The Incoherence

You know, I honestly can’t see how one can oppose the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and support attacking Syria today while retaining any semblance of coherence. Every argument being made about Bashar al-Assad could be made in spades against the other Ba’athist dictator, Saddam Hussein. Kept a minority in power at the expense of the majority of the people? Check. Ruthless dictator? Check. Invaded neighbors? Check. Used chemical weapons against his own people? Check.

In addition there’s a huge bill of particulars against Saddam Hussein, all supporting getting rid of him. He didn’t pay any special price for using chemical weapons against his own people, something he did to an enormously greater extent than Assad (assuming that Assad is, indeed, responsible). We were maintaining a “No Fly” zone and imposing sanctions before we even knew about it. Unless, that is, you think the justification for the invasion was his use of chemical weapons.

Doesn’t that mean that either Barack Obama was wrong in 2003, he’s wrong now, he was wrong on both, or he’s incoherent? That makes me uncomfortable. Please defend the president’s present position without attacking his position back in 2003. I’m having a hard time getting my mind around that.

12 comments… add one
  • Modulo Myself Link

    You’re basically asking what’s the difference between intervening in a foreign country’s bloody civil war and initiating a bloody civil war in an at-peace foreign country while pretending a contained dictator with possibly a few crappy chemical weapons and a weakened army was a terrorist and/or a threat to American stability.

    I don’t support intervention, but the weird confusion by Americans about the war/peace divide seems never to end.

  • I disagree with that interpretation of Saddam Hussein. He was keeping civil war tamped down effectively by exerting a higher level of brutality. Are you saying that the president is arguing that we should attack Bashar al-Assad because he hasn’t been brutal enough yet?

  • michael reynolds Link

    You don’t see a difference between a full-scale invasion and occupation and a punitive raid with stand-off weapons? Come on, Dave, the difference in scale, difficulty, cost is more that just a difference of degree, it’s a different thing entirely.

  • TimH Link

    I agree: There isn’t a coherent way to explain the differences. One thing is that the President ‘drew a line in the sand’ in a way that really didn’t happen in 2003. (Unless you count Pres. Bush basically saying ‘roll over and drop dead’ as a red line.) That’s the argument I’ve heard from Speaker Boehner and others in the GOP that support the strike: “Because the President said that was the line, we have to do something, because that line has been crossed.” As Jon Stewart noted, that makes our foreign policy look like is being dictated by middle schoolers. (Which may be an insult to the maturity of a great many middle schoolers).

  • jan Link

    Michael is right that there is a difference between a full-scale invasion and a punitive strike, when worded as such. However, with the aggregate of naval vessels building up off Syria’s coastline — U.S., Russian, Chinese, French — the potential of something much bigger happening transcends the words being applied to this punitive strike..

    Add in the ratcheted-up threats from Iran, Israel’s nervous foot tapping as it readies it’s iron dome/military forces, and various terrorist groups like Hezbollah itching to get into the fight, and you have a volatile mixture that could blow up with one stupid misstep. Never underestimate the impact of unintended consequences, especially from the current administration, who seldom seems to factor this into the formulas of their domestic/foreign policy equations and actions.

  • CStanley Link

    The trouble I have with Michael’s distinction (scope) is that if we’re only doing this for credibility, and doing an “incredibly small” strike, then you’ve already ceded credibility. It’s like the parent who keeps threatening to punish but obviously won’t follow through.

    Which would then put us in the position of appearing completely feckless, or going all in to prove that we’re not fexkless. There’s just no way that it stays limited and goes well, at this point.

  • jan Link

    Walter Russell Mead has stepped into the analysis forum, submitting this thoughtful piece on why humanitarian interventionsist get Syria wrong

    First Mead poses some tough questions regarding the future application of using intervention purely on humanitarian grounds.

    If the president really can launch discretionary military attacks on humanitarian grounds around the world at will, we have an elected dictatorship, not a system of limited powers. Is the President of the United States to be the judge, jury and enforcer of international law even when nothing in either US or international law gives him these powers?

    Later in his commentary, Mead dissects Obama’s Presidential style of governance, and how it has led to the present day corner he’s painted this country into, first by indecisiveness, followed by a less-than-circumspect red line declaration, which he’s now having difficulty to garner support for and employ.

    During his time in the White House, President Obama has repeatedly demonstrated a style of decision making that gets him in trouble. Especially when the stakes are high and the issue is complex, the President overthinks himself and tries to split the difference between tough policy choices. He comes up with stratagems that work beautifully on paper and offer well reasoned, moderate alternatives to stark choices. Unfortunately, they usually don’t work all that well in the real world, with the President repeatedly ending up in the “sour spot” where his careful approaches don’t get him where he needs to go.

    This style of strategy is what’s boxed him in and tied him in knots over Syria. He didn’t want to intervene (too risky) but he didn’t want to ignore the carnage completely (too heartless) so he split the difference and proclaimed a red line. He didn’t lay the political preparations for war before the red line statement; again, too risky and too warlike. Instead, he split the difference once again: he made a threat without ensuring that he’d have the backing to carry it out

    .

  • You don’t see a difference between a full-scale invasion and occupation and a punitive raid with stand-off weapons?

    Legally, there’s no difference. Pragmatically, there’s a difference. It’s the difference between being satisfied by a completely symbolic response or not. If you can be satisfied by a completely symbolic response, hitting the Syrian government’s executive offices with a cruise missile is enough.

    But that’s not what the Obama Administration has been talking about. They’ve been talking about a lot more, a target list of well over 150 different sites, a months-long campaign that probably has the objective of disabling Syria’s air defenses.

    I don’t see a distinction in morals or law between that and invasion. And I don’t see how such a campaign can be reasonably guaranteed not to expand.

  • Andy Link

    Modulo Myself,

    I think if you go back further, you’ll see the parallels. After the 1991 Gulf War, we first instituted no fly zones and then no drive zones and in doing so we inserted ourselves into a civil war for ostensibly humanitarian purposes. Those interventions were “limited” and “tailored” so as not to actually threaten the regime, but that also made them enduring. We also conducted several “limited” strikes against Iraqi facilities before OIF in 2003. Sound familiar?

    I wrote this back in Feb 2012 at my neglected blog I don’t think I would change any of the analysis in light of recent events and this seems pretty relevant today:

    There is a fourth option which focuses on punishment as the goal. Although it wouldn’t prevent mass killings, it would “send a message.” I’m talking, of course, about the tried and true punitive raid. For Syria it would have to be pretty big and would likely last a couple of days – look at Operation Desert Fox for an example of what it might look like. The operation would likely strike regime targets and key strategic facilities. It won’t stop the killings, won’t topple the Assad regime, but at least we could be satisfied that we “did something” even if that “something” is counterproductive.

  • steve Link

    Ditto what Michael said. As Andy notes, Desert Fox was pretty successful. There is a huge difference between sending 150,000 troops into a conflict and some cruise missiles. Attacking Saddam many years after he used chem weapons to get him to stop using chem weapons makes little sense. TBH, I think you should handle these as two separate entities.

    Steve

  • Andy Link

    I’m not sure I ever said Desert Fox was successful, but that really depends on the definition of success. In terms of tactical proficiency and operational art it was very successful. One could argue it was successful in destroying what remained of Iraq’s WMD industrial infrastructure, but that’s about it. On the strategic and political level it was irrelevant.

    So yes, there is a huge difference between sending 190k troops vs. some cruise missiles, but one should not pretend one doesn’t lead to the other, especially when official US policy in Syria is regime change. If you look at the historical record, there is a pretty good correlation between regime change and punitive strikes.

    Furthermore, I’m skeptical of the “Goldilocks” argument that tries to “right-size” a strike to achieve deterrence without changing the balance of power in the civil war. Hence Sec. Kerry is simultaneously arguing about how small the strike is while claiming it’s necessary for pretty much any reason he can think of. I do not find such self-serving arguments and changing criteria convincing.

    On a strategic level, Syria is problematic because it is Russia’s client state to a degree not matched by Iraq, Libya or Afghanistan. Here, Russia is playing “hard ball” and why wouldn’t they? In my view it is not worth the strategic pushback we are likely to receive to in order to make a largely symbolic demonstration of our supposed “credibility” or what the raison du jour is.

  • CStanley Link

    Isn’t Russia’s interest (in addition to the naval port) largely due to the natural gas pipeline? I seem to remember that Qatar wanted to run a line through Syria but that would have competed with Russia, and they got Assad to nix the deal.

    Those economic angles seem ripe for diplomatic interventions, but completely neglected.

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