No justification for Syrian strike

Published 8:55 pm Saturday, September 7, 2013

President Barack Obama’s Syria policy is maddeningly muddled. After years of denunciations of the Syrian regime and the imposition of a “red line” (which he may or may not have drawn), Obama now says a recent attack by the regime that employed chemical weapons warrants a military strike on the country.

The actions of Syria’s Bashar Assad violate international norms, using a kind of weapon “which the overwhelming consensus of humanity says is wrong,” Obama said.

Therefore, Assad must be punished, Obama and his supporters in Congress contend.

Here are the problems with that position. First, why must the U.S. continue to be the world’s policeman? And as international opinion on a Syrian strike demonstrates, the world doesn’t want us in that role.

Even Obama’s newly appointed ambassador to the U.N. realizes that; in July, Samantha Power said “While our goodwill knows no bounds, our resources are finite, strained by pressing needs at home. And we are not the world’s policeman. We must make choices based on the best interests of the American people.”

President Obama has failed to make the case that a strike on Syria is in the best interests of the American people.

Instead, he’s made vague references to “credibility,” perhaps alluding to Iran and its nuclear program.

“My credibility is not on the line,” he said last week. “The international community’s credibility is on the line. And America and Congress’ credibility is on the line because we give lip service to the notion that these international norms are important.”

If the world’s credibility is on the line, where is the world now that we’re contemplating military action? The United Nations and all of our major European allies (with the exception, for now, of France) are against any strike. Not only are they not lining up to assist the United States, they’re calling for the administration to stand down.

Another problem with Obama’s drive to strike is his disingenuous claim that it’s not about regime change.

Of course it is. It’s Bashar Assad he wants to punish. The Syrian rebels will directly benefit. Sen. John McCain says one goal of the strikes is to change the tide of the war; obviously, the intent is to change it in favor of the rebels.

But helping the rebels will be helping people who hate us. Islamists are the strongest and best-organized of the rebel groups. They’re ready and eager to capitalize on our military assistance. But the evidence shows they’re just as bad as the Assad forces. Even the New York Times is sounding the warning on the rebels’ brutality.

Finally, even if Obama is able to demonstrate enough cause to justify a military strike on Syria, he has yet to show that he has any kind of a strategy. What is the military objective? What is “success”?

How, exactly, will we even gauge success? If the goal is to send a message, how will we tell if that message has been received? If it’s to punish, how will we know when the punishment has been enough?

There’s no good reason to attack Syria until these questions have been answered.