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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsObama Screwed Up
I'm a Democrat, but not a "knee-jerk" Democrat.
President Obama made a mistake when he used that "red-line" statement. Never promise something you're not ready to implement. However, having made that statement, he digs a little deeper by thinking that mere words force him to do something that's wrong. They're only words.
As far as "punishing" Syria, you know who really gets punished--Some poor grunts who don't even know why they're there. And whoever gets caught in the collateral crossfire.
Now I still like Obama. He surely beats what we'd have with John McCain by a long way. And I appreciate that he turned the decision over to Congress.
However, an expansion of military action would impact my future votes.
The Straight Story
(48,121 posts)leveymg
(36,418 posts)But what Obama said was a little less clear.
We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized, the president said a year ago last week. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation.
It was also unclear what the consequences of crossing that red line would be. Obama has cautioned that unilateral action, particularly without a U.N. mandate, may be unwise and could run afoul of international law. In keeping with the strategy he used in seeking international cooperation for airstrikes against Libya in 2011, Obama warned in a CNN interview last week that international cooperation is key to military intervention.
To many, Wednesdays attack outside Damascus would likely qualify as a whole bunch of chemical weapons deployed. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/08/president-obamas-red-line-what-he-actually-said-about-syria-and-chemical-weapons/
What is the context of that speech? According to the NYT, Israel was signaling that if the US did not take a harder line, it would act preemptively as it had done in bombing a Syrian reactor under construction: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/world/middleeast/obama-threatens-force-against-syria.html?_r=3&src=me&ref=world&
His comments seemed aimed as much at the Israelis as the Syrians. Israeli officials have indicated they might intervene if they thought those weapons were on the loose and might be unleashed on their territory.
By hinting that the United States might participate in locating and neutralizing the weapons, Mr. Obama was clearly trying to forestall the possibility of an Israeli move into Syria and the reaction it might provoke.
The Straight Story
(48,121 posts)A Timeline Of Chemical Weapon Allegations In Syria
http://www.neontommy.com/news/2013/08/timeline-chemical-weapon-reports-syria
Timeline of Syria 1918-now
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14703995
kentuck
(111,103 posts)That's what he's making.
MisterP
(23,730 posts)NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)It's a near certainty that he won't be running for President again.
Igel
(35,320 posts)But I don't think it was a mistake like you say.
The difficulty is in having chemical weapons be weapons of mass destruction by definition. To use a WMD crosses a red line. Sure. Okay. Don't know that it calls out for a unilateral assault, but I can see where it would be a real problem.
The first use of sarin was small-scale. It killed no more than an automatic rifle would have killed. A couple of hand grenades would have been as effective. It was sarin used as a weapon of limited destruction.
When the WMD red line was crossed and the culprit IDed as a WLD the entire schema failed. The red line got fuzzy and vaguely pink as it faded. I'm sure it was all very frustrated--Obama said X and then when the preconditions for X to be true weren't actually met in any way but formally he had to back down. Wait. Then there's an actual WMD-ish kind of event. Now that red line is pink and blurred, and it's a chance to do something, the something that we should have done before. But that makes it into a course of action waiting for justification, and those are just plain bad.
It's the same kind of problem we have with incendiary weapons. White phosphorus isn't a WMD. But if you blanket an area with it it's certain a weapon, used en masse, for widespread destruction of a heinous type. We want such use to be thought of as WMD on emotional grounds, but the definition is that it's not.
There's a clash between reason and emotion. We have policies and laws rooted in emotion, but with a veneer of logic and formal definition. That's a difficult combination to make work.
DearAbby
(12,461 posts)since when have we become frightened to use the rule of law?
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)misunderstood his point.