Pandemonium was already ensuing.

Sassenach wrote:Pandemonium was already ensuing.

Did the actions the US took (and words they spoke, also) help the situation in your opinion?

I don't know.

What happened was that first the Brtish and then the American governments backed down from military action in the face of mass public opposition to it. For sure it looks like weakness, but I can't bring myself to say they didn't ultimately make the right decision. Perhaps they should never have put themselves in that position in the first place, but I can understand the perceived need to make a stand on the use of WMDs even if I didn't agree with it.

I'm not keen to be scoring political points on Syria. We probably haven't covered ourselves in glory but I'm not convinced there's much we could have done to improve the situation.

Sassenach wrote:I don't know.

What happened was that first the Brtish and then the American governments backed down from military action in the face of mass public opposition to it. For sure it looks like weakness, but I can't bring myself to say they didn't ultimately make the right decision. Perhaps they should never have put themselves in that position in the first place, but I can understand the perceived need to make a stand on the use of WMDs even if I didn't agree with it.

This is the heart of it. Don't put yourself in no-win situations. I'd say the same about invading Iraq and occupying Afghanistan. I think it had to be invaded, but after dispatching the Taliban, we should have left and then flattened them when they returned. We cannot occupy countries for a decade or longer.

I'm not keen to be scoring political points on Syria. We probably haven't covered ourselves in glory but I'm not convinced there's much we could have done to improve the situation.

Drawing the red line was a mistake. Pushing Mubarak out was a mistake. Helping in Libya was probably a strategic mistake. Kerry's statement, offering Putin an opportunity he seized, was moronic. Failing to see the dynamic, unpredictable nature of the responses to our actions/inactions has led to MORE chaos, not less.

The threat of such things is often more frightening than the reality.

"Smart power" hasn't been too intelligent . . . yet.

For many westerners it's hard to comprehend the evilness of some regimes such as Syria, Iran, or North Korea. We have to see these regimes for what they are, and we have to realize that the regimes that support them (Russia, Iran, China) do so knowingly without apparent consideration of the gross atrocities that they abet. Sometime we westerners get lost in relativity and think was is going on is similar to injustices that we see or have seen in our own countries. But this is different by orders of magnitude.

One positive step would be to help the Kurds set up an autonomous region within Syria and prepare for them to slowly progress towards statehood. They've already accomplished a certain amount of autonomy in Iraq. This sort of progress would be met with hostility in Iran, but who cares? Haven't the Kurds put up with enough of these violent regimes that they deserve to enjoy a nation of their own. I respect that we would have to manage Turkish sensitivities, but we need to do what is right here.

I'm pretty sure I called for military action in Syria on these pages several years ago. The more secular Sunnis would be much more powerful vis-à-vis the regime and al Qaeda if we had done so. We need to stop respecting Russian and Chinese sensibilities when it comes to rogue regimes and need to trust our own moral compass.

Ray Jay wrote: We need to stop respecting Russian and Chinese sensibilities when it comes to rogue regimes and need to trust our own moral compass.

Of course, ultimately, this means more than you might want it to. What about the UN?

Of course, I'm with you. I said that, in a different way. An American President, while not being hostile to the world, has to put American interests first. Somewhere along the way, we forgot that.

Btw, apparently, Iraq wants help from us.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/mid ... story.html

I think it's too early to judge Kerry's stint as SoS. The two big issues he's had to deal with have been Syria and Iran. The latter has only just started and may very well turn out to be one of the most important geopolitical initiatives since Nixon went to China. Granted, it may also be a disaster, but at least he's making the effort and I wouldn't rule out success at this point. With Syria he made the best of a bad job. It was obvious that the administration planned to go to war in Syria, but after the British vote against, which was totally unexpected, resistance in Congress suddenly strengthened and it became apparent that war wouldn't be feasible. The deal with Russia over the WMDs isn't ideal but it was a decent enough (partially) face saving compromise. On the whole I don't think he's doing too badly so far. Certainly he looks good in comparison to Hillary, who did essentially nothing whatsoever over 4 years in the job.

I read an interesting column by Andrew Sullivan in the Sunday Times this week. He basically posed the question "what has Hillary Clinton actually achieved ?", which is quite an interesting question when you stop to think about it. I can't recall anything she did at State that you'd consider to be a major achievement. Her time in the Senate supposedly resulted in 2 successfully sponsored bits of legislation, both of which were the renaming of some federal highway somewhere. Prior to that she completely failed to push through healthcare reform in Bill's first term. That's basically it, over a 20 year career in public life.

Sassenach wrote:I think it's too early to judge Kerry's stint as SoS. The two big issues he's had to deal with have been Syria and Iran. The latter has only just started and may very well turn out to be one of the most important geopolitical initiatives since Nixon went to China. Granted, it may also be a disaster, but at least he's making the effort and I wouldn't rule out success at this point. With Syria he made the best of a bad job. It was obvious that the administration planned to go to war in Syria, but after the British vote against, which was totally unexpected, resistance in Congress suddenly strengthened and it became apparent that war wouldn't be feasible. The deal with Russia over the WMDs isn't ideal but it was a decent enough (partially) face saving compromise. On the whole I don't think he's doing too badly so far. Certainly he looks good in comparison to Hillary, who did essentially nothing whatsoever over 4 years in the job.

In Syria, it was his foolish statement that put Putin front and center. In the meantime, the "face-saving" resolution has led to precisely what Obama reasoned was so vital in Libya: the death of tens of thousands.

In Iran, Kerry has pretended the Iranians are more interested in peace than they have pretended to be.

Now, could both situations turn out well?

Syria: no way. They're already ignoring deadlines, using other means to exterminate their enemies, etc. The President and others said on many occasions that "Assad's days (in power) are numbered." I don't think they meant to add, ". . . in a few more decades."

Iran: maybe, but it is dubious to say the least.

I read an interesting column by Andrew Sullivan in the Sunday Times this week. He basically posed the question "what has Hillary Clinton actually achieved ?", which is quite an interesting question when you stop to think about it. I can't recall anything she did at State that you'd consider to be a major achievement. Her time in the Senate supposedly resulted in 2 successfully sponsored bits of legislation, both of which were the renaming of some federal highway somewhere. Prior to that she completely failed to push through healthcare reform in Bill's first term. That's basically it, over a 20 year career in public life.

Yes, but the entire DNC, including their mainstream media affiliates (NYT, WaPo, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN) will tell us repeatedly she is the most qualified candidate in our lifetimes.

I suppose it's quite difficult to find a truly well qualified candidate these days. It seems to be that actually taking an executive office in the federal government means that you're making the statement that you're not a contender for the Presidency. Hillary is probably the exception here, but her circumstances are unique. You'd have to think that actually running one of the great offices of state would be much better preparation for the Presidency than a career in the Senate or a stint as a state governor, but how many Presidential candidates have actually had that experience ? Bush Sr ran the CIA, that's about all I can think of from recent memory, and even that experience was a long way back on his cv by the time he became President.

Then again, the exception I just named, Hillary, is still in my mind a poor candidate for President, so executive experience maybe isn't all it's cracked up to be. I still think it would be useful though.

What are our interests in the middle east? I would list the following: (1) maintaining supply of oil, (2) preventing Iran from building a nuclear weapon, (3) preventing Islamic terrorists hostile to us from getting bases to strike us, from threatening the supply of oil, or destabilizing the region.
Another significant factor here is that our military is somewhat exhausted from all of the deployments and the public is tired of war.
With regard to Syria, perhaps we need to re--check Obama's red-line statement:

http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact- ... l-weapons/

That's a pretty loose red-line and was made in response to a direct question about chemical weapons. I'm not quite sure why that statement should have bound us.
As Sass said we were going to go ahead with a military response (even if as Kerry said a small one, a statement made to placate opposition), but Congressional opposition derailed it and the opposition was in large part due to concern that military intervention would help Al-Qaeda linked rebels.
It's easy to criticize the Administration here, but the main problem here is that we don't want either side to win. Putin's offer gain us a face-saving way to back down. As long as Syria doesn't use the weapons again, I am not sure we should do anything.
Instead of talking about appearing weak we should be focused on our vital interests, which does not include the use of chemical weapons by Syria (that is something the world should be concerned about, not something the US should be acting unilaterally on)
With regard to Iran, I think we obviously want to avoid a military solution unless necessary and by necessary I mean that unless we act Iran has any chance of developing a nuclear weapon in the near future. So we'll see. I don't think we're at that point yet.

Sassenach wrote:I suppose it's quite difficult to find a truly well qualified candidate these days. It seems to be that actually taking an executive office in the federal government means that you're making the statement that you're not a contender for the Presidency. Hillary is probably the exception here, but her circumstances are unique. You'd have to think that actually running one of the great offices of state would be much better preparation for the Presidency than a career in the Senate or a stint as a state governor, but how many Presidential candidates have actually had that experience ? Bush Sr ran the CIA, that's about all I can think of from recent memory, and even that experience was a long way back on his cv by the time he became President.

You would think Secretary of State would be a good training ground. Then again, as you've noted, look at her record. Further, when something did "go wrong" (Benghazi), she promised to hold someone accountable. Ultimately, no one was. If that's leadership . . . no thanks.

For the record, I'd prefer a governor to a cabinet secretary. They have to balance budgets, please some constituents, negotiate with legislators, etc. Hillary, according to her best friend, didn't like having to negotiate with Congress (when trying to get Hillarycare through Congress).

Then again, the exception I just named, Hillary, is still in my mind a poor candidate for President, so executive experience maybe isn't all it's cracked up to be. I still think it would be useful though.

It's interesting. It used to be that our Presidents, whether we liked them or not, were accomplished. You could not get elected as a nobody. I think few, if any, Presidents were less prepared for office than our current one. That's why I favor nominating a governor. We'll see.

I just can't believe the Democratic line on this--that she's so-well qualified.

For the record, I'd prefer a governor to a cabinet secretary. They have to balance budgets, please some constituents, negotiate with legislators, etc.

Sure, but the Federal government is a completely different animal. The experience you'd gain from running a Federal department would tell you so much more about what it takes to have the top job.

The problem of course is that once you've served in the cabinet you have a well-publicised record that you'll have to defend from political attack. I suspect this is the main reason so few make the transition.

Hillary's relative torpor at State for four years may very well have been deliberate. The less you do the less you have to justify on the campaign trail.

Sassenach wrote:I You'd have to think that actually running one of the great offices of state would be much better preparation for the Presidency than a career in the Senate or a stint as a state governor, but how many Presidential candidates have actually had that experience.

Interestingly, in the early years of the Republic the "training ground" and office for the heir apparent for the Presidency wasn't the Vice President. It was the Secretary of State. 5 of the first 8 Presidents were former Secretaries of State (Jefferson, Monroe, Madison, Quincy Adams, and Van Buren). Of those, Madison, Monroe and Quincy Adams were Sec of State immediately before they became President and never held the VP Office.

freeman

What are our interests in the middle east? I would list the following: (1) maintaining supply of oil, (2) preventing Iran from building a nuclear weapon, (3) preventing Islamic terrorists hostile to us from getting bases to strike us, from threatening the supply of oil, or destabilizing the region

Do these interests take precedence over a commitment to the establishment of greater democracy, the right to self determination or the protection of basic rights and liberties?

The reason the West has such little influence is that in the past concerns about democracy or civil liberties were always subverted by these strategic concerns.
People know hypocricy when they experience it ....