The Obama administration is only beginning its second term, but it is already clear that its mishandling of Syria is turning out to be one of its biggest foreign policy failures. The evidence accumulates every day–whether in the form of more dead bodies piling up in Syria, or more refugees crowding neighboring countries, or more foreign jihadists rushing into Syria. Just yesterday the New York Times ran this interview with Hajji Marea, one of the most potent rebel commanders to emerge out of the fighting, who is quoted as follows:
“America keeps silent,” he said. “The way we see it as Arabs: If you are silent, then you are agreeing with what is happening.”
Sitting nearby, Abdel-Aziz Salameh, Al Tawhid’s political leader, warned that time was running short for the United States. “All the world has abandoned us,” he said. “If the revolution lasts for another year, you’ll see all the Syrian people like Al Qaeda; all the people will be like Al Qaeda.”
As some of us have been saying since the start of the revolt, there was nothing inevitable about the growing prominence of al-Qaeda; the extremists might have been sidelined by a more active American policy of support for the more moderate rebel factions.
The Times reveals this morning that this was precisely the policy option advocated by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and CIA Director David Petraeus last summer. “But,” the story continues, “with the White House worried about the risks, and with President Obama in the midst of a re-election bid, they were rebuffed.”
In other words, President Obama was so committed to his “tide of war is receding” mantra that he was willing to ignore a growing war in Syria so as not to run political risks during his reelection. The proposal to arm the rebels might have been given a serious look after the election were it not for the scandal which brought down Petraeus and the concussion which sidelined Clinton.
So now the White House appears committed indefinitely to a “lead from behind” strategy in Syria even as the evidence of that policy’s failure becomes starker every day.
One suspects that Clinton and Petraeus–along with Leon Panetta and, before him, Bob Gates–will be sorely missed in the second term. They were important advocates of a more moderate, centrist, activist American foreign policy. With their departure, there seems to be little standing in the way of a policy of retreat and retrenchment for which the U.S. and our allies are certain to pay a heavy price in the years ahead.
We have no vital interests in Syria. We are overextended and must retrench. Fortress America sounds better than both liberal and neocon interventionism.
In a perfect world where everyone embraced the lessons of kindergarten that would be fine. On the other hand, simply handing over most of the Mideast and West Asia to Iran in an arc of influence that stretches from the Eastern Mediterranean to the border of Pakistan and from the Horn of Africa to Armenia closing our eyes and saying "I wanna go home I wanna go home" is little more than a recipe for disaster. n nThe US has 'interests' in having interests. That is, influence is its own interest. We have little 'strategic interest' in Egypt, which doesn't make, mine,build or pump anything we need. And they're a suck on money and capital for food. But there you have it. We could I suppose watch them burn and murder and starve in a Biblical spectacle but then what? The US had an interest in not letting that part of the world unwind the clock 600 years Why? Because eventually those angry illiterate savages will start murdering people outside their own Bronze Age Paradise. What happens when they kill 8 million Copts or drive 10 million people into exile, half which try to make it to the EU. What happens when all those Syrian refugees decide they've had enough with being third class non citizens to all the 'Palestinians' who are there already and decide to massacre them? I expect the BBC to blame that on the Jews, laugh and move on to the next thing. But at some point there has to be a reckoning of all the genocides our better moral liberal angels oversaw.
good thing Term2 Kerry, Brennan, and Hagel will not be in 'policy-making' decisions…
"…there seems to be little standing in the way of a policy of retreat and retrenchment for which the U.S. and our allies are certain to pay a heavy price in the years ahead." n nWell why don't those allies, who've been calling for intervention, intervene. Does the US have to involve itself in every war everywhere? But your kudos for Hillary are noted.
french are jumping in to their former colonies. iran's been intervening in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, on Israel 's borders for decades. vacuums get filled. not an argument for american intervention hither thither and yon but just as deciding not to decide is a decision & etc.
Right. Because leaning on Mubarak to leave immediately totally helped pro-American liberals to hold off the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. And the US and the West taking an active role in support of the rebellion completely marginalized the jihadists in Libya. Those things happened, right? Or at least not the diametric opposite? r nr nOh.
When is Max Boot going to quit complaining and spend his own money and blood in raising/leading an Army to assist his beloved Al-Q/ Muslim brotherhood ‘Freedom Fighters’ in Syria and elsewhere?
Someday these interventionist/internationalist will be held to account!