So what has happened?
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 10-7 to approve an authorization resolution to be brought to the Senate floor for debate. This was expected, though - as was the myopic grandstanding by certain Senators who are positioning themselves for a GOP Presidential primary in 2016. But, I digress.
What is not expected is in what direction the House of Representatives will go- considering how hostile they are to the Obama administration. Not only that, the House is and always has been more of a reflection of the American people as a whole, rather than a more detached Senate. With that being the case, I imagine then that it's going to take a total game-changer - like a Syrian missile attack against Israel or the American ships standing by in the eastern Mediterranean - to win enough votes in the House. The public just doesn't have the appetite for another foray into a Middle Eastern crisis.
As such, Obama and his staff are planning a full-court press this week. White House chief of staff Denis McDonough hit the Sunday talk shows yesterday to sell the case for intervention directly to the American people, where he sought to differentiate the case to involve ourselves in Syria from the case to involve ourselves in Iraq 10 years ago. Good luck. Obama, meanwhile, has been at the G20 meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia - oh, the irony - where he has tried, in vain, to acquire commitments from allies which go beyond verbal agreements that the use of chemical weapons on civilians is abhorrent. Apparently, it got testy and it really seems that Obama was the odd man.
Meanwhile, Russia, as Syria's chief benefactor, has turned up its stance to emboldened and almost bellicose. Putin has made it very clear that he supports Syria and has been sending Assad weapons and dispatched three ships to the area "in case of a possible evacuation of Russian citizens from Syria". Two amphibious landing vessels, a reconnaissance ship, and a third landing ship that is collecting unspecified cargo from a Russian port before joining the other three? That's a lot of hardware to evacuate citizens.
Another question I have is what are those landing vessels going to pick up in Syria once they unload their cargo. Could it be more sophisticated weaponry, perhaps the kind that effectively take out planes or even fire missiles at ships waiting out at sea? I doubt Putin would blatantly sell the Syrians the kind of weaponry they could - and, based on Assad's rhetoric with Charlie Rose this weekend, would - be used to engage the Americans head on, but then again Putin is dangerous, is very enthusiastic to project Russian power, and sees himself, and by extension Russia, as a counterweight to American hegemony.
Or might Putin and Assad be cooking something up? It seems as though today our Secretary of State stumbled ass-backwards into a way for Assad to squirm out of an American attack.
"When asked by a reporter in London whether there was anything Assad's government could do or offer to stop a military strike, Kerry answered:
'Sure, he could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week - turn it over, all of it without delay and allow the full and total accounting (of it), but he isn't about to do it and it can't be done.'"
The Russians and the Syrians have taken this seriously and now, apparently, the White House is taking a "hard look". Oy vey...
Where to begin. First, Russia cannot be trusted. The only reason it is involved is because it views Syria as being within its "sphere of influence", a Cold War-era term whose frequent use by Putin suggests his soft-spot for the good ole days of US-Soviet bipolarity. Syria is also its client and is the recipient of countless Russian weapons sales and transfers. Put simply, any deal brokered by Russia is going to aim to get Assad off completely.
More fundamentally, a diplomatic solution to this problem brokered by Russia would equate to a Russian win vis-a-vis the United States. We would be perceived as backing down and not sticking to our word. Furthermore, the perception would be that, as long as you get Russian support, you can do what you want. It would solidify a waning of US influence in the region and waxing of Russian influence. It would, thus, embolden Iran to continue their pursuit of producing a nuclear weapon and God knows what else. It would be opening Pandora's box. Period.
I sincerely hope that the policymakers in Washington - not the politicians themselves, but aides, staffers, and anyone else advising lawmakers - brush this aside for what it is: a ruse; a stalling tactic; a means for the Russians to help Assad escape punishment for killing over 1000 people with poisonous gas. That's what this is all about, right?
But, it looks as though the odds are stacked heavily against intervention. I suspect many a fence-sitter in Europe - and the US - will get with the Russian-Syrian program as a way to avoid yet another tangled mess in yet another Middle Eastern country. But, Obama has said explicitly that there will be consequences to Assad's use of chemical weapons. If he backs down when presented with a laughable Russian-brokered proposal, it will be detrimental to American influence for many generations. This has gotten quite Syri-ous.
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