Syria Is the Quintessential Obama War

New York Magazine ^ | 8/29/13 | Benjamin Wallace-Wells

[nickcarraway]

During the NATO intervention in Libya, to date perhaps the great success of Obama's foreign policy, senior White House officials went so far as to suggest that the logic that led the president to intervene in order to protect the citizens of Benghazi from slaughter might be expanded into a broader principle: the Obama doctrine, they called it. The Obama doctrine had two basic components — imminence and collaboration. America ought to intervene militarily when it could prevent the imminent slaughter of civilians, the doctrine said, but it would not do so unless it could secure the collaboration of a significant coalition, the latter both as a safety valve against malfunctions in our moral radar and as protection against any perceptions that our aims might be imperial.

As doctrines go, this did not seem like a bad one. Its imminence clause clearly reflected the humanitarian interventionist conviction that the moral failure of the West in Rwanda should not be repeated; its collaboration clause the realpolitik conclusion that the U.S. must avoid a repeat of the Iraq disaster. And it implicitly provided an answer to the question — really raised only rhetorically by the left — that every liberal White House wrestles with: If we are universalists, and our country is under no threat of invasion, then why do we maintain such a singularly vast military, for which we spend more than all of the other nations on Earth combined? What is the point of all these bombs? The point of all the bombs, the Obama doctrine suggested, in at least some significant part, is to protect those who cannot protect themselves.

Given the clarity of that doctrine, and given how recent and successful the Libya operation was, it has been striking — as the question of humanitarian intervention has come to focus on Syria — to see the president abandon his rhetoric and logic so completely. The details of the bombing plans that have been publicized — targeted raids lasting no more than three days, directed not at chemical weapons but at the military units that carried out the horrifying August 21 chemical attack — suggest that their aim is not protection but punishment. So does the intervention's timing. The Assad government has been slaughtering its own civilians by the tens of thousands for two years. It has been several months since Defense secretary Chuck Hagel suggested that American intelligence believed the Syrian government had likely used sarin gas against its own citizens. As abhorrent and inhumane as this latest attack was, it is hard to see exactly how it altered the moral compulsion to act. Slaughter is slaughter; dead is dead. But the tell is not just in the details, or the timing. In his interview on Wednesday with PBS's NewsHour, Obama did not make a case that there was any looming humanitarian crisis, focusing instead on an argument for geopolitical stability. "We cannot see," the president explained, "a breach of the nonproliferation norm that allows, potentially, chemical weapons to fall into the hands of all kinds of folks." The president began by addressing the humanitarian case: "Although what's happened there is tragic," he said, "what I've also concluded is that direct military engagement, involvement in the civil war in Syria, will not help the situation on the ground." In contrast to the president's own caution, David Cameron's government was far more blunt — at least until Britain's parliament rejected any military involvement in Syria. Cameron saw intervention as explicitly humanitarian. "The use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime is a serious crime of international concern, as a breach of the customary international law prohibition on use of chemical weapons, and amounts to a war crime and a crime against humanity," the Cameron government argued in its failed resolution. "However, the legal basis for military action would be humanitarian intervention; the aim is to relieve humanitarian suffering by deterring or disrupting the further use of chemical weapons."

One way of viewing the difference between the American and British rhetoric over Syria would be to say that the Obama White House is heading toward this weird little war more cynically than the Cameron government was, more openly cognizant perhaps of the broad strategic game at work in the Middle East, with one side lining up behind Saudi Arabia and the other behind Iran. But it seems more likely that the difference is simpler. Obama's devotion to the humanitarian interventionist position has never been as clear, as single-minded, as those of his most famous foreign-policy advisers, Samantha Power and Susan Rice. Obama is, in his usual way, more guarded than that, more complicated, a complex algorithm into which both idealist impulses and realist ones are input. And so this unusual military intervention — extremely limited and transparent and targeted, triggered by humanitarian concerns but not exactly humanitarian in its aims, couched in the language of universalism but supported only by a few allies, accompanied by public declarations that it was not expected to alter the trajectory of the larger conflict — feels in some ways more true to the president than that particular framing of the Obama doctrine ever did. This three-day exercise does seem, in some meaningful sense, Obama's war.

[AU72]

During the NATO intervention in Libya, to date perhaps the great success of Obama's foreign policy,

With success like that what does a screw-up look like? Syria?

[Timber Rattler]

During the NATO intervention in Libya, to date perhaps the great success of Obama's foreign policy...

That's not saying much.

[henkster]

I learned something new today. It’s either that there is an “0bama Doctrine” and that it has “clarity” and “logic,” or it is that Benjamin Wallace-Wells has access to some mind-blowing drugs for believing same.

I’m leaning toward option 2.

[pabianice]

Below I have summarized the combined military combat experience of the entire NY Times newsroom:

—

[onyx]

FReepathon Day 61 ... PLEASE Make Your Donation Today!

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God bless and keep you all.

[Dick Bachert]

Our new Syrian MISADVENTURE is a DIVERSION from all the domestic scandals besetting this gang of criminals.

Hey, all you stupid low and no information voters. Don’t look there. Look at this shiny thing over HERE!

[colorado tanker]

Libya was a success? Ask the Americans who were murdered there by terrorists.

This is just liberal doctrine re-heated. Liberals think America should only intervene when we have no national interest to do so. As in Kosovo.

[BenLurkin]

“NATO intervention in Libya, to date perhaps the great success of Obama’s foreign policy”

http://www.johnspeedie.com/healy/horse.wav

[BenLurkin]

“Obama is, in his usual way, more guarded than that, more complicated, a complex algorithm into which both idealist impulses and realist”

http://www.johnspeedie.com/healy/crap.wav

[BenLurkin]

Nowhere in the entire excerpt does the author make any mention of Hussein’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood — and that, as we all know, is the true driving force behind his mindless squandering of American munitions.

[rdcbn]

Gotta love the is Reuters article “Exclusive: Syrian army moves Scud missiles to avoid strike”

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/29/us-syria-crisis-missiles-idUSBRE97S12920130829

My favorite quote from the article

“Rebel military sources said spotters saw missiles draped in tarpaulins on the launchers, as well as trailer trucks carrying other rockets and equipment. More than two dozen Scuds - 11-metre (35-foot) long ballistic missiles with ranges of 300 km (200 miles) and more - were fired from the base in the Qalamoun area this year, some of which hit even Aleppo in the far north.

The base was among a list of suggested targets presented by the rebel Syrian National Coalition to Western envoys in Istanbul earlier this week, opposition sources said. Scud units, of Soviet or North Korean manufacture, are designed to be mobile and so could still be set up quickly to fire from new positions.”

with the eye popper being

“The base was among a list of suggested targets presented by the rebel Syrian National Coalition to Western envoys in Istanbul earlier this week, opposition sources said. “

Our Air Force, it seems, is working at the direction of the Syrian insurgents ( the media term "rebel's" is a misnomer because most of the fighters are foreign Jihadi mercenaries, not native Syrians)

We really and truly have become Al Qaeda’s air force, in the most literal sense.

[henkster]

“Obama is, in his usual way, more guarded than that, more complicated, a complex algorithm into which both idealist impulses and realist”

And all this time I thought he was just an incompetent, clueless hack, instead of this complex algorithm. Man, was I ever the dumbass. /s/

[Yosemitest]

EXCLUSIVE: Syrians In Ghouta Claim Saudi-Supplied Rebels Behind Chemical Attack
Rebels and local residents in Ghouta accuse Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan of providing chemical weapons to an al-Qaida linked rebel group.
By Dale Gavlak and Yahya Ababneh | August 29, 2013

This article is a collaboration between Dale Gavlak reporting for Mint Press News and Yahya Ababneh.

Ghouta, Syria — As the machinery for a U.S.-led military intervention in Syria gathers pace following last week’s chemical weapons attack, the U.S. and its allies may be targeting the wrong culprit.

Interviews with people in Damascus and Ghouta, a suburb of the Syrian capital, where the humanitarian agency Doctors Without Borders said at least 355 people had died last week from what it believed to be a neurotoxic agent, appear to indicate as much.

The U.S., Britain, and France as well as the Arab League have accused the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for carrying out the chemical weapons attack, which mainly targeted civilians. U.S. warships are stationed in the Mediterranean Sea to launch military strikes against Syria in punishment for carrying out a massive chemical weapons attack. The U.S. and others are not interested in examining any contrary evidence, with U.S Secretary of State John Kerry saying Monday that Assad’s guilt was “a judgment … already clear to the world.”

However, from numerous interviews with doctors, Ghouta residents, rebel fighters and their families, a different picture emerges. Many believe that certain rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out the dealing gas attack.

“My son came to me two weeks ago asking what I thought the weapons were that he had been asked to carry,” said Abu Abdel-Moneim, the father of a rebel fighting to unseat Assad, who lives in Ghouta.

Abdel-Moneim said his son and 12 other rebels were killed inside of a tunnel used to store weapons provided by a Saudi militant, known as Abu Ayesha, who was leading a fighting battalion. The father described the weapons as having a “tube-like structure” while others were like a “huge gas bottle.”

Ghouta townspeople said the rebels were using mosques and private houses to sleep while storing their weapons in tunnels.

Abdel-Moneim said his son and the others died during the chemical weapons attack. That same day, the militant group Jabhat al-Nusra, which is linked to al-Qaida, announced that it would similarly attack civilians in the Assad regime’s heartland of Latakia on Syria’s western coast, in purported retaliation.

“They didn’t tell us what these arms were or how to use them,” complained a female fighter named ‘K.’ “We didn’t know they were chemical weapons. We never imagined they were chemical weapons.”

“When Saudi Prince Bandar gives such weapons to people, he must give them to those who know how to handle and use them,” she warned. She, like other Syrians, do not want to use their full names for fear of retribution.

A well-known rebel leader in Ghouta named ‘J’ agreed. “Jabhat al-Nusra militants do not cooperate with other rebels, except with fighting on the ground. They do not share secret information. They merely used some ordinary rebels to carry and operate this material,” he said.

“We were very curious about these arms. And unfortunately, some of the fighters handled the weapons improperly and set off the explosions,” ‘J’ said.

Doctors who treated the chemical weapons attack victims cautioned interviewers to be careful about asking questions regarding who, exactly, was responsible for the deadly assault.

The humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders added that health workers aiding 3,600 patients also reported experiencing similar symptoms, including frothing at the mouth, respiratory distress, convulsions and blurry vision. The group has not been able to independently verify the information.

More than a dozen rebels interviewed reported that their salaries came from the Saudi government.

Saudi involvement

In a recent article for Business Insider, reporter Geoffrey Ingersoll highlighted Saudi Prince Bandar’s role in the two-and-a-half year Syrian civil war. Many observers believe Bandar, with his close ties to Washington, has been at the very heart of the push for war by the U.S. against Assad.

Ingersoll referred to an article in the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph about secret Russian-Saudi talks alleging that Bandar offered Russian President Vladimir Putin cheap oil in exchange for dumping Assad.

“Prince Bandar pledged to safeguard Russia’s naval base in Syria if the Assad regime is toppled, but he also hinted at Chechen terrorist attacks on Russia’s Winter Olympics in Sochi if there is no accord,” Ingersoll wrote.

“I can give you a guarantee to protect the Winter Olympics next year. The Chechen groups that threaten the security of the games are controlled by us,” Bandar allegedly told the Russians.

“Along with Saudi officials, the U.S. allegedly gave the Saudi intelligence chief the thumbs up to conduct these talks with Russia, which comes as no surprise,” Ingersoll wrote.

“Bandar is American-educated, both military and collegiate, served as a highly influential Saudi Ambassador to the U.S., and the CIA totally loves this guy,” he added.

According to U.K.’s Independent newspaper, it was Prince Bandar’s intelligence agency that first brought allegations of the use of sarin gas by the regime to the attention of Western allies in February.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the CIA realized Saudi Arabia was “serious” about toppling Assad when the Saudi king named Prince Bandar to lead the effort.

“They believed that Prince Bandar, a veteran of the diplomatic intrigues of Washington and the Arab world, could deliver what the CIA couldn’t: planeloads of money and arms, and, as one U.S. diplomat put it, wasta, Arabic for under-the-table clout,” it said.

Bandar has been advancing Saudi Arabia’s top foreign policy goal, WSJ reported, of defeating Assad and his Iranian and Hezbollah allies.

To that aim, Bandar worked Washington to back a program to arm and train rebels out of a planned military base in Jordan. The newspaper reports that he met with the “uneasy Jordanians about such a base”:

His meetings in Amman with Jordan’s King Abdullah sometimes ran to eight hours in a single sitting. “The king would joke: ‘Oh, Bandar’s coming again? Let’s clear two days for the meeting,’ ” said a person familiar with the meetings.

Jordan’s financial dependence on Saudi Arabia may have given the Saudis strong leverage. An operations center in Jordan started going online in the summer of 2012, including an airstrip and warehouses for arms. Saudi-procured AK-47s and ammunition arrived, WSJ reported, citing Arab officials.

Although Saudi Arabia has officially maintained that it supported more moderate rebels, the newspaper reported that “funds and arms were being funneled to radicals on the side, simply to counter the influence of rival Islamists backed by Qatar.”

But rebels interviewed said Prince Bandar is referred to as “al-Habib” or ‘the lover’ by al-Qaida militants fighting in Syria.

Peter Oborne, writing in the Daily Telegraph on Thursday, has issued a word of caution about Washington’s rush to punish the Assad regime with so-called ‘limited’ strikes not meant to overthrow the Syrian leader but diminish his capacity to use chemical weapons:

Consider this: the only beneficiaries from the atrocity were the rebels, previously losing the war, who now have Britain and America ready to intervene on their side. While there seems to be little doubt that chemical weapons were used, there is doubt about who deployed them.

It is important to remember that Assad has been accused of using poison gas against civilians before. But on that occasion, Carla del Ponte, a U.N. commissioner on Syria, concluded that the rebels, not Assad, were probably responsible.

Some information in this article could not be independently verified. Mint Press News will continue to provide further information and updates .

Dale Gavlak is a Middle East correspondent for Mint Press News and has reported from Amman, Jordan, writing for the Associated Press, NPR and BBC. An expert in Middle Eastern affairs, Gavlak covers the Levant region, writing on topics including politics, social issues and economic trends. Dale holds a M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Chicago. Contact Dale at dgavlak@mintpressnews.com

Yahya Ababneh is a Jordanian freelance journalist and is currently working on a master’s degree in journalism, He has covered events in Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Libya. His stories have appeared on Amman Net, Saraya News, Gerasa News and elsewhere.

[opentalk]

Why a nervous Hillary Clinton is remarkably silent on Syria

[ssaftler]

Boy, listening to Lurch today, I can’t help but wonder if we are going to have a cage match between the two most recent heads of the Department of State come 2016?

Truth to tell, if Kerry sounded as good in 2004 as he does now on the Syrian problem, Dubya could have been a 1-termer like Daddy Bush.

[aquila48]

“Obama’s devotion to the humanitarian interventionist position has never been as clear, as single-minded, as those of his most famous foreign-policy advisers, Samantha Power and Susan Rice. Obama is, in his usual way, more guarded than that, more complicated, a complex algorithm into which both idealist impulses and realist ones are input. And so this unusual military intervention — extremely limited and transparent and targeted, triggered by humanitarian concerns but not exactly humanitarian in its aims, couched in the language of universalism but supported only by a few allies, accompanied by public declarations that it was not expected to alter the trajectory of the larger conflict — feels in some ways more true to the president than that particular framing of the Obama doctrine ever did. This three-day exercise does seem, in some meaningful sense, Obama’s war.”

After reading that I feel like I just waded through a chin-high pile of crap.

[The Sons of Liberty]

Libya was a success? Ask the Americans who were murdered there by terrorists.

Keep in mind this is the bizarro world of Baraq Hussein mohammed 0bama.

- In this world economic recovery means millions more on food stamps.
- Al queda "on the run" means we've given up, and are taking our ball and going home, (aka unilateral surrender).
- And "Affordable Health Care" means that the costs only quadruple.

So to the libs, Libya was a diplomatic success. At least we haven't been nuked by Iran - yet.

[colorado tanker]

Keep in mind this is the bizarro world of Baraq Hussein mohammed 0bama.

Yep. Here we are four years into a truly jobless "recovery" and I have yet to read that phrase in the MSM.

[ops33]

“During the NATO intervention in Libya, to date perhaps the great success of Obama’s foreign policy...”

Perhaps we should ask the former US ambassador to Libya what he thinks of this great success.