Christopher Dickey: An Open Letter to President Obama: Syria Is Not Our War

[flpoljunkie]

An Open Letter to President Obama: Syria Is Not Our War
by Christopher Dickey Aug 30, 2013 8:13 AM EDT
Assad has learned from history that what doesn’t kill him will make him stronger. President Obama, you need to understand that lesson, too.


Privates in the U.S. Air Force fire a mortar near Balad Ab, Iraq, in 2004. (U.S. Air Force, via Getty Images)

Dear Mr. President,

Lets talk about precedents. You’re thinking about doing something in Syria to punish the regime there for using chemical weapons. You say it will be a “limited, tailored” action. But we’ve done this sort of thing before many times in many countries, including Syria, and in almost every case it proved a very bad idea.

I have been a foreign correspondent since 1980 and there has not been a single one of those 33 years when the United States did not engage in an act of war against someone, somewhere. These might be covert actions, like mining the harbors of Nicaragua, or they might be very overt ones, like the invasion of Iraq, but acts of war they were, and there are lessons to be learned from them.

For starters I’d like to suggest, if I may, a couple of general rules:

First, be very wary of the word “credibility” and of those who tell you that yours or the country’s is on the line if you don’t go to war. Of course you want to stop the use of chemical weapons. Of course that is a red line, as you said. But credibility does not come from actions, it comes from results. And nothing you or those in your administration have talked about doing will solve that problem. The only thing Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad really fears is being removed forever from power. And that is not a “limited, tailored” operation.

In the meantime, fewer than 30 percent of Americans support any military action in Syria at all, and the current tracking poll by Reuters/Ipsos shows that as the news from Syria gets worse, opposition to intervention grows greater. The British Parliament’s refusal to go along with Prime Minister David Cameron’s plans to join you in military action reflects not only British opinion, but world opinion. Conor Friedersdorf, writing in the Atlantic blog, is exactly right when he says the people questioning your credibility are, in fact, a tiny insular inside-the-Beltway elite who’ve convinced themselves that war, for one reason or another, is more credible than peace.

Nothing could be more ironic. If war imbued a president with “credibility,” then George W. Bush would be one of the most credible presidents in the country’s history. I don’t think anyone believes that is the case.

more...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/30/an-open-letter-to-president-obama-syria-is-not-our-war.html

[CTyankee]

1. Dickey's article is the best I have read on this subject. He makes excellent points.

He's a distinguished and talented journalist whose writings I have enjoyed and appreciated.

This makes chilling good sense. I am especially concerned that he may be right when he says Assad may have actually invited this action by Obama.

I watched Obama explaining his reasoning for this action and I came away feeling he had made very weak arguments.

All of this is giving me a very bad feeling...

[polichick]

2. "there has not been a single one of those 33 years...

...when the United States did not engage in an act of war"

Of course, because the mic MUST have war in order to exist.

Such a sick country.