So much for Obama’s repeated insistence that Assad must go. Indeed, Putin has openly demanded that any negotiation be conditioned on a U.S. commitment to forswear the use of force against Assad. On Thursday, Assad repeated that demand, warning that without an American pledge not to attack and not to arm the rebels, his government would agree to nothing.Assad is making demands - cute. Surely Obama wouldn't agree to this.
Oh never mind:
President Obama will not insist on a United Nations resolution threatening to use force to ensure that Syria lives up to its commitment to turn over chemical weapons, but will seek other tangible consequences for Syria if it does not comply, senior administration officials said Friday.How about an empty threat to round out this farce?
Although Mr. Obama reserves the right to order a punitive military strike on his own without United Nations backing if Syria reneges, the officials said he understood that Russia, because of its veto power in the Security Council, would never allow a resolution that authorized such a use of force.Yet here we are, pretending Syria will disarm, pretending Russia wants to pressure Syria, and pretending that President Nobel Peace Prize will launch an attack without Congressional cover. Keep chatting, boys - the world will admire your indecisiveness.
3 comments:
Despite ten thousand think pieces and news reports insisting otherwise, geopolitics is somewhat more complex and less decisive than the monkeyman fight at the beginning of "2001: A Space Odyssey."
It's odd that more people haven't learned that, after all the supposed black and white certitudes of the War on Terror.
On a scale of 100-0, I'm getting whipsawed between "Hitler" and this "Munich Moment" versus today's deferment of American foreign policy to Putin.
Explain the gray to me.
When a limited, half-assed, symbolic attack is downgraded to a limited, half-assed symbolic settlement, it's pretty much all gray.
Because his reaction to the Syrian crisis has been partly extemporaneous, Barack Obama’s power has been ________. Now that Russia has asserted its interest, the United States can no longer ________. The next time America wishes to impose its will on the world stage, it will instead ___________.
What new, horrible words now go into those blank spaces? This isn't that significant, no matter how much people want to relive "I Love the 70s: Cold War Edition."
When Bill Clinton chose not to intervene in Rwanda because the communal will to do so was lacking, it was an eternal blot on his presidency. Because Barack Obama attempted to intervene in Syria despite the communal will to do so being lacking, that too is an eternal blot on his presidency.
When heads is a blot and tails is a blot, we're talking ink blots. Many analysts can't get past their need to fill their nostrils with the musk of alpha dog. That tells us a lot about them, but not so much about the real balance of powers in the world.
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