By Isaac Yetiv , Ph.D.
LA JOLLA, California — Let me say at the outset that I am one of the 71% who are strongly opposed to a military action against Syria, and that I have expressed my opinion to the White House and to my elected representatives in the Congress (House and Senate).
The president’s handling of the situation is a textbook example of how NOT to conduct foreign policy, especially in a case that may lead to war, and …in the Middle-East. By telegraphing to the enemy all the details of his plan (what, when, where, and what weapons), he has defied all the teachings on “the Art of War” as imparted by very wise men from Sun Tzu to Machiavelli to Clausewitz who prescribed the element of surprise as essential to any kind of warfare. He has turned on its head Teddy Roosevelt’s injunction to “speak softly and carry a big stick.” He made a joke of Napoleon who said,” If you set out to take Vienna, take Vienna.” He should at least be aware of the popular saying that “when your enemies are fighting each other, do not interfere.”
Yes, there is no good player in this civil war, and any interference that could weaken or topple Assad, might hasten the emergence of a radical Islamist jihadist regime as it happened before in Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. Assad brutally killed 110,000 of his own people with conventional weapons before he killed 1,400 with chemical weapons, and we saw the video where the “Rebels” killed seven of Assad soldiers execution style, and where they attacked a Christian village.
Obama’s amateurish style of a man with a microphone, perennially in campaign mode, does not inspire trust and confidence when the stakes are so high, the supreme national security interests of the United States of America. In August 2012, he issued the (in)famous ultimative declaration that if Assad crossed ” the red line” of “moving or utilizing” chemical weapons, he will suffer the consequences in the form of an American military action. More than a year has elapsed, the Damascus dictator has crossed the red line, and the president is still talking. Again, common sense dictates to “never make a threat if you are unable or unwilling to implement it.”
During this period of gestation, Obama has meandered, hesitated, contradicted himself and let his minions do the same, seven or eight spokespeople , first among them the pathetic Secretary of State John Kerry, saying different things at the same time, issuing inapt, inane, and misleading comparisons with Hitler, WWII ,the Holocaust, and Kosovo.
The president was not mute all this year. Early in the civil war, he was sure that ” Assad’s days are numbered” and he sat on his hands while the butcher was slaughtering his people. Then came the red line and his decision to attack Syria, but a little, “a pin prick,” as he put it, “a shot across the bow,” in his own words, “to punish Assad… only symbolic…to teach him a lesson.” It never crossed his mind that, “if you wound a tiger, you must kill him.” You can’t enrage a cruel tyrant ,with his back against the wall and having nothing more to lose, and then expect him to do nothing. He will precisely throw
anything he has, chemical and all, at any neighbor, beginning with his own dissidents, at Jordan, the American navy, embassies and other institutions and, of course, Israel, directly or by proxy using the terrorists of Hezbullah, which will trigger a devastating, not “proportional” response, to Lebanon and Syria, or maybe to Iran… and you have a regional conflagration. How naive is the president to think that he is playing a solitaire game with a dummy opponent !
Apprehensive of this gloomy scenario, the people spoke, loud and clear, against military adventure. And the Congress echoed. Only when convinced that he would not get support from Congress whose “authorization” he sought, the president started beating a slow retreat. After dramatically inflating
his balloon near explosion, he now began the process of deflation by slowly letting air out: Only a few hours after his Secretary of State delivered a flamboyant discourse on the necessity, moral and legal, to strike Syria, which appeared imminent, Obama threw ice water on his minister with his surprising decision to go to Congress which he resisted doing for a long time. And the rhetoric took a sharp turn, still ambiguous and enigmatic but definitely defeatist:
.- He denied what he said before, urbi et orbi, to the city and to the world: ” I did not set a red line, the world…;” (What world? NOT the UN, not NATO, not the Europeans, Africa, Asians, not the Arab League). “It is not my credibility but the Congress’s.” And “I was elected to end wars, not to start them.” And “I am not itching for military action…and the threat to America is not imminent.” Nevertheless, the threat of miltary attack remained unchanged.
Some pundits called this nightmare “the theater of the absurd.” I defy any playwright to produce so perfect a work of fiction. As they say, sometimes, “Reality surpasses fiction.” I prefer to call it “a farce,” born out of tragedy, or a tragi-comedy whose denouement is usually a deus ex machina, a god from a machine, something unexpected and bizarre, like Mr Putin, the arsonist now fireman, who may win the Nobel Peace prize (which should be taken from Obama).
This is a masterstroke . In one move, Mr Putin checkmated Mr Obama. The KGB colonel trapped the community organizer. Why didn’t he offer his conciliatory solution from the very beginning? Because he wanted to let him sink deep into the hole and then offer him the ladder to rescue him from his big mess, and allow him to save face which he has desperately been seeking. Putin nevertheless demands that the American president forswear the use of force because it will no longer be needed after the pledge of the Syrian “to surrender the arsenal of chemical weapons” (of which he had, a few hours before, denied the existence).
There are many, I among them, who doubt the sincerity of the Russian bear and the Syrian fox dealing under the watchful and menacing eye of the Mullah and the Hezbullah. The experts say it will take years to find and verify and destroy the chemical arsenal of 1,000 tons ( that’s one million kilograms), and who can guarantee that some of it will not be passed secretly to others, Hezbullah, Hamas,or other miscreants? The UN experts say it will take 2,000 inspectors working for years to accomplish the task…if they are allowed. But all this is irrelevant since the purpose was to save face for the president of the United States.
If this scenario becomes reality, and a “diplomatic solution” reached, sanctioned by a vague resolution of the UN Security Council, the result of this whole saga will be an American defeat, creating a new situation much worse than the status quo ante. Assad remains on the throne, more capable to pursue his civil war, and will continue to kill his own people albeit with conventional weapons; the Rebels, feeling abandoned, will lose interest in their revolution; Russia, the biggest winner, will dominate the Middle-East, and become the “hegemon” in the region, an ambition the Soviet Union intensely pursued but could never realize. America will face a new axis of inimical powers (Russia, Iran, Syria, and their satellites the terrorist organizations) very menacing to its interests in the area, and sworn enemies of Israel.
Already, to appease the Iranians who disliked these agreements with the “Great Satan,” Putin reportedly decided to sell them a second nuclear reactor and to reinstate the sale of the S-300 air defense missile systems which had been canceled by his predecessor, Medvedev, after strong pressure from the U.S. and Israel. This will make any attack on the Iranian nuclear facilities very difficult and more costly, if not impossible.
If it were a work of fiction, that would be the end of it. But in real life, the plot rebounds: In his address to the nation, Obama gave a chance to the Russian offer to work but reiterated his threat of use of force; the next day, Putin published in the New York Times an op-ed piece in which he castigated Obama for his saber- rattling and for his claim of “American exceptionalism” that he called “dangerous.” This exchange does not augur well for the prospect of a diplomatic solution.
And the beat goes on…and the tragic farce continues.*
Yetiv is a freelance writer and lecturer based in La Jolla, California. He may be contacted at isaac.yetiv@sdjewishworld.com