Selling Syria

It was a day of surprises, the week after Barack Obama surprised everyone. Yes, that Assad used chemical weapons on his own people – civilians, including hundreds of children – but with the Brits deciding they’d rather not join us in bombing Syria, to make them think twice about ever doing that again, and Congress saying don’t do it, or that bombing’s not enough, depending on who you asked, and with the American people more than a little wary of the whole idea, Obama came up with a new plan. Everyone was full of advice – do it, don’t do it, think of this consequence or that, don’t be a jerk and make the decision all on your own, be a man and do it all on your own, be bold, or be careful. Everyone had an opinion, and Obama turned the tables on them. Maybe everyone should put up or shut up. If you think this is so easy, or that the right thing to do is so damned obvious, vote for what should be done. Talk is cheap. You say that Congress should make such decisions? Fine – decide. He told them he had decided to attack Syria, in a limited way, but he’d hold off until Congress voted on that, one way or the other. Obama will go ahead with an attack even if Congress rejects it, or he might not – but he could. That’s beside the point. It was time to get Congress on record. Simply whining and complaining won’t do now. Take a position, damn it. Stand FOR something for a change.

Many thought Obama was crazy, or avoiding his responsibilities, or at the very least foisting his own problem off on Congress – he never should have said anything about a “red line” and now he’s demanding that Congress bail him out. It’s pathetic. Students of presidential history saw something else – Obama, by asking Congress to approve his decision to attack Syria for what they had done, was reversing fifty or more years of a growing trend that gave us what many call an imperial presidency, where congress doesn’t matter at all. Obama taught constitution law and knew that was not what the guys who wrote the Constitution had worked out. Congress should decide whether we go to war, or not.

The current compromise on that is the War Powers Resolution of 1973 allowing that a president could take military action all on his own, under certain circumstances:

The constitutional powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, are exercised only pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.

These are the only three conditions under which a president can legally enter into hostilities. The only condition that does not involve Congressional authorization is the third one – and there the president has sixty days to explain himself to Congress or stop whatever he’s doing. That’s fairly simple, but that third condition had been stretched to include most anything. We did invade Granada, and Panama.

That may not fly now. Bashir al-Assad using poison gas on his own people is not an attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces. That Assad has such poison gas and is willing to use it might indicate he’d use it elsewhere, on Israel, or on our troops over there, or he might supply al-Qaeda and other nasty folks with that stuff, which obviously makes him a threat – but all that is hypothetical, and there’s no emergency here. John Kerry has been making this hypothetical argument about Assad and his poison gas, with great urgency. Assad might do many things. But you can only stretch that War Powers Resolution so far. You need proof that what you’re saying isn’t a hypothetical at all – you need evidence. You need a smoking gun.

Ten years ago the Bush administration saw that same problem, and they decided to tell us that it was madness, or suicidal, to wait for a smoking gun, because that smoking gun could come in the form of a mushroom cloud – and thus we were off to rid the world of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, which he didn’t have. Kerry must remember that embarrassment. That’s why he tends to fall back on his primary argument – Assad has violated international norms, codified in treaties which have been in place since the twenties, for good reason. No one should use poison gas. The world agreed on that, so Assad must be taught a lesson. We should step up and teach him that lesson, even if no one else will. It’s our responsibility.

Try telling that to Congress. The Republicans have long had only one aim – to make Obama look like a fool, no matter who gets hurt. Let him twist in the wind. He screwed up this Syrian business all on his own. Democrats are generally wary of war, and too many of them got burned by voting for the Iraq war, so they wouldn’t look like total wimps. They should have followed their instincts. They don’t want to get burned again, not this time. Both parties also know the American public is sick and tired of war – more than a decade of our fighting over in the Middle East with nothing much to show for it, save for the thousands of our dead and two or three trillion of debt. They want nothing to do with anything that even hints at a third war over there. They sense that limited airstrikes could lead to much more, and they vote. Everyone in both parties knows that.

This should have been a loser, but the surprise of the first day back to work in Washington was that Obama was winning folks over:

President Barack Obama’s push to retaliate militarily against Syria took a major step forward Tuesday after securing a forceful endorsement from House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). Boehner’s remarks in favor of intervening to punish the regime’s alleged use of chemical weapons dramatically alter the politics in Congress as it gears up for the debate.

“The use of chemical weapons is a barbarous act,” Boehner told reporters after meeting with the president and congressional leaders at the White House. “This is something that the United States as a country needs to do. I’m going to support the president’s call for action. I believe my colleagues should support this call for action.”

“I appreciate the president reaching out to me and my colleagues in the Congress over the last couple of weeks. I also appreciate the president asking the Congress to support him in this action,” the Speaker said. His remarks were backed by his deputy, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), who also announced his support for Obama’s mission shortly after the morning meeting at the White House.

That must have been one hell of a meeting, because it changes a whole lot on the Republican side:

Republicans, in particular, are deeply divided between the foreign policy hawks and a growing strain of isolationists within their tent. (Democrats are also split between war-weary progressives and humanitarian interventionists.)

This sets up a potentially nasty debate between GOP leaders and conservatives like Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI), who have been making the case against intervening. The debate will also test the instincts of 2016 presidential contenders like Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) to remain on the opposite side of Obama.

Somehow Obama got the Republicans into another fight, among themselves:

The full-throated support from the Speaker was unusual. He has tended not to wade, head-first, into internal GOP debates, instead preferring to mediate and let his conference arrive at its own conclusion, which he would support. In this case, he and his No. 2 have stuck their necks out in a way that gives them ownership over the President’s mission. It’s now up to them to make sure GOP members don’t block Obama.

That’s going to be nasty, and Kerry and Friends spent the afternoon with the Senate:

Appearing before a Senate panel, Secretary of State John F. Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel struggled at times to frame a proposed military strike on Syria as tough enough to be worthwhile but limited enough to guarantee that the United States would not get dragged into another open-ended military commitment in the Middle East. Nonetheless, they assured lawmakers that the administration was not asking for congressional backing to “go to war,” as Kerry put it.

“Our military objectives in Syria would be to hold the Assad regime accountable, degrade its ability to carry out these kinds of attacks and deter it from further use of chemical weapons,” Hagel said in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Kerry said such a strike would have a “downstream” effect of limiting President Bashar al-Assad’s conventional military capacity. Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said his goal would be to leave the regime weaker after any assault.

“On this issue, that is the use of chemical weapons, I find a clear linkage to our national security interest,” said Dempsey, who has long been skeptical of the wisdom of military intervention in Syria. “And we will find a way to make our use of force effective.”

In short, they struggled with turning the hypothetical real, but the sense was the Senate will back Obama on this, although there were rough patches:

At one point during the Senate hearing, Kerry said the congressional resolution authorizing force should not absolutely rule out the deployment of U.S. troops – a remark that he was forced to clarify after the objections of some members of the panel.

“Let’s shut that door now as tight as we can,” Kerry said. “All I did was raise a hypothetical question about some possibility, and I’m thinking out loud about how to protect America’s interests. Whatever prohibition clarifies it to Congress and the American people, there will not be American boots on the ground with respect to the civil war.”

One must be careful. This is a tricky business, but things are moving:

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday will consider a newly drafted resolution to authorize military force against the Syrian government that specifically rules out any commitment of ground forces and would narrow the time frame for action to no more than 90 days.

The panel’s top Democrat, Chairman Robert Menendez (N.J.), and top Republican, Sen. Bob Corker (Tenn.), reached an agreement on revisions to a resolution, which was sent to Congress by the White House on Saturday and was swiftly criticized by lawmakers in both parties as too broad.

The new language calls for the use of force “in a limited and tailored manner” against military targets in Syria for the purpose of responding to the Syrian government’s use of “weapons of mass destruction,” to deter the future use of such weapons and to degrade the nation’s capacity to use them in the future.

Congress’ authorization for the use of force would expire 60 days after it was approved, but the resolution would allow the president to extend the authorization by 30 days if he notified Congress that it was necessary and if Congress does not vote to forbid an extension.

The resolution also calls for the administration to provide within 30 days to key committees an “integrated” strategy toward achieving a settlement to Syria’s civil war.

It may be too broad, or the timelines too specific, but it will pass, with a little tinkering, and the House will agree to this too. This seems to be a variation on the War Powers Resolution of 1973, tailored for this special circumstance, and Obama is fine with that:

Obama said Tuesday that he would welcome changes to the initial resolution, “so long as we are accomplishing what needs to be accomplished, which is to send a clear message to Assad degrading his capabilities to use chemical weapons, not just now but also in the future.”

The momentum shifted, which renders Daniel Dreher at the American Conservative quite exasperated:

Unless there is a rebellion in the Congressional ranks, in both parties, we are going to do this thing. We are going to bomb Syria to make Syria safer for al-Qaeda and other Islamists. This country never, ever learns.

On the other hand, Steve Benen isn’t so sure this thing will pass:

With Boehner and Cantor endorsing the president’s position, GOP lawmakers will obviously have to consider whether to embarrass their own leaders while also embarrassing the president. They might very well do this anyway, but at a minimum, it should give rank-and-file Republicans pause. Indeed, if there’s a contingent within the caucus that’s inclined to follow the leadership’s call, and there’s a similarly sized element of House Democrats who’ll follow House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) lead, then the odds of the chamber approving a resolution are probably slightly better now than they were a few hours ago.

Benen thinks this is still up in the air, but at the New Republic, John B. Judis sees a big change in Washington:

If Obama does win authorization in the House and goes ahead, he will have scored an immense political victory – one that would bode well for the budget and debt battles to come. To succeed, he will have to split the Republican Party that, to date, has presented a fairly united front in the face of his proposals.

It will be the end of all the pointless gridlock, things will be able to get done now, but at the American Conservative, again, Scott Galupo says not so fast there:

If, as I suspect, a majority of Republicans vote aye on a strike against the Assad regime, they might feel emboldened to confront Obama on the domestic front. If politics stops at the water’s edge of foreign policy, as the cliché goes, Republicans will have earned a measure of good will from the media, and even, to a lesser extent, from the Obama administration itself. With Syria behind them, Republicans could thus reenter the budget and debt ceiling debates with renewed resolve: Okay, Barack; we’re on this side of the water’s edge again.

Yep, this may be a special case. Don’t expect such a thing to happen ever again, and there are still uncomfortable questions that must be asked, and David Frum, one of George W. Bush’s speechwriters, asks a good one about subtle hidden costs:

A Syria campaign is being advertised as comparatively cheap in money and American lives. We’re promised “no boots on the ground.” But there’s another cost in danger of being overlooked: the opportunity cost.

The president, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense and other top officials have only so much time and energy. If they commit to resolving the Syrian civil war, inevitably they give second shrift, or third shrift, or worse to many other concerns of arguably greater importance to the region and the world.

Egypt, for example, seems to be heading toward the same civil strife as Syria. Who is developing the plan for helping to prevent that outcome? How much high-level support and attention are they getting?

Opportunity cost is an issue few consider, but it matters here, and Dave Schuler thinks of a few more quite logical questions:

Assume an attack on Syria is unsuccessful in the sense that Assad continues to use chemical weapons after the attack. What then?

Assume an attack on Syria is successful, Assad stops using chemical weapons (he might have done so anyway), but he is able to defeat the rebels without them. What then?

Assume an attack on Syria is successful, Assad stops using chemical weapons (he might have done so anyway), he is unable to defeat the rebels outright, and the civil war just continues. What then?

Assume an attack on Syria is successful and Assad, hamstringed in his attempts to preserve his regime, is ousted by the rebels. The rebels are radical Islamists. What then?

We attack Syria. Syria, Iran, or both retaliate by attacking Americans or American interests in the Middle East using asymmetric warfare techniques. What then?

We attack Syria. An American aircraft carrier is sunk by asymmetric warfare techniques (that’s actually occurred in war games of conflict in the Middle East). What then?

No one seems to think of these things. We’re going to attack Syria. We’ll see what happens next. It’s a plan, sort of – but obviously we can take care of what happens next. Our military is awesome.

That might not be so, as explained in the National Review by Mark Steyn:

The consummate interventionist Robert Kagan wrote in his recent book that the American military “remains unmatched.” It’s unmatched in the sense that the only guy in town with a tennis racket isn’t going to be playing a lot of tennis matches. But the object of war, in Liddell Hart’s famous distillation, is not to destroy the enemy’s tanks (or Russian helicopters) but his will. And on that front America loses, always. The “unmatched” superpower cannot impose its will on Kabul kleptocrats, Pashtun goatherds, Egyptian generals, or Benghazi militia. There is no reason to believe Syria would be an exception to this rule.

It won’t be. The airstrikes will be over soon enough, by law now, and if they’re not enough anything else we do will go just as well as all that Steyn lists. By being strong we’ll be weak, but then Obama is winning over all these folks by telling them that America cannot appear weak, and each of them cannot appear to be weak, because appearing weak ends political careers. There’s the moral argument, and the geopolitical argument, but in the end the political argument is all that matters.

At American Prospect, Paul Waldman sums it up nicely:

I’m paid to have opinions, and I can’t figure out what my opinion is. On one hand, Bashar Assad is a mass murderer who, it seems plain, would be happy to kill half the population of his country if it would keep him in power. On the other hand, if he was taken out in a strike tomorrow the result would probably be a whole new civil war, this time not between the government and rebels but among competing rebel groups. On one hand, there’s value in enforcing international norms against certain kinds of despicable war crimes; on the other hand, Assad killed 100,000 Syrians quite adequately with guns and bombs before everybody got really mad about the 1,400 he killed with poison gas. On one hand, a round of missile strikes isn’t going to have much beyond a symbolic effect without changing the outcome of the civil war; on the other hand, the last thing we want is to get into another protracted engagement like Iraq.

In short, we’re confronted with nothing but bad options, and anyone who thinks there’s an unambiguously right course of action is a fool. So it’s a lot easier to talk about the politics.

Obama seems to have known that, and he tossed this to Congress in order to use the self-serving politics of a few key players to do the right thing, if it is the right thing. The matter seems settled. We attack Syria, a bit, and then we stop – and no one knows what happens next. No questions were answered.