Posted on 09/04/2013 5:38:01 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
The Obama team has clearly struggled with its Syria policy, but, in fairness, this is a wickedly complex problem. We need a policy response that simultaneously deters another Syrian poison gas attack, doesn’t embroil America in the Syrian civil war and also doesn’t lead to the sudden collapse of the Syrian state with all its chemical weapons, or, worse, a strengthening of the Syrian regime and its allies Hezbollah and Iran. However, I think President Obama has the wrong strategy for threading that needle. He’s seeking Congressional support for a one-time “shock and awe” missile attack against Syrian military targets. The right strategy is “arm and shame.”
The best response to the use of poison gas by President Bashar al-Assad is not a cruise missile attack on Assad’s forces, but an increase in the training and arming of the Free Syrian Army — including the antitank and antiaircraft weapons it’s long sought.
But our response must not stop there.
We need to use every diplomatic tool we have to shame Assad, his wife, Asma, his murderous brother Maher and every member of his cabinet or military whom we can identify as being involved in this gas attack.
A limited, transactional cruise missile attack meets Obama’s need to preserve his credibility. “Arm and shame” is how we best help the decent forces in Syria, deter further use of poison gas, isolate Assad and put real pressure on him or others around him to cut a deal. Is it perfect? No, but perfect is not on the menu in Syria
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
To feel shame, one would need a conscience. Brutal dictators and their cohorts don’t have one.
Tom F. is a moron.
Is this dude serious? His Arm and Shame plan is actually dumber than 0bama’s Duck and Blame strategy. I prefer my “It aint none of our business” plan.
He is sub moron.
You mean the Al Qaeda/Muslim Brotherhood gang there, Tom?
Really?
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Arrgh. I can't stand it.
Another fool who operates from the premise that what’s going on in syria is somehow America’s problem.
It isn’t. At least for now. Give it time and the incompetence of our foreign policy and it’ll be our problem soon enough.
Worse, Tom F. Is a moron who THINKS he’s brilliant.
In pondering this, asking what a Republican president might have done, an answer does come to mind.
Sponsor a resolution at the United Nations that chemical weapons had been used in this conflict, and as such, without asserting who had used them, ask for a UNSC resolution that all existing stocks of chemical munitions be secured by the UN and removed from Syria, to be maintained for safekeeping in guarded ships in the Mediterranean until hostilities had ended.
A what? A "transactional" missile attack? Apparently Field Marshal von Friedman is thinking past the squalid details of, oh, I don't know, target? He's serious - it's the attack that will preserve whatever credibility 0bama still retains at this point, not what we'd be shooting at. The gesture is the important thing.
This would be hilarious if it weren't so deadly serious, little boys aiming stick guns at an imaginary enemy and shouting "Pew pew pew, I gotcha!" Only this is the real world, and real professionals are going to risk their lives on this idiot sleigh ride of vanity, against people who will be shooting back. Could we please dispense with the amateur posturing and try to respect the military realities? Just this once?
Funny. I never heard this particular excuse for anything after 9/11.
Friedman is wickedly stupid.
What she said, “let Allah sort it out.”
Indeed, let Obama and his supporters deal with it while we get to secede and be no part of this deal.
He’s afraid to go it alone. He needs congress to say OK so when the poop hits the fan he can blame them.
Assad is hardly a “brutal dictator” - he’s protecting the Christians and secularists from al-qaeda backed jihadis
That is really an excellent idea. Well done.
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