Another Doomed Attempt at Middle East War Making

It will come as no surprise to regular visitors to this page that I am not a big fan of our current POTUS. It would be fair to say there is little I find of merit in his presidency, and I am waiting for it to come to a merciful end for America at home and abroad when his second term expires.

I must confess I am baffled by his "management" (if it can be called that) of foreign policy and his almost continual array of missteps in the Middle East. For example, only a month ago he was saying that the ISIS (or ISIL) threat was little more than a bunch of "JV terrorists" who posed no serious threat. He also called it a "fantasy" to think we could arm, train, and field an opposition army to confront them composed of "Islamic moderates" and that he had "no strategy" to deal with ISIS.

And then they started beheading American journalists. Evil, pure evil, was once again presented before us. We now had to take action of some kind, but what? If the intent of the terrorists is to draw us back into the region again, then so far so good. It's working.

Fast forward to this week, as Congress hastily passed yet another "Continuing Resolution" without debate to keep the government running and managed to tack into that bill funding for arming, training and leading what amounts to a bunch of mercenaries who are comprised of the very "moderates" he said a month ago were nothing more than a "fantasy." The most disturbing fact about this week's hastily crafted piece of legislation to confront the threat of ISIS is that it passed overwhelmingly in both the House and Senate.

The legislation is designed "to train, arm and fund the elusive 'moderate' Muslim rebels" fighting to overthrow the Assad regime in Syria. It's astounding, isn't it? Nobody, least of all Barack Obama, wanted to do it when Assad was gassing his own people, and now it's our US "strategy" in the region.

This latest fantasy now calls for the US to somehow discern who the "honest brokers" who stand in opposition to Assad might be, and then start supporting between 3,000 and 5,000 rebels in the Free Syrian Army. Here we go again. . . that's the centerpiece of an authorization to spend $500 million through December 11, 2014.

Stunningly, the bill passed both houses with barely a moment of debate, and it received more support from Republicans than Democrats. We must be living in the twilight zone now, when Democrats sound like they're more responsible than Republicans.



There were a few "notables" in the President's own party who opposed the plan, like Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA). She called it “lame.” Speier wasn't the only one who noted that former generals are also expressing their opposition. The generals, and even Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) point out the obvious fact that the plan does nothing to cut off funding for ISIS. Said he:

"On Thursday, I voted against the Continuing Resolution that is a product of a dysfunctional law-making process. This resolution tied the authorization for military intervention in Syria to a bill to temporarily fund the entire government. One of the most important and solemn duties we have as members of Congress is to authorize the use of military force and ask the brave men and women in our armed services to put their lives in harm’s way.

"It is a gross dereliction of that duty – and an insult to those men and women – to tack on a military authorization to a must-pass spending bill, just so members of Congress can hurry back home." (Emphasis mine).

The terrorist group earns about $3 million per day on oil income from facilities they now control. What, any reasonable person might ask, does the latest plan do about disrupting that stream of income? Would we blow up oil wells and the roads they use to get the oil tankers to shipment?

Another Democratic Congresswoman, Loretta Sanchez (D-CA), claimed “We simply don’t know if somewhere down the line it will turn our guns back against us.” Ask anyone who knows about what happened in Iraq when we left. Who now controls millions of dollars of our military equipment? We gave it to the Iraqi army, and it's now in the hands of the Islamic State being used to kill the innocents.

Nobody can accurately identify what “moderate” Muslim fighters might look like. Whose definition of that term will we accept before we turn over a half billion US dollars to arm and train them? The Iraqi army threw down their weapons and ran in the face of ISIS.

I heard a comment last week from former U.S. ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, who said the rebels are not focused on fighting ISIS. He said, “Their priority is not the Islamic State; it is the Bashar al-Assad regime. We need to know that going in.”

Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) said he has “seen no evidence that the Syrian rebels we plan to train and arm will remain committed to American goals or interests."

Who would doubt Assad has a track record of supporting terrorism and is a brutal dictator? Certainly, he is in the same class as Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. So what does America do in the face of new dictators rising to power? Do we intend to take out everyone anywhere they emerge? Our track record so far suggests that when we take down a dictator, the country we "liberate" then falls under the control of even more radical Muslim terrorists. Iraq and Libya are classic examples.

There are still a few Republicans who opposed the President’s “lame” plan. Even though a vast majority (78) in the Senate) favored authorizing the funding, Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rand Paul (R-KY) joined Mike Lee (R-UT) in vocal opposition about the funding of Syrian rebels.

Once again, the Constitution provides that the military will always be controlled by the civilian population. That is wise. However, politics tends to trump good policy making when it is not accompanied by robust debate over the decisions to send American forces abroad into foreign intrigues our Founders warned about. So, acting in response to the horrifying images of their beheadings of the journalists that ISIS broadcast for all the world to witness, Congress acted to "courageously" stand up against the obvious evil. Congress can now go home and say they "did something," even if the plan seems doomed at the outset to fail.

And so the onward march of war in the last days continues unabated, it seems. More money, more lives lost, more treasure squandered, and more havoc wreaked.

For a POTUS who started his presidency by proclaiming he was elected to "end wars, not start them," we are now launched on yet another misadventure in policing the world against brutality, evil, and tyranny. May God help us all in that elusive quest.

Putin or Obama as World Champion for Peace and Freedom? Vote Here

In this past week where we witnessed the observance of the 12th anniversary of the events of 9/11/01, many other tangential stories were also grabbing headlines. On the eighth anniversary, I recorded my thoughts about what has happened since that day. Today's post continues to reflect on the aftermath that has changed our national psyche perhaps forever.

President Barack Obama, September 10, 2013

Not the least of these tangential stories was a "bizarre" address to the nation from our current resident of the White House, President Barack Obama on September 10th, 2013. Only a skilled politician like him could have threaded such a delicate needle as Mr. Obama attempted to do. In essence, his message seemed to be we need to rush to bomb Syria to punish their use of chemical weapons, but we don't really want to go to war, and we're going to wait to see if Russia and Syria can agree on a plan to destroy Assad's stockpile of weapons, but we don't know if it's really viable, so we'll wait on Congress taking a vote on it until we can see if diplomacy will work. Oh, and we might even go to the U.N. Security Council for a vote for good measure, but since I think I have the authority to do anything I want anytime of my own choosing, I'll leave my cruise missile laden carriers in the region just in case. "Bizarre" messaging doesn't even begin to describe the scene today.

Wow, this last week was confusing, because it felt more like watching a tennis match at the recently concluded U.S. Open in New York than international intrigue. Every morning this week there has been a new twist on the story line. John Kerry is now in Switzerland apparently trying to take credit for what has now evolved into a "grand strategy" after tossing off a one-liner Putin seized upon to call his bluff. Watching Obama and Kerry is more like watching an episode of the old Keystone Cops, while the world waits breathlessly to see the outcome. One wonders after assessing the reactions to his performance if his best days of speech making are behind Obama. I lost interest in his soaring rhetoric a long time ago, don't know about you. Honestly, looking back on it, does anyone yet understand or know what he really intends to do? Is it bumbling amateurism at work here, or part of some diabolical plot against stability in the world?

Sensing accurately there is a gaping void in leadership in America these days, Vladimir Putin has inserted himself into our politics with an op/ed piece that appeared in the unofficial propaganda arm of the new Russia, The New York Times. In it he takes exception with Mr. Obama's characterization of America as "exceptional". How ironic that it was Obama himself during his election campaigns who routinely attacked his opponents on the political right for using such a phrase, and now as recently as his speech to the nation this week he seems to have embraced it again. These are, indeed, strange days. It appears Putin the Communist has the better of Obama the Marxist. Certainly, the body of the text of Putin's piece is much better thought out than Obama's rambling incoherent "call to action" to the nation other night. Here's the concluding paragraph that has given rise to an immediate reaction within the Beltway from both sides:

President Vladimir Putin

"My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is 'what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.' It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal."

Imagine a Communist leader (I know, you think the Communist Party is dead, but is it?) invoking the name of God, when for 70 years the regime did everything in its power to advance by brute force the cause of atheism! Ask yourself if Putin can now take center stage as the leader for the nations "still finding their way to democracy". May God grant that we may yet be able to find a leader in America who champions democracy and freedom. One may ask rightly if we have such a leader in Obama, but I would assert the world would not be well-served by looking to Putin for that leadership. We live under an "exceptional" form of government, not because we are "better than", but because we are collectively free and continue to oppose tyranny and despotism.

Peggy Noonan, one of my favorite commentators, summed it up this way in yesterday's column at The Wall Street Journal:

"Clearly he [Putin] is looking at President Obama and seeing weakness, lostness, lack of popularity. His essay is intended to exploit this and make some larger points, often sanctimoniously, about how the U.S. should conduct itself in the world. And so he chided American leadership, implicitly challenged its position as world leader, posited the U.N. Security Council, where Russia has done so much mischief, as the only appropriate decision-making body for international military action, and worried the U.N. will 'suffer the fate' of the League of Nations if 'influential countries' continue to take action without authorization.

"He does not doubt chemical weapons were used in Syria but doubts it was the government that used them. It was probably the rebels, he asserts, in an attempt to 'provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons.'

"Still, in general, Mr. Putin made a better case in the piece against a U.S. military strike than the American president has for it. And he did so, in a way, by getting to the left of the president, who he implies is insufficiently respectful to international bodies. Mr. Putin was candid about his primary anxiety — a spillover from Syria that could threaten Russian stability."

As we remember those who fell with the twin towers in the tragedy of 9/11, victims of a savage attack using jet planes and innocent passengers as missiles, may we never forget our resolve on that day to oppose the evil that attacked us. May we never deny the enormity of the problem of evil we still confront. There is little we can do to change hearts and minds determined to destroy us, but we must oppose it and resist it when it comes knocking at the door.

To continue thinking, however, we can embroil ourselves in the foreign intrigues of other nations, and unilaterally install democracy in the far-flung corners of the globe, particularly in the Middle East, now seems fool hearty at best. Remember the dictoms of the "neo-conservatives" with Dick Cheney at the helm? We now have some experience with those forays, as well-intentioned as they seemed. Now, we must ask, will we ever come to the end of the "tit for tat" mentality that says we must intervene whenever we are abhorred with bad behavior from dictators?

We should learn from what has transpired, not repeat it in yet another experiment with overthrowing Assad. To embroil ourselves in a brutal civil war in Syria that has killed over a hundred thousand in the last two years, is insane. At this writing it is anything but clear about who actually used those weapons against their own people.

Here again, Obama and Putin tell a different story - was it Assad and his military, or was it the rebels attempting to frame the government? So far I haven't seen a definitive answer. And where everyone in Syria involved in the fighting seems to be equally culpable, how does America presume to pick and back a winner from half a world away? One need look no further than the installation of the Shah of Iran for an example of failed policy.

If Putin can succeed in putting our current POTUS back in his box where his political opponents here at home have failed to, I'm asking how would that be a bad thing?

Noonan concludes her piece with this sobering assessment: We're not in a hot war or a cold war with Russians, but there's a definite chill in the air. Since its exceptional founding, America has always led the cause of freedom.

But that was yesterday, and even as I am writing this post, word has come there is a deal in place to rid Syria of its chemical weapons. Assad has one week in which to account for them, with an agreement they will be destroyed under international supervision by mid-2014. The deal was conceived and brokered by Russia with Assad's government. And now Putin is headed to Iran at the invitation of the mullahs there to see if he can intercede with America and blunt the U.S. opposition to their nuclear program.

I told you it was a strange world.