretending not to be pursuing (at least, out of one side of our mouth).
So, it’s not clear to me that we have to act or we’ll have a bad outcome or a crippled president. Bush was crippled because he did act, not because he didn’t.
“I think Assad will be effectively deterred either way.”
I have been thinking that for a few days now. I think it is plausibly so. I am now leaning toward no intervention after leaning toward it for awhile.
Aside from all the other reasons for throwing the ball to Congress, one thing Obama accomplished, whether intended or not, is that there is now a global dialog about chemical weapons and responses to their use.
Obama has actually won some important ground.
I am watching for how Jan Schakowsky reacts though. She sits on the intelligence committee and gets a classified briefing Mon. or Tues.
This paragraph is a little confused, or I am?
“The Iranians have much to lose from American restraint. They won’t be able to get us tied down in Syria. They won’t get a public relations bonanza. They won’t be able to rally Shiites worldwide for a jihad campaign against Sunnis and the West. They’ll have an easier time making concessions that might get the sanctions lifted or relaxed.”
The Iranians have much to lose from American restraint.
—-Their whole game plan for recovery is getting back in the good graces of civilized world society. No war in Syria is just fine with them.
They won’t be able to get us tied down in Syria.
—-I’ve been reading Iranian news accounts and have seen no suggestion that they want us tied down. War doesn’t fit with their primary strategy. See above.
They won’t get a public relations bonanza.
—- They will get a helluva PR bonanza….. if Barry comes around to making the peace which Iran has been asking for many years!
They won’t be able to rally Shiites worldwide for a jihad campaign against Sunnis and the West.
—- Maybe when Khomeini was alive that was something, but I don’t know anyone in Iran who might be talking or thinking like that.
They’ll have an easier time making concessions that might get the sanctions lifted or relaxed.
—-Bingo! That’s why Iran doesn’t want escalation in Syria.
Bush got everything he wanted except dismantling SS. We are crippled because of Bush, Bush wasn’t crippled in his goals.
If Iran moves on to building a nuclear bomb there will be no appitite to resist that effort. Now that might not be the end of the world but most people feel fewer nuclear weapons is better.
Not to mention how a weak Obama will pretty much make stillborn any Israeli/Palestinian negotiations, currently underway.
I agree there is every chance intervening might bring bad results. What I object to is this atempt to fool ourselves that:
Advoate for what you feel best, but do so with eyes open.
C’mon. The America people reject their elected leaders’ attempt to attack a country and suddenly no one will ever believe in the reality US belligerence for the rest of his presidency?
You need to do better than that.
Who’s talking about them? I’m talking about professional politicians in this nation and others, who smell blood in the water and don’t abide a weak opponent. the American people will probably be dissastified due to noting getting done. So I do agree they will not draw a conscious link from their dissastifaction to this event but losing this vote will undermine this President’s remaining term.
OK sounds plausible. But tell me how we will know that Obama will have been “crippled politically” by the Congress saying no to another ME war game. Will the torrent of fabulous legislation now being enacted weekly be shut off? Will there be a resort to bogus faux-scandal “investigations” to further embarrass the weakened Obama? Will the current DC Well of Good Feeling be poisoned beyond repair? Ahem…
Also, will turning the Dems into a coerced war party enthuse the base for 2014?
It’s a bit of a Catch 22 situation because I agree with both of you. Damned if we get pulled in further in Syria and damned if Congress defies Obama on this, at least if it is viewed as a GOP defeat of the president. The fact that Democrats are also divided on this also would potentially imply a defeat of McCain and the other war promoters.
Let the defeat be declared by the media a GOP victory. Gasbags will do what gasbags do.
If Obama takes the looming upside pivot and accepts peace with Iran, the strange, bizarre last two weeks will be realized to be one of the greatest bluffs of all time. TPTB were already gobsmacked when Obama, at the very last minute, decided to put the decision before Congress, upsetting their little applecarts of scenarios and planning. He can thus say that the American people want peace and diplomacy and ACT ACCORDINGLY. The defeat of the resolution could act as a kind of false flag, Tonkin Gulf in reverse. The significance is that “the dog DIDN’T bark” this time.
For the rosy scenario I suggest above to happen, a subtle tipping point in the public mind and sphere must be reached. Obama is a master of TIMING. This tipping point night be upon us.
.
Arguments by John Kerry of our moral high ground and conscience, supported by his right hand Minister of Propaganda at the UN …
To meet the needs of right-wing Repugs like McCain and getting the votes in Congress … do a bit extra on bombing runs!
Read on – It Stinks A Mile In the Wind.
IOW – the lowest bar possible for a people that routinely mistake ignorance for “common sense.”
Common sense test says that the rebels were responsible. So they’re admitting they don’t have “proof.”
Spot on, Booman.
“Nothing harms a president more than embroiling this country in a foreign conflict that we cannot resolve satisfactorily.”
Here you assume we will not have a satisfactory outcome from the intervention, whatever form it takes. Why do you assume this? If you take the admin. at its word, that we are NOT trying to get rid of Assad, but only trying to stop him from using CWs, then success could simply mean degrading his ability to launch more CW attacks, with help and support from the international community (and preferably some arab states).
The pentagon plans I have seen so far have been very limited in scope — 3 days of strikes with missiles and smart bombs, going after various targets associated with chemical weapons. This is not a war plan. We are not “going to war” as far as I can tell at this point; and I see no reason why limited strikes of this type would “draw us in” to the conflict.
It seems we have already degraded Assads CW capabilities, since he has had to disperse his forces under the threat of attack. In this way, O has already been successful. If the strike prevent Assad from any future use of CWs, its a win for the international community and the rule of law, independent of the outcome of the conflict.
Honestly, I don’t think a “no” vote will harm the president at all — except with the punditocracy. His position on this is very unpopular. The sooner he gets off it the better for everyone, including him.
On the other hand, I’m not naive, the “powers that be” will not be pleased. Well, he’s giving it his best shot. Like everything else they want these days, it’s going over like a lead balloon. Suck on that, Netanyahu and Prince Bandar.
.
The last few weeks, Juan Cole came forward with some excellent articles on the Obama administration and the civil/sectarian war in Syria. I know Prof. Cole was a supporter of the Ms Clinton policy favoring the Muslim Brothers in Qatar, Turkey and Egypt. I still can’t grasp his analysis in his latest article …
The so-called southern front has been shut-down by Assad’s forces. There is no way Iraq or Turkey can police the borders with Syria and prevent arms and fighters moving across freely. Juan Cole also didn’t believe the Al Nusra Front fighters were joining local boys near Damascus. Now he speaks of the “Sons of Syria” strategy.
Of course, McCain and Kerry read the same WSJ article claiming there is not much of an Al Qaeda affiliate fighting in northern Syria. McCain didn’t see any bad guys on his visit there.
.
Reactions from support to rejection calling it “ludicrous.” Early comments to Juan Cole’s strategy …
According to the recent CNN poll; 69% of those surveyed do not think it is in our national interests to be involved in the conflict in Syria.
Since when is ignoring the overwhelming will of the people a feature of democracy?