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The Middle East
Oct. 15th, 2015 10:19 pmObama is going to keep troops in Afghanistan, after all. Remember, he was happy to be the one to roll back Dubya's disastrous war policies, intending to pull out of both Iraq and Afghanistan, but he has come to find that being a dove can also be disastrous in a violent world, allowing, for instance, for the emergence of ISIS. One imagines that his reversal in Afghanistan might be in reaction to the blowback on his decision to remain remote in Syria, as the Russians have now moved in to control events on the ground.
With respect to the events in Syria, Roger Cohen focuses in on the key historical moment when Obama opted to keep his power dry on Syria.
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A pivotal moment came in 2013 when Obama was on the verge of a military response to Assad for crossing the American “red line” on chemical weapons. The British Parliament had voted against participation. Obama spoke to David Cameron, the British prime minister, who explained the situation. He spoke to François Hollande, the French president, who said France stood shoulder-to-shoulder with America. Targets had been identified. A long meeting of Obama’s top advisers was held on Friday, Aug. 30. The consensus was that the British vote did not change the calculus for action. The president asked if he had the constitutional authority to go ahead. He was told he did. When the meeting broke up, military action was imminent.
Then the president went for a now famous walk and in effect changed his mind. As a result, America’s word is worth less in the world. Syria could not be worse off than it is. “When your strongest asset, your military, is not ready to engage, people will factor you out,” Vali Nasr, the dean of the John Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of International Studies, told me.
-- Roger Cohen at The New York Times
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Now trying to correct his policy course the other way, as it seems, Obama is opting to keep America more critically engaged in military events in the region. In all fairness, there probably is no winning move. Any course will look bad, leaving people to fancy that some other course might have worked. Short of colonizing the region and recreating it in one's own image, it is a losing game of trying to pursue lesser evils. The dysfunction is set too deep. One imagines that the Middle East still must suffer worse (with us suffering along with it) before it can start to get better, assuming that it can rise again from its ashes.
With respect to the events in Syria, Roger Cohen focuses in on the key historical moment when Obama opted to keep his power dry on Syria.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
A pivotal moment came in 2013 when Obama was on the verge of a military response to Assad for crossing the American “red line” on chemical weapons. The British Parliament had voted against participation. Obama spoke to David Cameron, the British prime minister, who explained the situation. He spoke to François Hollande, the French president, who said France stood shoulder-to-shoulder with America. Targets had been identified. A long meeting of Obama’s top advisers was held on Friday, Aug. 30. The consensus was that the British vote did not change the calculus for action. The president asked if he had the constitutional authority to go ahead. He was told he did. When the meeting broke up, military action was imminent.
Then the president went for a now famous walk and in effect changed his mind. As a result, America’s word is worth less in the world. Syria could not be worse off than it is. “When your strongest asset, your military, is not ready to engage, people will factor you out,” Vali Nasr, the dean of the John Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of International Studies, told me.
-- Roger Cohen at The New York Times
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Now trying to correct his policy course the other way, as it seems, Obama is opting to keep America more critically engaged in military events in the region. In all fairness, there probably is no winning move. Any course will look bad, leaving people to fancy that some other course might have worked. Short of colonizing the region and recreating it in one's own image, it is a losing game of trying to pursue lesser evils. The dysfunction is set too deep. One imagines that the Middle East still must suffer worse (with us suffering along with it) before it can start to get better, assuming that it can rise again from its ashes.
