The Missiles of April

With the missile attack on chemical weapons facilities in Syria, the U.S., along with Britain and France this time, slapped a new coat of paint on the “red line,” apparently crossed again by the Assad regime. Moved by pictures of civilians suffering in agony following the chemical attack, President Trump called Bashir al-Assad an “animal” and warned that American missiles would fly – which they did.

The only trouble with the red line, first laid down by President Obama, is that it was not only late, but painted in the wrong place. While there was a lot of talk about how the civilized world could not tolerate the use of chemical weapons, especially against civilians, it had tolerated seven years in which conventional military assaults, including shelling, attacks from the air, and the use of the less-conventional but horrendous barrel bombs, were perpetrated on Syrian civilians.

Mr. Assad, an ophthalmologist by training, was initially seen as somewhat progressive after coming to power in Syria. He had a distinctly distorted view, however, of what were mostly peaceful protests during the Arab spring. Convinced they were the work of terrorists planning to overthrow him, he unleashed his military on city populations in his country. Cable news covered all this night after night. CNN had two brave female reporters in the thick of things, while panelists like the late Fouad Ajami wondered how long the West would put up with Assad’s atrocities.

Two years later, President Obama wanted to do something about it following news of a chemical attack, drawing the red line in the sand. Along came the Russians, who said they would make their ally Assad give up his chemical weapons. But he remained in power, and conventional atrocities continued, with the assistance of the Russians, who convinced us they were also helping to fight ISIS.

But the internal civil war raged on in Syria. Hundreds of thousands died, millions more were displaced, many of them drowning as overburdened refugee boats crossed the Mediterranean. The hordes arrived in a largely unwelcoming Europe, though Germany agree to take in a million survivors, while we virtually shut our doors.

OK. After Iraq and Afghanistan, we were war-weary, and Syria was so not our problem. But “not our problem” makes it everyone’s problem. Were we complicit in this tragedy by doing nothing? We insist we are not in favor of regime change, but if any situation calls for it, it’s this one. It’s a real pipe dream on my part, but could we work with the other players in the region to help rebuild Syria after Assad is removed?

The boundaries of Syria, Iraq and a few other countries in the Middle East were drawn by two men, one English and one French, after World War I. They did it armed with a map and rulers. I hope the world can somehow do better by this region going forward, pipe-dreamy as that may sound.

Bark or Bite

The good news is, American missiles won’t be flying toward Syria today. The bad news is, we just kissed most of the credibility we had in the bank goodbye with President Obama’s decision to seek approval from Congress for a strike on Syria -- after all the run-up that has already taken place. If Congress says no to an attack, President Obama will have little choice but to follow British Prime Minister David Cameron’s lead and stand the military down.

Does that mean we will have given Mr. Assad the green light to continue to use chemical weapons? We have green-lighted innumerable atrocities up to this point, so we might well wonder what’s different now.

Personally, I feel the time for messaging has long since passed. If Mr. Assad personally gave the orders to use chemical weapons, as we have charged, he is already a war criminal of the first order, right up there with Hitler and Pol Pot. If he sees a green light here and resumes the use of such weapons, that should be a green light for us to send a lot more than a message. We will have no reasonable choice – if we want our credibility back -- but to take out Assad – or arrest him and put him on trial. Will that be Iraq II? Can we remove Assad from power, face down Iran and Russia, and let the remaining Syrian factions determine their own fate (which means fighting it out)?

We cannot effect real change, unfortunately, without getting our hands dirty – and if we’re not prepared to do that, we should indeed stay out of Syria and take our credibility lumps. The last war we can take credit for winning (and not solo credit) ended almost 70 years ago. We’ve been tinkering around with war since then, at a great cost to the lives of our young men, and these days, women.

A Syrian woman interviewed on the radio this morning quoted a proverb to the effect that the louder and longer a dog barks, the less it’s apt to bite. We need to stop barking and bite something, or else put the muzzle on and go back to bed.

Hearing the Dinner Bell

For the better part of two years, the Obama administration has told us that all options are on the table to deal with the crisis in Syria. The table is set, and dinner is about to be served.

On Monday, Secretary of State John Kerry’s words of warning were clear: there was no question that chemical weapons had been used on civilians – a moral obscenity, and the clear crossing of the so called red line had occurred.  It wasn’t all that long ago that another Secretary of State, Colin Powell, displayed graphic evidence, or so we were given to believe, of the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Ah, but this is different, right? Syria really does have chemical weapons. And apparently, the regime no longer has compunctions about using them. But as for moral outrage about this, do you think it might be possible that at least one of the 100-thousand-plus civilians who died by what we might call conventional means may have suffered equally horrible or even more agonizing deaths than the current nerve gas victims? The red line was drawn in a strange place.

What we have been learning the hard way about the Middle East is that dictatorships have served as artificial lids on boiling pots. Military action on our part won’t turn down the heat in Syria.

Is the red line really about U.S. credibility? In the case of Syria, we lost it two years ago. So is firing off a few missiles really going to send the message to Iran and/or Russia that we’re not to be trifled with? They’ve been trifling with us a long time. What is different about this moment?

To my mind, there is only one justification for military action: obtaining control of the chemical weapons or destroying them so that the Assad regime can’t use them on civilians anymore and so that they don’t fall into the wrong hands. Unless military force attains those goals, it’s a waste of time and resources. Our attention might better be paid to the plight of the hundreds of thousands of Syrians displaced by this conflict, many living in desperate situations in countries that can’t handle them.

If we really have to sit down to dinner, it might be a good time for someone to say grace – and pray hard before we pick up the knife and fork.

Way Too Little, Way Too Late

Now that the infamous “red line” has been crossed – the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons on civilians, President Obama has decided that the United States should supply arms to the Syrian rebels. As I noted to friends yesterday, we seem to have a talent for finding the deepest part of the quicksand and stepping in it – or to be more accurate, sticking our toe in it to see if we can avoid getting sucked in.

All this is still officially pretty vague. According to reports, though, the arms we will supply to the Syrian rebels aren’t necessarily the ones they want: heavy weapons or those to shoot down aircraft.  Senator John McCain, long a hawk on this issue, believes we have to do more, including enforcing a no-fly zone.

The Assad regime has used chemical weapons on four separate occasions, according to our intelligence, killing up to 150 people. That’s awful. But it begs the question of why we didn’t care about the 100,000 or so others who have already died by more conventional means. As if the earlier atrocities committed by the regime were somehow acceptable.

So what is our goal here? Do we want to help the Syrian rebels win, or not? Will these measures really level the playing field? Continuing that analogy, leveling the playing field, at this stage, doesn’t stop the game, and if there is a winner, there’s little likelihood it’s going to be our friend.

I think our real objective should be – or should have been – knocking out or securing the chemical weapons to prevent their use – though perhaps they’ve been scattered to the point where we can’t get to them now.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda. If we’re going to change the balance in Syria, there has to be a commitment to do it. I still contend there was a point at which we could have intervened in this conflict early on and accomplished something without having to really go to war. But at this moment, Americans don’t have the stomach for the measures that seem necessary. It’s just too late to play catch-up.

The Really Thin Red Line

I haven’t had anything to say about Syria in a long time, mainly because it’s been too upsetting, and like many in the West, I just wanted to think about other things. But that is a luxury we may no longer be able to afford.

President Obama said a while ago that the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons would represent a “red line” that if crossed, would trigger a U.S. response, though it’s never been made quite clear what that is. It would seem, however, that there is much more evidence of the use of chemical weapons in Syria than there was for the presence of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein, which triggered our launch of the Iraq war.

It’s almost impossible to count the number of horses that have left the barn here. Red lines are fine as far as they go – but what has already happened south of that line? The use of bombs and heavy artillery on civilian populations, Hundreds of thousands killed, atrocities too numerous and horrible to detail, and more than 1.5 million refugees fleeing to surrounding countries – a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions.

So the options that remain are bad ones. The Pentagon has a set of responses ready to be implemented, primarily for the securing of the chemical weapons – steps which may soon be necessary. And the talk of arming the rebels against the Assad regime continues. The European Union has the go-ahead to do so, but it’s a faint green light indeed: it’s simply a failure of European nations to agree on anything, so the current ban on such supplying of weapons will simply expire.

The West worries about the supplied weapons falling into the wrong hands. But it may be a challenge to find the right ones. Those who eventually come to power in Syria will probably not be our friends. The population will never forgive us for failing to come to their aid in their time of need – especially after watching what we did in Libya.

The bottom line is that we are going to be involved in Syria, whether we like it or not – sucked or dragged in kicking and screaming, choose your metaphor. Let us hope and pray that peace talks will eventually succeed and that somebody figures out what to do with the Assad family. But Syria is going to be our problem for a long time to come.

And I’m waiting for someone to talk me out of the idea that it didn’t have to be this way.

Chemical Bashar

There it is: NBC reported today that Syria is loading chemical agents into bombs, presumably for use in a last stand if the regime of Bashar al-Assad is up against the ropes. Well, the ropes are in sight.

What exactly are we talking about here? One analyst reported on CNN tonight that one shell or one bomb dropped in a populated area could kill 18,000 people easily.

President Assad has pledged not to use this stuff on his own people. But if he thinks foreign-inspired terrorist invaders are involved – and his own survival is threatened – it’s believed he won’t hesitate. Some say even if he escapes from Syria, there’s little to stop his commanders from pulling triggers.

Of the “red line” drawn by President Obama against the use of these weapons, Senator John McCain said the administration was giving a “green light” to all atrocities short of their use. That green light wasn’t turned on this week. It’s been on for well over a year – and that’s why we have this situation now.

Some critics say the U.S. has been hyping this threat to provide a pretext for going in, just as was done with the WMD stories about Iraq 10 years ago that proved to be false. But there’s a big difference. President Bush was looking for any excuse he could find to invade Iraq. President Obama has been looking for any excuse he can find NOT to go into Syria. Except now, it seems he’s about run out of them.

Then there is the concern that if used, clouds of gas might waft into neighboring non-combatant countries, or that supplies of this stuff might fall into the hands of real terrorist organizations.

To be as potent as they are, these weapons had to be experimentally tested. I don’t think I want to know on what – or on whom.

It’s clear that we all have to keep our eyes fixed on this region, because the next few days could be dicey. I would say it’s not an exaggeration to suggest that those of us who are good at praying better get started.