Let me state from the outset that foreign policy is not my strong suit — it is not a topic about which I have an extreme passion. I’m much more focused on state and local politics more so than so the politics of the nation. It is not a coincidence that I started a website on the politics and policy of (a rather large) state. I throw this out there for two reasons. The first is to highlight that it is a rare occasion indeed when I take the time to opine on a matter of international affairs. The second is that the way that I present my thoughts in this column will probably sound less sophisticated and articulate than a similar column written by someone who is totally plugged into worldly matters. But I’m okay with that!
The fact that America is now embroiled into a real-life discussion about whether or not to engage our military capabilities in a civil war in Syria is mind boggling.
What a remarkably dumb idea.
Rewind to the administration of the last President — George W. Bush (I could go back further, but this will suffice). America plunged into a full scale war with Iraq, to go after Saddam Hussein on the basis that this scumbag and his thugs were killing people, allegedly administering chemical and or biological weapons of mass destruction. All those years later — a couple trillion of our national debt lies at the alter of this war, and nearly 4,500 American soldiers paid the ultimate price. Ultimately we did not find any WMD’s and I can’t speak for anyone else, but the whole thing left a sour taste in my mouth. In retrospect, it’s relatively easy for me to say that if we knew back then what we know now, we may have engaged against the Hussain regime, but it would not have looked at all the way that it did.
Still there are a great many, especially in my own party, who fiercely defend the United States’ war in Iraq as a superior decision, and some look at me like I am unpatriotic for suggesting otherwise. Seriously.
I won’t get into the weeds on Afghanistan, but suffice it to say that there is another war where American lives have been lost, vast sums of money have been spent, but if there was a compelling rationale for such a massive military assault in that obscure country, neither President George W. Bush nor President Obama made the clear case to this American.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that that some sort of focused and limited overt or covert American attack on certain leaders or factions within Iraq and Afghanistan would have been out of line — but I simply have not been convinced that these massive military operations were worth it. I think I was ready to bring home our troops from Afghanistan before they even got there. There’s a big disconnect here. This was, in my mind, a failure of multiple Presidents to articulate a compelling narrative to the American people.
This is not complicated. All United States foreign policy decisions, especially those that would commit American troops or expend substantial taxpayer resources, must be made asking the question, “Does this action advance the just interests of the United States?”
This seems like a good time to point out that I do not consider myself to be an “isolationist” — I do believe that there is a leadership role for America to play in world. I do believe that an important part of our nation’s ability to protect itself from external threat is to have alliances, and to necessarily demonstrate that we are not a nation to be, for lack of a more artful term, screwed with. I also believe that you cannot have true allies if you are not willing to step up if those allies are in need. But I have to tell you that by the end of the George W. Bush administration I was done with the idea that we could fly a banner of “American Exceptionalism” and under it justify playing “SimPlanet.”
I should probably say that after I hear a speech from former U.S. Ambassador John Bolton I feel like maybe we need to be more aggressive in our foreign policy, and when I hear from Senator Rand Paul, I think that we are being too aggressive. I don’t know if this because I am more swayed in this area of policy because it is not one where I feel exceptionally educated — or maybe it highlights the complexities of foreign policy and the inherent challenges of trying to apply a consistent conservative domestic ideology to foreign affairs.
Maybe to put it another way — I am not in agreement with the foreign policy of Ron Paul, nor that of Condoleezza Rice. I’m in between. But I suspect that I am joined in this spot by most Americans.
Over the past four years I have been underwhelmed by President Obama’s foreign policy fumbles — ranging from his telling Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on an open mic that he would have more flexibility to negotiate missile defense after his re-election, to his lack of clear support for Isreal (noting the difference between his rhetoric and action), to his underwhelming responses and actions surrounding the Arab Spring uprisings.
All of this background and lead up is important to understanding my complete lack of confidence of President Obama to handle this Syria predicament and the insanity of U.S. military action there.
I don’t know any citizens of Syria — or at least I don’t think I do. I feel genuinely bad for the people in that nation where living conditions are terrible, and human rights violations are the norm — and this before you throw on top of it a nasty, bloody and deadly civil war. There clearly is no “righteous side” in this war. To quote from former California Republican Party Chairman Tom Del Beccaro in a recent column he penned, “Assad is a heinous dictator who has driven his people to the edge. On the other hand, the al Qaeda element is growing in the ranks of the rebels and, if they triumph, could represent an Al Qaeda state in the heart of the Middle East. Neither eventuality is good for the Middle East, the U.S. or the World.”
Obama threw out his infamous “red line” comment indicating that if he found out that Assad was using chemical or biological weapons on his people that this would prompt the U.S. into action — which immediately caused me to wonder why there was a red line for Assad in Syria but not Rwanda, Darfur, Cambodia — places where mass genocide is taking place? But I’ve already told you what I think of Obama’s foreign policy smarts.
About a week ago I was reading a copy of the Wall Street Journal and my friend Dion Nissembaum, a reporter there, had an entire article (complete with info graphics) on all of the various U.S. options for use of missile attacks on hard targets within Syria. I thought to myself that this makes no sense at all — by the time we strike Assad will have moved civilians into military areas, and moved military assets into neighborhoods.
More significantly, this is a civil war between two factions that are filled with America-haters. Sure, I have heard this narrative where the rebels fighting Assad are themselves divided between al Qaeda operatives and more moderate factions. It’s above my pay grade to figure out how things would sort themselves out if that “side” won out — but I’ve certainly been conditioned to believe that what is good for al Qaeda is, well, bad for America.
I was actually pretty pleased to hear the President announce that he would seek the consent of Congress as a pre-condition for using military force in Syria. I think the Constitution tequires it. But this also actually seemed like a great “out” of a pickle for the President. If the President could not get the authorization, then it’s not on him that he could not “make good” on his red line threat. But if Congress were to “green light” some limited use of American military resources in Syria, then whether it went well or poorly, it would be a “bipartisan” effort, with blame falling on both major political parties.
Based on what I know, I am not even close to being convinced that engaging our military in Syria is a good idea. In fact, it seems like quite a bad one. But Obama is on his way to what he wants — with the announcement yesterday that House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor will support his request for a resolution from Congress supporting military engagement….
Are you kidding me?
Whatever they know, they should spend some time telling the rest of us. Because Boehner, Cantor and any other members of the U.S. Senate and House that support the President’s request are way out of touch with the American people. My friend, Yolo County Supervisor Matt Rexroad, sarcastically tweeted over the weekend, “When my twitter feed is more about college football than Syria, America should not go to war.”
I think that sums it up. The case has not been made to the American people.
And so, as a partisan Republican, I am frustrated that on an issue where our party should be siding with the American people, and where we could be really highlighting this President’s foreign policy foibles — instead we seem ready to once again snatch defeat out of the jaws of a potential political victory. Now I find myself crossing my fingers that common sense will prevail between enough Republican and Democratic members of Congress to vote down an authorization, however limited, to use U.S. military resources in Syria.
And while we cannot put a price on the loss of even one American life, we certainly can put a price tag on a single Tomahawk missile, which is is north of a million taxpayer dollars. Oh well, I guess as each one slams into a questionable target, we can just throw the cost onto the national debt.