Why did Obama go to Congress on Syria?

 

Late last week, President Obama abruptly decided to send a request for authorization to use force in Syria to Congress. The about-face came after several days of claims by aides that the president did not need permission from Congress to act. In fact, in a speech on Saturday, President Obama still denied that he needed permission from Congress and sources in the Administration told Press TV that the president had already made up his mind to strike Syria, even if Congress failed to give its approval.

Why did the president decide to seek congressional approval if he believes that he doesn’t need it and his mind is already made up? Obama has a long history of overstepping his constitutional authority in domestic matters so why does he suddenly feel the need to go to Congress when there is ample precedent for conducting limited attacks without congressional approval? Two years ago when Obama went to war in Libya, he not only did not ask for congressional authorization for the initial use of military force, but did not comply with the time limits of the War Powers Act, denying that U.S. forces were engaged in hostilities under the law, a position that Politifact said “violates our standards of common sense.”

There are three reasons that Obama may have moved the ball into Congress’ court. The first is that he wants to use the issue to split the Republican Party. There is an intense debate between the GOP’s foreign policy hawks and the party’s libertarian isolationist wing. Prominent Republicans like John Boehner, Lindsay Graham and John McCain have lined up to support the attack on Syria while Rand Paul and Ted Cruz have spoken out against it. Marco Rubio, who has advocated aiding the Syrian rebels for two years, seems to think that Obama’s response is too little, too late according to US News.

The downside to this strategy is that it has split Democrats as well. For the past half century, the Democrats have been the anti-war party (with the notable exception of President Clinton’s intervention in Bosnia). Florida Democrat Alan Grayson told the Australian that he believes as many as half of all Democrats will vote against the authorization.

Another motive may have been to share the blame if the intervention goes badly. President Obama’s foreign policy has led to a string of disasters from the expansion of Iran’s sphere of influence to include Iraq to the resurgence of al Qaeda and the rise of radical Islamism in many formerly secular Arab nations. Obama may well be looking at protecting himself politically if limited strikes ignite a wider war or lead to a victory by al Qaeda-supported rebels.

A key to understanding Obama’s flip-flop is the strong public opposition to attacking Syria. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Sept. 3 shows that only 19 percent support an attack on Syria. Fifty-six percent oppose any intervention. A Washington Post/ABC poll released the same day showed 59 percent opposed. Opposition was almost identical for both Republicans (55 percent) and Democrats (54 percent), but stronger (66 percent) among independents.

A final possibility is that Obama is having second thoughts about attacking Syria and is hoping that Congress will deny the authorization to attack. Almost as soon as Obama announced his decision to attack, Administration sources began to leak information that indicated that the attacks would be very limited and half-hearted.

Yesterday, Obama tried to walk back his statement from a year ago that Assad’s use of chemical weapons was a “red line” that would “change my calculus” on intervention in Syria. According to Politico, the president’s new line is that “I didn’t set a red line. The world set a red line.” Obama continued, “So when I said that my calculus would be altered by chemical weapons, which the overall consensus of humanity says is wrong — that’s not something I just made up. I didn’t pick it out of thin air. My credibility is not on the line. The international community’s credibility is on the line, and America and Congress’s credibility’s on the line.”

Although four months ago, White House officials made clear that the red line was “absolutely” the president’s, Obama is obviously having second thoughts in the face of overwhelming opposition. In spite of strong rhetoric from officials that the strike will happen regardless of Congress’ approval, it is unlikely that President Obama would make such an unpopular decision after being turned down by Congress.

A congressional defeat of Obama’s request may be likely. Political analyst Charlie Cook told the Financial Times on Tuesday that he would be surprised is the authorization passed Congress. A Washington Post analysis found the Senate split and heavy opposition in the House. Many members of both houses are still undecided.

Having stirred up a hornet’s nest of strong bipartisan opposition as well as finding little international support, President Obama may actually be hoping for Congress to deny his request. A loss in Congress would give the president the ability to avoid attacking Syria and the ability to save face by blaming Republican lawmakers.

Originally published on Elections Examiner

Obama was right on Syria… but then he screwed it up

President Obama was right in his initial decision to take military action against Syria. As evidence mounted that Bashar Assad of Syria had used poison gas against the civilian population of Syria, not once but repeatedly, the United States and the civilized nations of the world had to decide whether to take action or become complicit in the murders of untold thousands of innocents.

Though mass murders by dictatorial regimes are all too common, there has been an effective ban on the use of chemical weapons since shortly after World War I. The ban has only been broken four times. Italy used mustard gas against Abyssinia in 1935 and Japan used chemical agents in its conquest of China in 1938. In World War II, Adolf Hitler did not use poison gas against Allied soldiers for fear of retribution, but the Nazis did gas millions of people in their death camps. In the 1980s, Saddam Hussein used poison gas against the Iranian army as well as against the Kurds, an ethnic minority in Iraq.

Aside from the violation of international law and the moral implications of allowing Assad to gas innocent civilians, the U.S. also has a national interest in enforcing President Obama’s “red line.” Two of the Syrian government’s allies in the civil war are Hezbollah and Iran. Both Hezbollah and Iran have already shown willingness to take on the U.S. directly. Hezbollah, supported by Iran, was responsible for the 1983 bombings of the U.S. embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut. In 1985, they hijacked TWA Flight 847 enroute from Athens to Rome. They were also allegedly responsible for the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia which targeted US military members. Iran has also tried to attack the U.S. directly. Two years ago, Iran was implicated in a plot to carry out a series of bomb attacks in Washington, D.C. In spite of the plot and continued Iranian work on nuclear weapons, the Obama Administration has resisted any punishment for Iran including additional sanctions.

Ignoring Obama’s self-imposed red line for Syrian use of chemical weapons would increase the risk that use and development of weapons of mass destruction would become more common around the world. If the Iranians determine that the U.S. is not serious, it makes it even more likely that such weapons will be used again by terrorist groups like Hezbollah for use against Americans abroad, U.S. allies, or even the American homeland. It also makes it more likely that Iran would continue to develop and feel free to use nuclear weapons.

With ample evidence of Syria’s violation of international law and a compelling U.S. interest, President Obama should have ordered an attack on Syria’s WMD facilities and airbases as well as targeting President Assad. Although President Obama has a long history of abusing executive authority such an order would have been well within his constitutional role as commander-in-chief. The Constitution does not require a declaration of war in such an instance and there is a long history, dating back to Thomas Jefferson’s attack on the Barbary pirates, of presidents taking military action without congressional approval.

Instead, President Obama flip-flopped late last week after finding strong bipartisan opposition to an attack on Syria. After dithering for days, Obama abruptly decided that he would ask Congress for authorization to attack, but stopped short of asking representatives to cut their recess short and return to Washington to address the matter. According to CBS News, Congress will return to work on September 9.

The delay can only serve hearten President Assad and his allies in Tehran. Opposition to the attack in Congress could derail President Obama’s plan to attack Syria entirely. If it doesn’t, the Syrian government will have had nearly a month to prepare and disperse its chemical weapon stocks and other high priority targets. It will also have had plenty of time to beef up its air defenses making casualties among the attacking Americans more likely. All of this means that the deterrent effect of a strike will be lessened.

In reality, Obama would probably be relieved to be able to blame Congress for his inaction in Syria. His foreign policy has been one of American withdrawal from the world. Obama’s original campaign theme was calling for an end to the Iraq War. Today, the war in Iraq continues even though American forces are gone. Obama is planning a similar withdrawal from Afghanistan. During the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011, the beginning of the Syrian civil war, the Obama was conspicuously absent from supporting democratic activists. This policy led to al Qaeda domination of the Syrian opposition forces and Islamist victories in Egypt and Tunisia. Obama had to be dragged into his unconstitutional Libyan intervention by several NATO allies. He also squandered a chance to support Iranian dissidents during 2009’s “Green Revolution.”

Obama seems to have long held the belief that American power has caused problems throughout the world and that disengagement is a key to peace. Obama’s policy of withdrawal and “leading from behind” is how that belief was put into practice. The chaos in the Middle East is the result.

Originally published on Atlanta Conservative Examiner

Syrian intervention may shed light on Iraqi WMDs

Secretary of State John Kerry’s formal accusation today that Syria has used chemical weapons against rebel forces and civilians sounds somewhat similar to Bush Administration charges against the regime of Saddam Hussein in neighboring Iraq a decade ago. Saddam had used his chemical weapons numerous times against Iraqi minorities and was all but ignored by the world.

When the U.S. led a coalition of nations to depose Saddam in 2003, the belief that Iraq possessed stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons as well as a nascent nuclear weapons program was a major justification for the invasion. Failure to locate large stocks of the weapons led to charges that President George W. Bush had lied to lead the United States into an unnecessary war.

The fact of Syrian use of chemical weapons should call the conventional wisdom about Iraq into question. The two countries were linked by their ruling Baathist parties and, as neighbors, engaged in trade, both legal and illegal, before the war. In 2006, Georges Sada, a former general of Saddam’s air force, detailed in his book, “Saddam’s Secrets,” how Saddam had secretly moved much of his WMD material to Syria before the U.S.-led invasion under the cover of providing relief to Syrian earthquake victims. Sada’s claims were detailed in Examiner in 2011. Sada’s claim was be supported by other sources as well. In 2004, a Syrian defector, Nizar Nayouf claimed that Iraqi WMDs had been hidden at three sites in Syria. Nayouf’s story appeared the Dutch paper Der Telegraaf and is summarized on WorldThreats.com. Satellite reconnaissance photos from 2010 published in Israel’s Haaretz show Syrian military facilities in the same areas that Nayouf fingered. The same sites were identified in the 2004 book “End Game” by General Thomas McInerney and Paul Vallely as well as another former Iraqi general, Ali Ibrahim al-Tikriti. If the U.S. launches airstrikes against Syria, these facilities are likely to be targeted.

The lack of large stockpiles in post-Saddam Iraq led to the myth that Saddam’s WMDs were nonexistent. In reality, Saddam’s use of chemical weapons against the Iraqi Kurdish minority was documented by the BBC in 1988. Saddam also used chemical weapons in his war against Iran and after the Persian Gulf War while combating the Shiite uprising of 1991. The destruction of an Iraqi munitions plant that produced the nerve gas sarin may be responsible for Gulf War Syndrome, a neurological affliction that affects as many as 30 percent of veterans from the Persian Gulf War in 1991 according to USA Today. In 2010, Wired Magazine detailed how classified military documents released by Wikileaks revealed the discovery of many small caches of chemical weapons by coalition forces during the occupation of Iraq.

While the shelf life of nerve agents such as the sarin, one of the chemical weapons found in Iraq and recently used in Syria, is short, an undated CIA report estimated that the Iraqis had improved their sarin stocks by increasing the purity of the chemical components and building binary weapons. In binary weapons, the components of the nerve agent are not combined until the weapon is ready to be used. This could make the shelf life of the weapon “irrelevant” and allow it to be stored for years before use. This means that if Iraqi stockpiles were transferred to Syria prior to 2003 they could still be lethal.

Syria has long had development programs for weapons of mass destruction of its own. In 2008, Time reported that North Korea was helping Syria to build a nuclear reactor. Israel bombed the Syrian reactor in 2007 according to Der Spiegel. The German weekly also reported last year that Iranian officers were involved in the testing of Syrian delivery systems for chemical weapons. The Nuclear Threat Initiative notes that Syrian WMD programs may have begun as early as 1971. The NTI also noted that the U.S. believed that Syria was dependent on “foreign sources for key elements of its CW program” as late as 2010. This may have included Saddam’s Iraq.

There are a number of objections to the theory that Syria benefitted from Saddam’s WMD programs. For example, Syria sided with the Coalition forces during the 1991 Iraq war. Therefore some question whether it would have cooperated with Saddam in later years. In reality, Syria was complicit in helping Saddam subvert UN sanctions on Iraq prior to the 2003 war. Congress estimated in 2004 that Syrian-Iraqi smuggling was worth more than $3 billion.

A second question is why Saddam did not admit to transferring the weapons when he was interrogated. Apparently Saddam did not take U.S. threats seriously and was more concerned about Iran. Transferring weapons to Syria would have prevented their discovery by UN inspectors, but would have left them available in the event of an Iranian attack. Not confessing as he faced death may have been as simple as going to his death knowing that he had the last laugh on his tormenters.

As yet there is no conclusive proof that Syrian chemical weapons can be traced to Saddam Hussein. Nevertheless, there is ample circumstantial evidence to take another look at the Iraqi-Syrian connection. If the Asad government falls, Syrian military files may shed light on the mystery of Saddam’s WMDs. The Syrian civil war may one day help to rewrite the history of the Iraq War.

 

Originally published on Atlanta Conservative Examiner

Are Iranian nukes a done deal?

President Ahmadinejad (www.kremlin.ru.)

With a pair of announcements this week, it seems that Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons may be all but certain.  First, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki dashed Obama Administration hopes for negotiating an end to Iran’s nuclear enrichment.  Mottaki affirmed that Iran would not stop enriching uranium within its borders and denied that international sanctions are having any effect.

The following day, Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran’s vice president and head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, announced that Iran had taken uranium from its own mines and processed it into yellowcake, an intermediate step in achieving highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.  This means that the entire process of enriching uranium, from mining to processing, can now take place within Iranian borders.  It also means that, as more Iranian uranium mines open, that sanctions may not be able to prevent Iran from gathering the material to make nuclear weapons.

This week’s announcements are the culmination of efforts that date back to the reign of the Shah in the 1970s.  After the Islamic Revolution, the nuclear program was placed under the control of the Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s elite military organization.  In the past ten years, western nations have engaged Iran in a series of on-again-off-again talks, which were exploited by Iran to gain time. 

If Iran gains nuclear weapons, it can probably be expected to follow the model of North Korea, which has had nuclear weapons since about 2004.  The North Koreans have become increasing belligerent, sinking a South Korean warship in March 2010 and, more recently, launching an artillery attack at a disputed South Korean island in November 2010.  This is bad enough in a remote corner of East Asia, but such provocations in the oil-rich Persian Gulf could wreak havoc on the world economy.  Gas prices in Atlanta could spike far higher than the $4.00 per gallon we experienced after Hurrican Katrina.

The North Koreans have also been involved in the spread of nuclear weapons technology.  North Korea was involved in helping Syria to build a nuclear plant.  The Syrian plant was destroyed by the Israelis in 2008.  The North Koreans have also been implicated in aiding the Iranian nuclear effort. 

Similarly, Iran would likely become more threatening to its neighbors, sparking a nuclear arms race in the Persian Gulf.  Iran has already been involved in border skirmishes with both Iraq and Afghanistan.  Oil-rich nations like Saudi Arabia would also be endangered from Iranian missiles, some of which can even reach Europe.

Likewise, Iran would likely arm other radical Islamist nations and groups with nuclear weapons.  Iran has a long history of fighting covert wars using proxy armies such as Hezbollah, the Taliban, and Iraqi insurgents.  Using nuclear-tipped missiles launched from cargo ships, operatives might launch attacks on US cities that could not be traced back to Iran.  A missile launched from a ship hundreds of miles outside of Savannah could easily strike Atlanta.

For years, observers have held out hope that internal strife would bring down the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.  Now, however, it seems that the government has consolidated its control of the country.  Likewise, many believed that President Bush would not leave office without striking at the Iranian nuclear facilities or, failing that, that the Israelis would strike.

As noted earlier, the Israelis destroyed a Syrian reactor in 2008 and Saddam Hussein’s Osirak reactor in 1981.  So far, there has been no overt Israeli action, but many believe that covert killings of Iranian nuclear scientists and a cyber attack using the Stuxnet computer virus can be traced to Israel. 

An airstrike against Iran would be much more difficult for Israel to pull off than the raids on Baghdad and Syria.  The distances involved are much greater and Iran has been purchasing upgraded air defense systems from Russia as well as developing its own surface-to-air missiles.  Further, Iran’s nuclear facilities are dispersed around the country rather than being concentrated in one place.  This means that far more attacking aircraft are needed to do the job and the chances of destroying all facilities are more remote.

There is an even greater likelihood that Iran would use its nuclear weapons than North Korea.  While North Korea is a family regime bent on perpetuating itself, Iran is an Islamic theocracy.  Iran’s leaders have two main goals.  The first is to eliminate Israel and the United States.  President Ahmadinejad has said that his goal is “to have a world without the United States and Zionism” and that Israel “must be wiped off the map.”  The poster for Iran’s 2005 World Without Zionism conference shows a shattered ball bearing the American flag on the ground as a ball bearing the Israeli flag drops.

Supreme Leader Khamenei (www.sajed.ir)

The historical nuclear policy will not work with Iran because of the Iranian government’s second goal.  Ahmadinejad and Khamenei are devotees of the Mahdi, a Shia Muslim version of the Messiah.  They believe that they can trigger the Mahdi’s return by sowing fear, destruction and chaos in the world.

Further, Iranians believe that they would win a nuclear war with Israel.  As Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani put it, “… application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world.”  In other words, even if Iran were totally destroyed in a retaliatory strike, the Muslim world would live on.  The destruction of Iran would be considered an acceptable price for the destruction of Israel.

At this point, it is all but certain that Iran will never voluntarily give up its quest for nuclear weapons.  It is almost as likely that President Obama will never order a US strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.  The only remaining possibility for deterring President Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Leader is an Israeli strike.  Whether the Israelis could succeed is an open question.  While military action could spark a regional war in reprisal, it is a certainty that doing nothing will mean that the Iranians will soon have the means as well as the motive to launch a nuclear attack.