On most issues, Jeffrey Goldberg has been a dependable cheerleader for the Obama administration. But the president’s feckless stand on the ongoing slaughter in Syria has caused Goldberg to write one of the best takedowns of the president’s inaction I’ve read. The piece, published yesterday in Bloomberg, is a comic gem as it describes how “Obama Hits Syria With Brutal Blasts of Adverbs.”
Some critics say the U.S. has shamed itself by not intervening aggressively on behalf of Syria’s rebels and dissidents.
They’re wrong. The Obama administration hasn’t helped to arm the rebels, nor has it created safe havens for persecuted dissidents. But it has done something far more important: It has provided the Syrian opposition with very strong language to describe Assad’s various atrocities.
The administration’s unprecedented verbal and written sorties against the Assad regime have included some of the most powerful adjectives, adjectival intensifiers and adverbs ever aimed at an American foe. This campaign has helped Syrians understand, among other things, that the English language contains many synonyms for “repulsive.”
This is great stuff, and Goldberg goes on from there to note the absurdity of administration officials repeatedly speaking of their patience being “exhausted” and wonders how worried Bashar al-Assad will be when Washington’s patience is “completely exhausted.” But one wonders why the author of this wonderful riff on Obama’s meaningless tough talk on Syria thinks the president’s equally meaningless verbal assault on Iran is credible?
This is, after all, the same Jeffrey Goldberg who has consistently sought to assure friends of Israel that President Obama’s stance on Iran is more than mere rhetoric though, in fact, it has consisted of little but a collection of ominous adverbs punctuated by defenses of engagement and diplomacy since he took office. Granted, the president has reluctantly embraced sanctions on Iran (though he was way behind France and Britain on this score), but it is fairly obvious that he did so only to maneuver Israel into a situation where it could not attack the Islamist regime on its own.
Goldberg rightly dismisses the notion that Obama’s rhetoric about Syria consists of anything more than lip service, yet he believes Obama can be trusted to eventually escalate his stance on the Islamist ayatollahs from rhetoric to action. When people wonder why many in Israel have little faith in the president’s word on Iran, especially once he gets the “flexibility” that a second term would provide, perhaps we should refer them to Goldberg’s column on the administration’s verbal offensive against Assad.
Bashar Assad's regime castrates children, buries people alive, and rapes women before killing them as a matter of policy, never mind shelling apartment buildings filled with families. n nBut just let a Palestinian be delayed at a roadblock on his way to an Israeli hospital, or allow a family to build a deck off its kitchen on Pizgat Zeev, and all hell breaks loose in Obama-Clintonville. n nWe all have our priorities, after all. n n
What's a "palestinian?"
Jonathan consistently conflates two very separate issues:) can Obama (presuming he is merely a doctrinaire leftist cum academia-seeped internationalist and relaying messages to President-Prime Minister-President Putin solely through brief on-mic chats and not, say, via dead letter drops in Vienna, VA parks) be trusted to take on any bad guys with conventional state lethality backing up their badness? n nNo, he cannot. n nb) will Israel attack Iran using conventional and overt massed force? n nJonathan assumes that there is some inerrant causal link between a "no" to a) and a "yes" to b). n nWhy? n nIsrael still has to calculate how, if a unilateral attack is necessary without O, to finesse O's likely opposition and decide whether there are alternate means to prevent a nuclear Iran; or, even, yes, whether Israel can count on deterrence. n nThe current and likely ongoing political leadership has ruled out deterrence/containment. It may not, even as the O/Ashton P5 1 talks drag on, decide what to do for some time or end up choosing the option of an air operation. But those calculations do not inevitably end up with an air attack in the next year or the year after that. Particularly as important voices within the government believe that Israeli unilateral pre-emption is a sub-par substitute for the western powers taking on their international responsibilities.
We need to stay out of the Syrian mess. Assad is a bad man—-but he is also secular. Those opposing him in the streets are usually religious fanatics. I would rather see Assad stay in power.
ASSAD’S SYRIA IS A WHOLLY OWNED SUBSIDIARY OF IRAN
Rather see Assad ‘The Sensitive Butcher’ remain in power? The so called chin-less wonder is a puppet of Iran and hosts a whole variety of who’s who of international terrorism. He is responsible for the death of tens of thousands of American troops fighting in Iraq. Not to mention Assad’s probable primary responsibility for the murder of Hariri in Lebanon.The takeover of Lebanon by Hezbollah was made possible in large part by generous funds and military transfers of sophisticated missile technology and hardware, software and training by Assad. Assad has got to go along with his Alawite oppressors. What rises in it’s place is another issue. To have done nothing is criminal. Where was The UN, again, when the world needed a moral compass? We are borrowing money from China to prop up The degenerate UN. This also needs to be seriously reviewed.
As far as Mr. Tobin’s analysis regarding Obama’s position on Iran, considering his failure to act on Syria is in place. These are the important elements of Romney’s talking points. Governor Romney’s staff have a top notch resource right here at Commentary. So therefore, they have no excuse but to limit President Obama to one term, just like his mentor, President Jimmy Carter.
The outcome vis a vis intervention or nonintervention is more or less the same either way: civil anarchy or fascism. In the Arab world those are your only two choices and every Arab nation fluctuates between those two.
It is the hypocracy and double-standard, double-speak from The One that is both telling and offensive. Seeing that we cannot win any thanks or respect from ANY muslim nation, no matter what we do – for or against – the radicalized populations, I personally believe we should abandon them to their self-directed fate. We cannot "win" anything there. The Obama administration may have learned this lesson, but it refuses to simply shut-up and mind Our Business. Their Massive Hubris and personal narcissism demands they claim to be better-than-anyone diplomats and masters of World Peace promotion, when the history and facts scream just the opposite.
As I have written before, the civilized people, both Saturday and Sunday, have no dog in this fight. If Assad's opponents win they wsill look either to Saudi Arabia or Iran for support and Hamas and Hezbollah will get tied into them. n nIt all comes down to this: let arabs kill each other! Sell both sides ammunition and get out of hte way!
Let the Arabs kill each other? That is so repugnant. n nAt least we should sell them arms, make some money.
What are you talking about? The world community is standing shoulder to shoulder with Bashar Assad in his struggle to maintain control over Syria. The UN is providing diplomatic cover, Russia is arming him and the US is staying convieniently away. Oh sure they say things, nudge nudge wink wink, but they don't actually do anything that is harming Assad. Token sanctions and harsh words are offered to show world opinion we are on the right side. But Assad knows exactly which side that is. As long as he doesn't emberrass us, we will let him get away with it.