How Can Obama’s Middle East Policy Possibly Get Worse? Answer: Look at Syria
Some of my readers are unhappy that I keep criticizing President Barack Obama and his government. The problem is that this administration keeps doing terrible things in the Middle East. And the most damning evidence on these actions comes not from Obama’s enemies but from the administration itself and the supportive mass media.
Here’s the latest such item:
“U.S. Hopes Assad Can Be Eased Out with Russia’s Aid,” by Helene Cooper and Mark Landler, in the New York Times.
For almost three years, Obama insisted he would win over the Syrian dictatorship and make it America’s friend rather than Iran’s number-one ally. That was ludicrous. Forced by the uprising to back away from Damascus, the Obama administration has spent almost a year bumbling about what to do.
The U.S. government’s main activity was to entrust to the Turkish Islamist regime the job of forming an umbrella Syrian opposition leadership. Not surprisingly, Ankara pursued its own interest by assembling a Muslim Brotherhood-dominated group, the Syrian National Congress. Though several members resigned, complaining of the radical Islamist control, the Obama administration is still trying to force hostile oppositionists to join.
Now the administration has unveiled a new and equally terrible policy. I’ll let the New York Times’ reporters explain it:
President Obama will push for the departure of President Bashar al-Assad under a plan that calls for a negotiated political settlement that would satisfy Syrian opposition groups but that could leave remnants of Assad’s government in place. The success of the plan hinges on Russia, one of Assad’s staunchest allies, which has strongly opposed his removal. Obama, administration officials said, will press the proposal with President Putin of Russia at their meeting next month. Obama’s national security adviser raised the plan with Putin in Moscow three weeks ago.
Good grief! There are four different acts of strategic insanity involved in this paragraph. They are…
1. “A negotiated political settlement that…could leave remnants of Assad’s government in place.”
The Syrian dictatorship is led by murderous thugs who know this is a case of kill or be killed. They aren’t going to give up any of their power. And why should they since they think they’re winning and may well be right? They know the outside world won’t do anything, despite the regime killing around 10,000 civilians.
2. “A negotiated political settlement that would satisfy Syrian opposition groups but that could leave remnants of Assad’s government in place.”
The opposition is not so foolish as a Washington pundit, policymaker, or politician. They know that their only hope is to destroy the regime entirely. The democrats want to do so in order to have a modern democracy. The Islamists want Islamism. The Kurds and Druze want autonomy. How could there possibly be a coalition? Both sides know that within days people would be murdering each other. How could anyone expect this kind of deal would work or that the opposition would accept it?
If anyone in Syria might favor such a plan it’s the Muslim Brotherhood. which has toyed with the idea of using such a transition period to strengthen its own hand. So the idea cannot succeed but reveals once again that the Obama administration seems to get many of its strategies from the Muslim Brotherhood. That’s an observation, not a conspiracy theory.
3. “The success of the plan hinges on Russia, one of Assad’s staunchest allies, which has strongly opposed his removal.”
Just think about that sentence! The Obama administration wants to depend on a country that’s disdainful of U.S. interests, wants to sabotage them, and is on the opposite side! The president wants to ask a country that is “strongly opposed” to Assad’s removal to remove Assad!
And finally, equally amazingly:
4. “Obama, administration officials said, will press the proposal with President Putin of Russia at their meeting next month. Obama’s national security adviser raised the plan with Putin in Moscow three weeks ago.”
It’s Obama, not Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who is pushing this plan to put Russia in control! If your enemy tries to fool or cheat you, that’s a problem. If you beg him to cheat you and hand him the means to do so, that’s a betrayal of U.S. interests.
To summarize, the Obama policy shows three characteristics that have wider implications for the president’s strategies:
- It favors Islamist enemies.
- It “leads from behind” by giving the initiative to those who wish America no good.
- And it shows no interest in helping genuinely pro-American moderates who are fighting for their lives.
And that, friends, is why I spend so much time bashing Obama’s Middle East policy, because it is so very bad and dangerous.
Now a possible explanation for all of this would be that Obama doesn’t really want to do anything about Syria for other reasons. The United States doesn’t want to get dragged into direct intervention; it’s a lower-priority issue; there’s no great policy option; and his only concern is the American election.
But so what? It’s still possible to come up with a better policy than this, a policy that would make Obama look good as well as serve U.S. interests. He could call for Assad’s overthrow; back truly moderate oppositionists; subvert Islamist influence; and send arms and money, but only to the moderates. In order to portray himself as decisive, heroic, and a friend of democracy, Obama could take every possible overt and covert opportunity to weaken Assad, even helping at a low cost to create a no-fly zone and safe havens. None of this is going to happen.
Instead, though, he turns over dealing with the opposition to an Islamist regime in Turkey and subcontracts dealing with the regime to a pro-regime Russian government. I’d say that Obama’s policy in the region could not easily be worse, but who knows what’s next, especially if there’s a second term.
“To summarize, the Obama policy shows three characteristics that have wider implications for the president’s strategies. It favors Islamist enemies; it “leads from behind” by giving the initiative to those who wish America no good; and it shows no interest in helping genuinely pro-American moderates who are fighting for their lives.”
What took you so long to realize this? It’s been crystal clear from day one of his administration.
Jesus Christ, you must be new here. Prof. Rubin has been writing this ever since Obama was elected.
Get the net, shuh!
M@
I think that Barry has realized this for a long time. But not everyone has been paying attention, and too many people are still not paying attention. Every word of this article is absolutely correct!
“The success of the plan hinges on Russia, one of Assad’s staunchest allies, which has strongly opposed his removal.”
Obama is reduced to doing something, anything, just to say he did something. When even the New York Times reporters can’t help but remark that the success of the plan hinges on a sudden reversal of position by Russia (and is therefore extremely unlikely), nobody is missing idiocy of the policy. One can call it idiocy-on-purpose. Obama doesn’t care about removing Assad. But he does care about conciliating Erdogan and Putin, apparently.
Obama DOES care about Syria – he cares that it goes into the hands of the radical islamists.
I think it’s obvious to anybody that Obama wants a completely islamic middle east and that includes getting rid of Israel.
Add to that his insistance that he destroy every form of energy production in this country I think it’s safe to say he also wants us to be beholden (read: slaves) to islam for our energy.
The author is partly right, Obomba’s policy is a disaster. But let’s look at what is really going on here. On one side there’s the US, the Saudis, and the rest of the GCC (Gulf Co-operation Council, yes-men Bahrain and Abu Dhabi). In other words SUNNI, with Israel glued on the side. On the OTHER side there is Assad, backed by Iran (SHIA) and the Russians (and Chinese). Syria is Russia and China’s only toe-hold in the Med.
So it’s red team versus blue team with Syria happening to be the man in the middle.
Not surprising therefore that the Western media is going with the “oooh, BAD Assad” story. He’s on the other team. Doesn’t fit the facts, though.
Wouldn’t it be great if we had a State Department that was not just an arm of the Pentagon? Hilary is supposed to pursue ALTERNATIVES to war…not be out there doing the Pentagon’s heavy lifting.
Assad and his family could take a few billion and go into exile. Problem being, it’s not Assad personally going out and massacring civilians. And even if you include his inner circle, there are many with blood on their hands and there will be revenge killings. I don’t know what the solution is, and if leaving Assad in power is the less bad option then things are really bad.
How many true reformers (as opposed to Islamists) are there in Syria?
This article overlooks the fact that Obama is:
1) awesome;
2) cool;
3) the smartest man to ever occupy the white House;
therefore the MSM justifiably portrays his insane behavior and thoughts as revelations beyond the understanding of mere mortals.
Why is it that no one mentions that Obama is at mildly insane? The narcissism, the megalomaniac speeches, the irrationality. It seems pretty obvious.
They thought Einstein was crazy too.
Just wait; Obama will overwhelm the universe with his theory of Philosophical Injudiciousness. They’ll study it in all the greatest universities, and grant Doctoral Degrees for comprehensive thesis. It shall be required study in all public elementary schools.
The New York Times will have the exclusive story of the intricacies of the most brilliant philosophy since Nostradamus. (Snort)!
Barry -
OK, but why???
Both sophisticated analysts like you and random observers like me often explain Obama’s ME policies as foolish, naive or deluded. Why can’t he see the obvious, we ask?
This is silly. We are talking about a man who is not only brilliant and sophisticated, but has an army of advisors and the world’s most powerful intelligence apparatus at his call. We can assume they have thought through every scenario, and evaluated every consequence any of us are likely to know about or imagine. US foreign policy is not created by one man, anyhow.
Such characterizations of Obama’s abilities may serve his apologists as excuses (“at least he’s trying new approaches”), or his opponents as condemnations, but surely it is the inner game that counts beyond PR. Given certain values, bureaucratic structures, fiscal & political imperatives, etc, there are probably many reasons why, Obama’s foreign policy (destructive though it may be to *our* values) makes good sense.
“Brilliant and sophisticated”…well, maybe not. We have been told of this man’s other-worldly genius since day one, yet he has made many historic blunders. Read Ed Klein’s book, “The Amateur.” The next sound you’ll hear will be your bubble bursting. People who think he’s brilliant need to come to grips with the fact that he simply isn’t.
And his cabinet, especially the Secretary of State, is another goat rope, so don’t rely on the “army of advisors” too heavily, either.
You discount the possibility that everything Obama does is guided by Valerie Jarrett. If you don’t know who she is, look her up, and ask yourself why such a Marxist ideologue and cog of the Chicago political machine (who was born in Iran, by the way) could have such a stranglehold on the President.
Let’s try to be more optimistic, just as therapy for ourselves:
1) If you’ve decided that the opposition consists of Islamists worse for the US than Assad.
2) And you’re pretty sure Assad has an excellent chance of ending up in power no matter how many Syrians he has to kill:
3) Then you want to be on Assad’s good side once it’s all over. Syria has helped the US government in the past with such things as Extraordinary Rendition, and probably other things that haven’t come to light. It could be useful to have an evil friend in charge of Syria, instead of an evil enemy.
4) So thrash around with silly schemes that Assad knows can’t hurt him.
Feel better?
Russia has managed to humiliate itself by supporting Assad; now the Syrian regime’s diplomats are being expelled from Western countries. I’m wondering how all of this fits Obama’s brilliant master plan.
I am hoping that Assad survives. He is probably the lesser of evils. Why should anyone be anxious to see radical Islamists grab control of Syria? This is especially true if one is a Christian.
If Assad is ousted, one way or another, who gets his bio WMD? The Mo Bros or AlQ?
I would like to see an article by Prof. Rubin which analyses the situation in a dollars/cents approach.Eg. Russia’s and China’s investments in Syria would be defaulted. Turkey controls Syria’s water, Hezbollah would lose benefactor.Iran lose Mediterranean access.etc, The US would appear to have little business to gain in Syria, so why bother.What possible compensation can the US offer Russia in lieu of it’s Syrian involvement.
Also underlying all of this is the idea that if we don’t step on Iran’s toes they will decide they really like us after all and give up their nuke program and Obama will be the big diplomatic hero. How anyone could be so incredibly naive is simply incomprehensible. I guess the real question is how many people have to die before Obama realizes he’s been completely had.
I think the reason why the Obama administration is so bad at foreign policy is because Obama always saw foreign policy as a “distraction,” just one thing that took attention (and money) away from his precious social-welfare programs. That’s why you never hear anything about how things are going in Afghanistan (let alone what’s happening in Iraq these days) and why he is so determined to run away from Afghanistan as soon as possible. His philosophy is that once we’re out of both Iraq and Afghanistan, he doesn’t really care what happens there. So if he thinks so little of two countries where our troops fought and died in, do you really think he’s going to give two cents about what happens in Syria, especially in an election year? Never going to happen. He is never going to do anything now that may draw us into another war, especially in the Middle East. No, somebody else will have to worry about the Syrians, because we sure won’t.
Syria is none of our business, it is of no strategic importance to the US. Let them kill each other instead of borrowing more money from China and spending it in vain hopes the muzzies will change.
Agreed.
Killing each other in droves has been the regional passtime for the Middle East since… well, since there was a Middle East. Nothing America does, or rather, comically TRIES to do, will change that.
People tend to forget that a large part of the problem in that region is the result of 50+ years of western meddling.
No matter how much intervention we do, Syria, Iran will NEVER be transformed into upstate Vermont. Just leave them be.
What happened to R2P? The Responsibility to Project that was the rational for bombing in Libya to protect Libyans from Gaddafi.
Syria does not have Oil? And the Europeans don’t have lots of money tied up in explotation of said lack of oil?
He must be penalize !! it’s really must..
To which he do you refer?
The Middle East will never be our friends. Anyone that believes this is delusional. Obama has visions of grandeur and is equally deluded to think of making them allies. The Middle East is not to be trusted. The only nation the U.S. should back is Israel. Of course there is the old saying keep your friends close and your enemies even closer. I don’t know how Obama could achieve that. Personally I think the U.S. should stay out of this, observe closely, but stay out of it. We already have enough on our plate to become involved with attempting to solve another nations problems again. Regardless of who is in power over there the way of life will never change, Islam won’t allow it.
“He could call for Assad’s overthrow; back truly moderate oppositionists;…”
I seriously doubt that there are really moderate or pro-west rebels there. As far as I know, these oppositionists are more or less the same muslim arabs who want to overthrow another group of muslim arabs who belong to slightly different group of people (the Alawy, to which Assad belongs).
Both side have moderates and islamists, Not a very big difference there. So I’m pretty much can understand that cautious policy of the US.
What makes anybody think a new regime in Syria will be any better than the current one?
Barack Obama seems to have the Midas touch in reverse!
Whenever one is tempted to intervene in someone else’s problems which does not include one’s own interests, try to remember the story about Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby. Brer Rabbit tried to teach the Tar Baby manners.
Ask any cop about going into a domestic violence scene. He is the most likely to get hurt.
Whatever comes after Assad will not be a friend to the USA. The time to take military action against Syria was when they were funneling insurgents into Iraq. Now? Who cares. None of our interests will be served by getting involved with their civil war. Our enemies are killing each other and we don’t have to do anything.
Continuing frustration with Mr. Rubin. Tell us what the policy should be, don’t just point out the policy failings that are obvious. If Mr. Rubin thinks we should arm the rebels (whoever they are)or bomb the Presidential Palace, or invade Syria with the spare resources we have from our exit from Iraq, or push for a UN resolution, whatever, then he should say what he recommends. Otherwise Mr. Rubin’s commentary is just MMQBing.
We’ve got a tired military, in need of some reorganization and review after two brutal occupations (one of which isn’t even over). Assad is not (unlike Gadaffi) an old enemy we’ve been trying to undseat for decades. We have no strategic needs in the country (not just oil, but also political goals and economic goals are significantly lacking). Putin and company seem willing to deal with the situation as it comes. Why do we need or want to be involved again?
“leading from behind” it’s more like leading the foursome on a golf course maybe… this dude doesn’t give a rats’ arse about anything but himself and his self promotion.. he’s mentally ill with his own self aggrandizing. like most libs he should be in a rubber room with maybe a shot of thorazine now and then to help with the delusions of grandeur..
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