Obama and Syria: Stumbling Toward Damascus
I pretty much stayed out of the Syrian debate because it is a non-win situation.
But TIME's Joe Klein published a scathing opinion about how Obama has lost all credibility in the world. And I've heard it from other places. I know that for many here and in Congress the world can suck an egg. But we do not live like hermit.
http://swampland.time.com/2013/09/11/obama-and-syria-stumbling-toward-damascus/
On the eve of the 12th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Barack Obama made the strongest possible case for the use of force against Bashar Assad’s Syrian regime. But it wasn’t a very strong case. Indeed, it was built on a false premise: “We can stop children from being gassed to death,” he said, after he summoned grisly images of kids writhing and foaming at the mouth and then dying on hospital floors. Does he really think we can do that with a limited military strike—or the rather tenuous course of diplomacy now being pursued? We might not be able to do it even if we sent in 250,000 troops and got rid of Assad. The gas could be transferred to terrorists, most likely Hizballah, before we would find all or even most of it. And that is the essence of the policy problem Obama has been wrestling with on Syria: when you explore the possibilities for intervention, any vaguely plausible action quickly reaches a dead end.
The President knows this, which makes his words and gestures during the weeks leading up to his Syria speech all the more perplexing. He willingly jumped into a bear trap of his own creation. In the process, he has damaged his presidency and weakened the nation’s standing in the world. It has been one of the more stunning and inexplicable displays of presidential incompetence that I’ve ever witnessed. The failure cuts straight to the heart of a perpetual criticism of the Obama White House: that the President thinks he can do foreign policy all by his lonesome. This has been the most closely held American foreign-policy-making process since Nixon and Kissinger, only there’s no Kissinger. There is no éminence grise—think of someone like Brent Scowcroft—who can say to Obama with real power and credibility, Mr. President, you’re doing the wrong thing here. Let’s consider the consequences if you call the use of chemical weapons a “red line.” Or, Mr. President, how can you talk about this being “the world’s red line” if the world isn’t willing to take action? Perhaps those questions, and many others, fell through the cracks as his first-term national-security staff departed and a new team came in. But Obama has shown a desire to have national-security advisers who were “honest brokers”—people who relayed information to him—rather than global strategists. In this case, his new staff apparently raised the important questions about going to Congress for a vote: Do you really want to do this for a limited strike? What if they say no? But the President ignored them, which probably means that the staff isn’t strong enough.
(snip)
Which gets close to the Obama Administration’s problem: there have been too many “rhetorical exercises,” too many loose pronouncements of American intent without having game-planned the consequences. This persistent problem—remember the President’s needless and dangerous assertion that his policy wasn’t the “containment” of the Iranian nuclear program—has metastasized into a flurry of malarkey about Syria. It’s been two years since he said, “Assad must step aside.” He announced the “red line” and “the world’s red line.” And now, “We can stop children from being gassed.” The Chinese believe that the strongest person in the room says the least. The President is the strongest person, militarily, in the world. He does not have to broadcast his intentions. He should convey them privately, wait for a response, then take action, or not. He should do what the Israelis did when they took out the Syrian nuclear reactor: they did it, without advance bluster, and didn’t even claim credit for it afterward. The wolf doesn’t have to cry wolf, nor should the American eagle. We must stand for restrained moral power, power that is absolutely lethal and purposeful when it is unleashed, but never unleashed wantonly, without a precise plan or purpose.
(snip)
The sad thing is that Obama had been rebuilding our international stature after George W. Bush’s unilateral thrashing about. He has now damaged his ability to get his way with the Chinese, the Iranians and even the Israelis. That may never come back—and there were real opportunities to make some progress, especially with Iran, where the ascension of a nonprovocative President, Hassan Rouhani, and a reform-minded Foreign Minister in Mohammed Javad Zarif had opened the possibility of real progress in the nuclear talks and maybe even in other areas, like Afghanistan. The question now is whether Obama’s inability to make his military threat in Syria real—and the American people’s clear distaste for more military action—will empower the hard-liners in the Revolutionary Guards Corps to give no quarter in the negotiations. The Chinese, who have been covetous of the South China Sea oil fields, may not be as restrained as they have been in the past. The Japanese may feel the need to revive their military, or even go nuclear, now that the promise of American protection seems less reliable. The consequences of Obama’s amateur display ripple out across the world.
There are domestic consequences as well. This was supposed to be the month when the nation’s serious fiscal and budgetary problems were hashed out, or not, with the Republicans. There was a chance that a coalition could be built to back a compromise to solve the debt-ceiling problem and the quiet horrors caused by sequestration and to finally achieve a long-term budget compromise. But any deal would have required intense, single-minded negotiation, including political protection, or sweeteners, for those Republicans who crossed the line. Precious time has been wasted. And, after Syria, it will be difficult for any member of Congress to believe that this President will stick to his guns or provide protection.
= new reply since forum marked as read
... he HAS HAD a PLAN for a long time. And he has NOT been stumbling. He has wanted the CWs in Syria to be located, secured, and destroyed and as it looks at the moment that is exactly what will be done in the near future
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According to a senior Senate aide, Obama told Democrats that he had asked Kerry to reach out to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and offer the diplomatic solution.
"He mentioned that that occurred during the G-20 meeting (a year ago), when he met with (Russian President Vladimir) Putin -- that he would assign Kerry to discuss diplomatic alternatives," added Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.).
A senior administration official confirmed to The Huffington Post that Obama and Putin first discussed the concept in Los Cabos at the G-20 in June 2012. After the first plenary session, while world leaders were mingling, Obama and Putin went to a corner of the room and spoke for nearly half an hour about Syria.
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Full article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/10/john-kerry-syria-solution_n_3901863.html
AIPAC connection to Joe Klein, could there? 
