Analysis - No good military options for U.S. in Syria
Reuters ^ | 4-27-2013 | Phil Stewart and Peter Apps
Posted on 4/27/2013, 9:20:01 PM by haffast
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Despite President Barack Obama's pledge that Syria's use of chemical weapons is a "game changer" for the United States, he is unlikely to turn to military options quickly and would want allies joining him in any intervention.
Possible military choices range from limited one-off missile strikes from ships - one of the less complicated scenarios - to bolder operations like carving out no-fly safe zones.
One of the most politically unpalatable possibilities envisions sending tens of thousands of U.S. forces to help secure Syrian chemical weapons.
Obama has so far opposed limited steps, like arming anti-government rebels, but pressure to deepen U.S. involvement in Syria's civil war has grown since Thursday's White House announcement that President Bashar al-Assad likely used chemical weapons.
After fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Pentagon is wary of U.S. involvement in Syria. The president's top uniformed military adviser, General Martin Dempsey, said last month he could not see a U.S. military option with an "understandable outcome" there.
"There's a lot of analysis to be done before reaching any major decisions that would push U.S. policy more in the direction of military options," a senior U.S. official told Reuters.
That caution is understandable, given the experience of Iraq where the United States went to war based on bad intelligence about weapons of mass destruction. The Pentagon has made repeated warnings of the enormous risks and limitations of using American military might in Syria's civil war.
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Syria Could Crash The U.S. Dollar (UUP)
July 9th, 2012
excerpts:
"One or both of these doomsday catalysts for a U.S. lock down took a giant leap forward in France, Friday. Cold War-like comments made at the “Friends of Syria” conference in Paris by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton toward Russia and China strongly suggest that a showdown between the former Cold War rivals, now to include China, is on. The prize: oil—and by implications the future of the U.S. petrodollar standard and the American way of life.
“I don’t think Russia and China believe they are paying any price at all – nothing at all – for standing up on behalf of the Assad regime,” Clinton told an audience comprised of delegations from more than 60 nations. “The only way that will change is if every nation represented here directly and urgently makes it clear that Russia and China will pay a price . . .”
Auspiciously, delegations from Moscow and Beijing did not attend the meeting.
The U.S. Secretary of State went on to accuse Russia, China and Iran of supporting Syria’s Assad regime economically and militarily, and called upon other nations to comply with UN sanctions levied upon Syria—sanctions which would also include refusing oil shipments from Syria’s vital economic support and trusted ally, Iran.
snip
"Though, Russia and China have already agreed to a peaceful resolution to the Syrian civil war, signing off on the Security Council plan drafted by former-UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, it’s more likely that Moscow and Beijing are playing politics of cooperation to buy more time for the Assad regime. Russia and China do not want regime change in yet another Middle Eastern country for a host of economic and political reasons, of which, the primary one is to stop the U.S. from controlling the region’s oil supplies to Russia’s ally and co-founding member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), China."
Authors John Barry and Dan Ephron of a Sept. 2004 Newsweek article, titled, War-Gaming the Mullahs: The U.S. weighs the price of a pre-emptive strike explain that Syria and Iran have been targets of interest of the U.S. for quite some time, as Washington under the George W. Bush Administration had known that a day would come when the U.S. and China would bang heads for precious crude supplies in the Middle East. Whether it’s the Obama Administration or another neocon U.S. president in control of the executive branch, the petrodollar standard must be defended in the Middle East. The Iranian/Syrian alliance has stood in the way of total U.S. dominance in the region, but now the matter has become urgent following Iran’s announcement in Feb. 2012, that it has broken ranks in the petrodollar scheme. It now will not accept the dollar as payment for Persian oil.
http://etfdailynews.com/2012/07/09/syria-could-crash-the-u-s-dollar-uup/
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3013225/posts
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Mark