By Alan Caruba
Who recalls that one of the reasons Americans approved the invasions
of Iraq was the fact that Saddam Hussein had used poison gas to kill
Kurds?
Now we are told that Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s strongman, has used
poison gas to defeat the rebels trying to overthrow him, but the attack
killed civilians and came in the wake of news that Assad has been
steadily gaining ground over the rebels.
The war has seen the slaughter of an estimated 100,000 Syrians. Why use poison gas at this point?
The U.S. was drawn into the Vietnam War with the false assertion that
forces of the north had fired on U.S. naval ships, but it later came
out that the attack was minor and hardly constituted a reason to make
the huge commitment that led to the long war; one that it lost. Lyndon
B. Johnson got the nation into that war with what is widely acknowledged
to have been, at best, an exaggeration of the incident.
The 2003 invasion of Iraq, while America was still engaged in
Afghanistan, was yet another ill-fated decision. Indeed, it can be
argued that after driving al Qaeda out of Afghanistan following 9/11
there was no reason for American military to remain. The U.S. began to
depart Iraq in 2011 and it has returned to chaos as the Sunni-Shiite
conflict grinds on.
Was the poison attack a “false flag” incident intended to draw the U.S. into yet another Middle East war?
Is there any reason to believe that U.S. military involvement in Syria would have a better outcome than Iraq or Afghanistan?
Naturally, though, observers will speculate who might have initiated
the attack, but most certainly one can rule out Russia and Iran, allies
of Assad. The Israelis have no reason to want to see an expanded war in
Syria. Israel has had a de facto peace with the Assad father and son
dictators since the 1967 war.
Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon, would surely want to see a quick end to
the Syrian civil war because all are trying to deal with a humanitarian
disaster involving over a million refugees that have fled the conflict,
but there is little reason to attribute a false flag operation to them.
Would the rebels—an assortment of Syrian freedom fighters augmented
by al Qaeda groups—use poison gas to draw the U.S. and the West into the
conflict? The answer to that is yes.
The most striking attribute of the Obama administration has been its
failure to make any good judgments about the Middle East other than to
get out or “lead from behind.” Much of this is attributable to the
foreign policy advisors he has gathered around him; high level
appointees of his national security council and in the CIA have a very
Islam-friendly attitude that led them to believe that the U.S. could
encourage democracy in a region that has no democratic history to build
upon. His latest appointment, the new United Nations ambassador is
missing in action; no one seems to know where she is.
The fact is that U.S. presidents have been making bad judgments when
it comes to war since LBJ. Clearly, the decisions by Bush41 and Bush43
have not been met with success and, just as clearly, Americans do not
want to see our military committed to another conflict in the Middle
East.
Obama’s decision to support the ouster of Mubarak, the former
Egyptian dictator, led to a short term in office by a leader of the
Muslim Brotherhood that, in turn, led to massive demonstrations against
him and his removal by the Egyptian military. By then the nation was
suffering an economic breakdown with hundreds of thousands facing
starvation. Only humanitarian support from Saudi Arabia has prevented
this. The U.S. continues to dither over aid to the Egyptian military
that has been a reliable ally for decades.
Even Turkey that has had a secular government elected an Islamist who
has become unhinged by events. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan went
from being Obama’s touted friend and partner to an offensive
anti-Semite claiming Israel was behind Syria’s civil war. Obama has
consistently misjudged who to support in the region.
As this is being written, American navel assets are being moved
closer to Syria and American military have set up a command post in
Jordan in the event an intervention is deemed necessary.
Writing in The Washington Times, Judson Phillips says, “This is
Obama’s perfect war. It is perfect because there are no American
interests involved, no reason for America to be involved, and no matter
who wins the Syrian civil war, America loses.”
Most certainly, whether he decides to get in or stay out, it would
come at a time when the Obama administration has forfeited any claim to
leadership in the Middle East and elsewhere around the world. At this
point, that is likely to be seen as Obama’s greatest legacy.
A century ago in 1913, neither Europeans, nor Americans could have
imagined that World War I would begin the following year. The situation
in Syria reeks of the same uncertainties and outcome.
© Alan Caruba, 2013