Just the Facts

Former U. S. ambassador W. Robert Pearson opens his post at RealClearWorld, “The Syria ‘What If’ That May Haunt Obama”, with the following statement:

On Aug. 21, 2013, the Syrian government murdered more than 1,400 innocent Syrians in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta — including several hundred children — in a nerve gas attack.

It is presented as an unassailable fact. That is, indeed, the U. S. government’s position. Is it true?

Since August 2013, the Nobel Prize-winning Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and a group of weapons experts have produced independent reports which arrived at the conclusion that the attack was perpetrated by jihadis. Over the period of the last two years there have been multiple instances of the use of chemical weapons that were unquestionably by the jihadis, lending credence to those findings.

I don’t know the truth of the matter. I do know that the truth of the matter makes the most difference when your primary argument for more forcible U. S. intervention in Syria is the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people. I hold no particular fondness for the Assad regime. I merely think that stability in the Middle East including Syria is in our national interests, that chaos in the Middle East is against our interests, and the path to stability in Syria resides with the Assad regime.

It might be helpful to try explaining President Obama’s subsequent actions. The closest Amb. Pearson comes is an oblique sideswipe at the president’s motives.

5 comments… add one
  • steve Link

    I doubt we will ever know the truth on the chemical weapons attack. Even if it was Assad, I don’t think our response should be to help ISIS take over the country.

    Steve

  • WarrenPeese Link

    I think it’s pretty clear that Assad murdered 1,300± in Ghouta via sarin gas. He is a war criminal. The OPCW was not mandated to assign blame in Ghouta, but they did so in other areas.
    I think where Pearson misses it is the repercussions of a power vacuum in the event Assad is toppled, just as Obama did not consider the repercussions of a power vacuum left behind by a toppled Gaddafi. And it still remains that Obama damaged his credibility by failing to stand up to his own words about “red lines”, no matter what Obama or Ben Rhodes had to say about it. It was even stupider to make the “red line” comment in the first place if he wasn’t prepared to back it up, which he clearly wasn’t.
    The result is that Putin has outmaneuvered Obama at just about every turn in the Middle East, just expanding the Russian dictator’s sphere of influence. I don’t see how that serves American interests.

  • I don’t see how that serves American interests.

    It doesn’t particularly. But Russia’s interests and U. S. interests don’t run afoul of each other very often unless the U. S. goes out of its way to make that happen. Russia is only a world power by virtue of its nuclear arsenal. Otherwise it’s a regional power.

    Post German reunification NATO expansion is a case in point. It didn’t make the U. S. any more secure but it made Russia a lot less secure.

    Stability in Syria doesn’t conflict with U. S. interests. We should be in material agreement with the Russians on that. But we aren’t.

  • Andy Link

    I’m pretty confident that government forces carried out the Sarin gas attack. The evidence is pretty substantial. The Sarin chemical signature is unique to the Syrian stockpile and the amount of Sarin used would require an industrial production facility which the jihadists do not have.

    I would like stability in Syria as well, I’m just not convinced that Assad can deliver it even with Russian support. I should actually start putting “Syria” in quotes just like “Iraq” because those two political entities don’t, in reality, exist anymore.

    The US has no business supporting Assad or the rebels, this is a fight we should stay out of. Assad has too much blood on his hands, not just from the sarin attack. Civil wars are always messy and it’s inevitable that the Laws of Armed Conflict will get thrown out the window, and this one is no exception. If the Russians really want stability, they are welcome to spend their blood and treasure to try. I have my doubts. Unlike the US, they have a more practical view of their own interests and thus I think they only really care about stability in the western third of “Syria” and could care less about the rest. When and if Aleppo is taken and the government consolidates the provinces along M5 corridor, then I think the Russians will not press much more. If that’s the case, that is the last nail in the coffin for “Syria” as a political entity with is present recognized borders. There is already a de facto Kurdish state in Iraq, a nascent equivalent is forming in Syria.

  • Mercer Link

    Pearson assumes the US has a “unique and moral role” to intervene. I disagree. The Syrian war is not our problem or our responsibility.

    He also thinks the US should enforce a no fly zone at Turkey’s request. I think Turkey, at least before the coup attempt, could easily destroy Assad’s military if it wanted to. If they choose to not to attack Assad I don’t see why the US should do it for them.

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