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President Obama never misses a chance to “blame it on Bush,” and last night’s address to the nation on Syria was no exception. The reason Obama has failed to win support military action in Syria, the president declared last night, is not because he has failed to lay out a coherent strategy — it’s because of “the terrible toll of Iraq and Afghanistan.” Obama further slammed former president George W. Bush for presiding over “a decade that put more and more war-making power in the hands of the president and more and more burdens on the shoulders of our troops,...

Sixty-one percent of Americans polled, who watched President Obama's prime-time speech, told CNN that they support his policy towards Syria. Since some surveys showed as much as two-thirds opposition to military action against Syria in the days before the speech, the poll suggests that he did what presidents rarely do: change people's minds, if only temporarily. How did he do it? In only 15 minutes, President Obama made his points, simply and straightforwardly. Anyone arguing a controversial case in the court of public opinion can learn from what he said and how he said it:

Russia's proposal for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to place his chemical weapons under international supervision and then destroy them is quickly gaining steam. Assad's government accepted the plan this morning. A few hours later, President Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Francois Hollande announced that they'd seriously explore the proposal. It already has the backing of United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and a growing number of influential lawmakers from both parties. There's just one problem: the plan would be nearly impossible to actually carry out. Experts in chemical weapons disposal point to a host of challenges....

Are Saudi Arabia and Qatar trying to get Obama to bomb Syria back to the Middle Ages so they can run that big gas pipeline through Syria? Is that the real back story here, an attempt by the inscrutable Arabs to pimp America’s military to do their work even as such actions would destroy Assad and support Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood? A “Vanity” posting on Free Republic, dated Sept 6, urges Americans to call Congress and say: “I know about the gas pipeline Saudi Arabia and Qatar want to run through Syria and Assad won’t let them!” The...

A blast from the not-so-far past.

Friday, August 30, 2013 Friday Afternoon Roundup - For It and Against It Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog 0 Comments FOR IT AND AGAINST IT Ten years ago, James Clapper, now the Director of National Intelligence, said he was “unquestionably sure” that Saddam’s WMDs had been moved out of Iraq. Top Iraqi generals stated that the WMDs had gone to Syria. But all that fell on deaf ears. John Kerry’s senate career began with a bang when he traveled to Nicaragua to obstruct President Reagan’s policy of arming the anti-Communist Contra rebels. Now Secretary of State...

"I will not be guilt-tripped to thinking we must act in Syria, because President Obama went off his teleprompter".

Even before President Barack Obama put his plans to strike the Syrian regime on hold, he was losing the battle of public opinion about military intervention. Part of the credit, no doubt, goes to a successful media blitz by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime and its supporters. In an interview aired on Monday night, Assad himself advanced his government's case to Charlie Rose, saying that the United States had not presented "a single shred of evidence" proving the Syrian military had used chemical weapons. Assad has always been able to skillfully parry Western journalists' criticisms of his regime -- and,...

Oh, what a difference a few years make. In 2009, Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize despite barely getting his seat warmed up in the Oval Office. In 2009 current Secretary of State John Kerry called Assad’s Syria “an essential player in bringing peace and stability to the region.” In 2011, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad as a “reformer.” In 2007, then-candidate Obama attacked President George W. Bush for considering military strikes against Iran’s nuclear capability without the approval of Congress, declaring it a violation of the Constitution. A few years later Obama attacked...

Confusion grows over the origin of a potential compromise on Syria as Poland throws its hat into the ring. WASHINGTON — According to a report in the German newspaper Die Welt, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski outlined a Syria chemical weapons deal similar to that proposed by the Russians to Secretary of State John Kerry well before the current deal became public. According to Die Welt, Sikorski called Kerry on August 29th and submitted to him a version of the plan later proposed by Kerry and the Russians. He also reportedly talked about the plan in person with Kerry during...

Putin wants US to take use of force off the table - unacceptable. "Putin: No US strikes for #Syria deal" http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/putin-us-strikes-syria-deal-96559.html?hp=f3 Vladimir Putin: No U.S. strikes for Syria deal - Tal Kopan Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that for the proposed Russian agreement that Syria turn over its chemical weapons to work, the United States must take military action off the table....

Obama is going on a whirlwind media blitz this week in an attempt to sell a very skeptical public on war with Syria. Yet the Washington Post notes: Obama’s top aide says the administration lacks “irrefutable, beyond-a-reasonable-doubt evidence” that skeptical Americans, including lawmakers who will start voting on military action this week, are seeking. Indeed, those who have seen the evidence say that it is incredibly weak. German intelligence also says that Assad didn’t order the attacks. Moreover, President Obama correctly noted in 2007: The President does not have the power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack...

A chemical attack may be launched on Israel by Syrian rebels from government-controlled territories as a "major provocation," multiple sources told RT. The report comes as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov proposed that Syria puts its chemical weapons arsenal under international control for subsequent destruction in order to prevent a possible military strike against the war-torn country. Moscow also urged Syrian authorities to join the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. The offer has already been passed over to Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem, who met Lavrov in Moscow for talks on Monday. “We don’t know if Syria will...

Rebels including Al-Qaeda-linked fighters gained control of a Christian village northeast of Damascus, Syrian activists and residents said Sunday, but government media provided a dramatically different account of the battle, suggesting regime forces were winning. It was impossible to independently verify the reports from Maaloula, a scenic mountain community known for being one of the few places in the world where residents still speak the ancient Middle Eastern language of Aramaic. The village is on a UNESCO list of tentative world heritage sites. The rebel advance into the area this week was spearheaded by the Nusra Front, exacerbating fears among...

As two dramas about the conflict vie for attention at TIFF, normally outspoken actors and filmmakers on hand for the fest remain conspicuously mum on the subject. The conflict in Syria and the increasing likelihood of Western involvement is occupying hearts and minds at this year’s festival. Still, when it comes to Hollywood voices publicly weighing in on the debate over U.S. intervention in the territory, the silence has been deafening. A number of high-profile Hollywood names on hand for the festival, who’ve been outspoken in the past on U.S. military intervention, have been uncharacteristically quiet on the issue. THR...

He turned the ball over underneath his own basket and now here’s the easy lay-up. Maybe the new White House strategy is to lose so much U.S. credibility through Obama and Kerry sounding like morons that Congress has no choice but to support bombing in order to get some of it back. Proposed White House sales pitch: “Vote yes and we’ll shut up.” Hours earlier, in London, Secretary of State John F. Kerry sketched out a similar transfer-of-control scenario, then dismissed it, after being asked by a reporter whether there was anything that Assad could do to avoid an attack....

As Congress debates whether to authorize a strike on Syria in response to Bashar Assad´s use of chemical weapons, much has been said and written about America´s special role in the world. Simply put, the blessings of prosperity obligate the U.S. to enforce the peace it seeks. There is no nobler duty. If the U.S. is unwilling to use its strength to respond to Assad´s crimes, then the defenseless will continue to be slaughtered in Syria, and America risks having similar atrocities visited upon its citizens. To allow the use of weapons of mass destruction to go unanswered would be...

Last week, Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Heidi Heitkamp announced their opposition to American military intervention in Syria, and proposed a 45-day ultimatum for Bashar al-Assad to give up his chemical weapons first.  Barack Obama seemed to dismiss that option last week at the G-20 summit, but ABC News reports that John Kerry may have offered it as a way out of the trap Obama has set for himself: America’s top diplomat suggested in a passing remark that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could avoid a U.S.-led strike if he handed over all his chemical weapons, but the State Department quickly...

WASHINGTON -- In an interview Monday, President Obama responded to a surprising late proposal that could head off a military strike against Syria. The Syrians agreed to a Russian proposal to put their chemical weapons under international control and destroy them. I talked to President Obama about that, and about a threat Syrian dictator Bashar Assad made during an interview with Charlie Rose. SCOTT PELLEY: Can you accept the Russian/Syrian proposal? PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, we don´t know the details of it yet. But I think that it is a potentially positive development. I don´t think that we would´ve gotten to...

Via the Free Beacon, Ed mentioned this already but a foreign-policy soundbite this immortal — maybe the greatest since “leading from behind” — requires video, especially with Assad claiming that his response might not be quite as teeny tiny. Kerry’s Syria pronouncements are aimed at three audiences — the majority of Congress, which worries about mission creep if they greenlight this fiasco; the McCainian hawkish minority, which wants mission creep in the sense that they want more support for the rebels in the name of regime change; and of course Assad and Iran, who need to have the fear...