The snippet below was written by Ernesto Londoño and Ed O’Keefe and published in the Washington Post.
An imminent U.S. strike on Syrian government targets in response to the alleged gassing of civilians last week has the potential to draw the United States into the country’s civil war, former U.S. officials said Tuesday, warning that history doesn’t bode well for such limited retaliatory interventions.I opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and despite the fact that if we go to war against Syria it will largely be for humanitarian reasons, I will probably oppose any such action there, as well. As I have written before, there are no good options in this case. We cannot support Assad for obvious reasons, but for reasons that are equally obvious we absolutely should not be supporting the Islamist forces against him.
The best historical parallels — the 1998 cruise missile strikes on targets in Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan — are rife with unintended consequences and feature little success.
“The one thing we should learn is you can’t get a little bit pregnant,” said retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni...
Barack Obama has an exceedingly clear track record of supporting political Islam in the Middle East and if the US goes to war in Syria it will be supporting Islamist groups in that country, as well.
In truth, I am a bit ambivalent in this case, given how Assad is behaving toward his own people. So, while I was firmly and unalterably opposed to the war in Iraq, I am a bit more squishy on this one. I am, of course, concerned that Israel could easily get swept into the conflict.
The very last thing that we need to see are IDF incursions into sovereign Syrian territory or what would be considerably worse, Syrian military incursions in to sovereign Israeli territory.
In any case, the clouds are darkening and war drums are pounding.
I favor the middle course - we should stay out of the Syrian civil war but destroy Assad's weapons of mass destruction. This is also necessary to keep them from falling into the hands of Al Qaeda.
ReplyDeleteAre there any other good options? No. This is the best we can do to limit Assad's ruthlessness and send a message even though it probably won't change the course of the war or drive him from power.
I agree with you Norman. Syria is making a lot of threats against Israel, along with the cuddly and always peaceful, Iran, but neither one did a thing during the Lebanese war or when Israel destroyed Syria's nuke plant so I suspect Israel is pretty safe and it's all a lot of good old Arab bluster.
ReplyDeleteThe mood on the left is of course WW3 and ARMAGEDDON!!!!! I just don't see it. So, emasculating Assad is probably a good choice...a limited action with specific targets. There was an unsourced leak today somewhere in the news today that said that is exactly what Obama intends.
President Obamlet
ReplyDeleteTo strike, or not to strike: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous Assad,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To attack: to dither
No more; and by attack to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That Syria is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d.
http://neoneocon.com/2013/08/29/president-obamlet/