But while the war party may have the votes, the skeptics still have the stronger arguments. A President who for years has been adumbrating the dangers of getting involved in a messy civil war in Syria is now leading the United States precisely in that direction. With precious little support from the American public—and without a justification rooted in international law—the Administration is about to launch a military strike on yet another Middle Eastern country with no clear goals or end game in sight. All we know for sure is that once the bombs start exploding in Syria, the United States will be inextricably tied to what happens there. That’s why McCain and other interventionists are supporting the President: they have been trying to drag him into this fight since the beginning.
At this stage, it is perhaps worth recalling Colin Powell’s rules for taking military action. (I am talking here about the Powell of the first Iraq war, not the second.) There must be a clear risk to U.S. national security and strong support from the public. Once the decision to attack is taken, the force applied should be overwhelming. And there must be a clear exit strategy. Of these four criteria, how many are satisfied in this case? One or two, at most.
The public justification for the war is that somebody needs to uphold international norms that forbid the use of chemical weapons, and only the United States can do it. But gas attacks in a murderous civil war don’t constitute a direct threat to the United States—thus Kerry’s far-fetched allusions to Munich and other historical parallels. In seeking to persuade the American people to countenance an attack, Administration officials are building up Bashar al-Assad into a much bigger figure than he is—which is, of course, exactly what the Bush Administration did to Saddam Hussein a decade ago.
Personalizing the issue also draws attention from weaknesses in the broader argument. International norms include seeking United Nations approval before launching military strikes; the Obama Administration isn’t doing that. International norms preclude firing missiles at targets in countries you aren’t at war with; the United States, with its drone program, does this all the time. Let me be clear: I’m not suggesting there is any moral equivalence between the U.S. military firing drones at Islamist militants in Yemen and Assad’s forces firing toxic gas at Syrian rebels, many of them Islamic militants located in residential areas east of Damascus, assuming that’s what happened. But when it comes to upholding international norms, the United States takes a selective approach.
In Syria, the evidence leaves open the possibility that both sides have used chemical weapons at various times, albeit not in attacks on the level of the terrible one in Ghouta. What tipped the scales in favor of U.S. intervention wasn’t simply the number of people killed on August 21st, or that many of them were children. It was a perceived need to preserve U.S. credibility after Assad ignored President Obama’s loose talk of “red lines” and “game changers.” Speaking in Sweden on Wednesday, en route to the G20 summit in St. Petersburg, the President almost admitted as much, saying, “My credibility is not on the line. The international community’s credibility is on the line. And America and Congress’s credibility is on the line.”
To the extent that preserving U.S. credibility is in the national interest, one of Powell’s criteria may be satisfied, although the matter isn’t clear cut. Imagine you are one of Iran’s rulers. Observing Obama’s reluctance to enter a civil war on the side of a rebel army largely populated by anti-American jihadis, would you seriously conclude that the U.S. President would be similarly reluctant to bomb Iranian nuclear sites if the U.S. intelligence services determined they were about to produce nuclear weapons? You might, but the answer isn’t obvious.
We know for sure that Powell’s second criterion—strong public support—isn’t satisfied. Until recently, opinion polls suggested that Americans didn’t want anything to do with Syria. As the Administration has ramped up its rhetoric, support for an attack has increased a bit, which isn’t surprising. In times of crisis, Americans generally line up behind the Commander-in-Chief. But according to the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll, almost sixty per cent of them still oppose launching missiles at Assad. Nobody could pretend there is widespread enthusiasm for what’s to come, or for any deeper form of U.S. involvement.
Such an outcome is practically inevitable, however. With the President insisting that the attack will be a limited one, and that it isn’t intended to overthrow or decapitate Assad’s regime, Powell’s third criteria for success—the application of overwhelming power—has been ruled out. Assuming the government succeeds in its stated intention of “deterring and degrading”—Kerry’s words—Bashar al-Assad’s ability to use chemical weapons, which presumably means blowing to smithereens much of his Air Force, missile systems, and command-and-control facilities, what happens next? And what is the U.S. exit strategy?
At a hearing on Tuesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, and General Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, didn’t shed much light on these matters. In response to a question from Republican Senator Jim Risch, of Idaho, about whether Assad would be able to claim he won merely by surviving the strike, Kerry said, “Assad may be able to crawl out of the hole and say, ‘Look, I survived.’ But there’s no way that with reality and other assessments he’s going to be able to say he’s better off.”
Once the bombing ends, the rebels, some of whom are reportedly withdrawing from their positions because they suspect the U.S. attacks will actually target them, are sure to intensify their efforts to overthrow Assad. Is that what we want? That’s yet another thing that remains unclear. McCain says the White House has agreed to step up its support of the rebels. But the official line remains that the Administration wants a negotiated settlement, in which Assad agrees to be replaced by a national-unity government. The hope appears to be that by destroying some of Assad’s military capabilities and encouraging further defections from his army, America can bomb the Syrian leader to the negotiating table.
It’s not a completely outlandish proposition, but it’s hardly the most likely outcome. If Assad’s regime survives the bombing, he will surely fight to the last. He might well refrain from using chemical weapons, at least for a while; but even if he does, the mere sight of him carrying on, and defying the Americans, will raise the pressure on President Obama to take further action, an eventuality for which the Pentagon is already preparing. General Dempsey, who has long made plain his personal skepticism about the entire enterprise, said at the Senate hearing, “It won’t surprise you to know that we will have not only an initial target set but subsequent target sets should they become necessary.”
By this time next week, Congress may well have voted to authorize military action, and we will be on our way. But where to? Your guess is as good as mine.
Original Article
Source: newyorker.com
Author: John Cassidy
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