I Get It Now

Nicolás Maduro is J. Jonah Jameson. Maduro even looks a little like Jameson. And he certainly acts like him:

What to do if your country’s economy is on the ropes, inflation is soaring, shortages are rampant, political support is fragile and violence is flaring? For critics of Nicolás Maduro, the president of Venezuela, the answer is that you wrap yourself in the national flag and blame somebody else, anybody else, even Spider-Man.

Since becoming president five months ago, Mr Maduro has routinely cited vague international conspiracies by capitalist plotters, or even cartoon superheroes, for Venezuela’s mounting problems that range from a lack of toilet paper and national electricity blackouts to one of the highest murder rates in the world.

Most recently, he has set up a hotline 0-800-SABOTAGE, for Venezuelans to file reports on illegal economic activity, part of new measures aimed at countering economic “sabotage”; said he would sue Airbus with “the help of an international law firm” after his presidential aircraft suffered a fault; and identified what he calls US “factories of anti-values” such as Hollywood.

“Take a 14-year-old youngster who has a 9mm pistol in his hand and is carrying in his head thousands of hours of violent programming,” mused the 50-year-old president this month, after watching Spider-Man 3 with his wife. “Stimulated by such consumerism and violence, no wonder he goes out and kills.”

Yup. Spider-Man is responsible for Venezuela's economic crisis, according to Maduro. And you thought that Venezuela's governing political class couldn't get any crazier.

Hassan Rohani: Really NOT a Moderate

So, much of the media is making a fuss over the possibility that we might actually have an Iranian president who acknowledges the Holocaust and all of its horrors--including the horrors specifically visited on Jews. It's amazing that we are still debating whether the Holocaust happened, and it is even more amazing still that there are those who are positively rejoicing at the possibility that Hassan Rohani may potentially be not quite as antediluvian as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but given all of the fatuous nonsense that we had to put up with during the Ahmadinejad presidency--including, but not limited to Holocaust denial--I suppose I can understand if people want to celebrate small victories.

Only, here's the problem: We may not have even a small victory to celebrate. As Michael Moynihan writes, Rohani is not nearly as enlightened on the Holocaust as some might want to believe he is. Consider the following regarding a recent Rohani interview on CNN:

. . . Christiane Amanpour, an Iranian-Brit who apparently speaks Farsi, asked the inevitable question, the one that would uncover further evidence of moderation and counterbalance the sinister views of former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who famously revealed himself to be an amateur scholar of the Second World War: Does the right honorable gentleman from Tehran believe the Holocaust actually happened? The translator, perhaps fearing that rendering every word would weaken the meaning, offered the following English rendering of Rouhani’s response: “I’ve said before that I am not a historian and that when it comes to speaking of the dimensions of the Holocaust, it is the historians that should reflect on it. But in general I can tell you that any crime that happens in history against humanity, including the crime that Nazis committed towards the Jews as well as non-Jews is reprehensible and condemnable. Whatever criminality they committed against the Jews, we condemn...”

A bit slippery, but surely an improvement over Ahmadinejad's contention that Auschwitz was an elaborate hoax. But according to the Fars News Agency—which is just like a real news agency, except run by Iran’s psychopathic Revolutionary Guards—this wasn’t exactly what Rouhani said:

“I have said before that I am not a historian and historians should specify, state and explain the aspects of historical events, but generally we fully condemn any kind of crime committed against humanity throughout the history, including the crime committed by the Nazis both against the Jews and non-Jews, the same way that if today any crime is committed against any nation or any religion or any people or any belief, we condemn that crime and genocide. Therefore, what the Nazis did is condemned, (but) the aspects that you talk about, clarification of these aspects is a duty of the historians and researchers, I am not a history scholar.”

*The Wall Street Journal verified the broad strokes of the Fars News Agency translation (no one else bothered), and there are indeed subtle but substantial difference between these two versions. So to recap: CNN probably botched a Farsi translation and an official Iranian news agency rushed to its leader’s defense, lest the libel spread that he acknowledged the Holocaust as a real historical event.

But while Revolutionary Guards philologists are rather insistent that Rouhani never said “Holocaust,” condemned “whatever criminality [the Nazis] committed against the Jews,” or said the word “reprehensible,” all agree that he employed the old Holocaust deniers tricks of “questioning” the death toll, averring that many others groups were also victims, and claiming that a well-established historical fact requires further examination by “historians and researchers,” while repeatedly pointing out that he is “not a historian” (Ahmadinejad told NPR in 2010, that he was “not a historian” but that “we should allow researchers to examine all sorts of questions because it's quite clear that when they do, they will reach different conclusions"). And even in CNN’s translation, Rouhani condemns unspecified “crimes,” while encouraging historians to “clarify” what actually happened.

Moynihan's entirely justifiable conclusion is that Rohani, just like any other "skilled Holocaust denier," "parses, dissects, and molests language, quibbling with the word 'denial'—they typically acknowledge that many Jews died, but were victims of various typhus epidemics—and wondering why shadowy forces are hamstringing dissenting historians." He tells us that there is little to no difference between Rohani on the one hand, and Holocaust-denying "historian" David Irving, who gets condemned by the New York Times, even though the Times claimed that Rohani was no Holocaust denier. To be sure, there are arguments back and forth over what Rohani really said, and you should read the whole of Moynihan's piece to get a sense of those arguments, but it would appear that we have yet more evidence that Hassan Rohani may not be the moderate that many think he is.

Russia Is Indeed Back . . .

. . . thanks in large part to diplomatic bungling by the Obama administration over Syria. Ariel Cohen points out that the ramifications of the administration's errors go far beyond what will happen in Syria:

In what appears as yet another strategic blunder, Obama even elected to forego a binding UN Security Council resolution on Syrian disarmament under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which allows for enforcement, while Putin may hit the geopolitical jackpot.

If the disarmament initiative succeeds, Obama will “owe” Putin. America will be enticed to forget quickly the damage caused by the NSA and CIA defector Edward Snowden, who received asylum in Russia. America will remain mum as a Russian court has sentenced anticorruption crusader and whistleblower Alexei Navalny. Moscow is rife with rumors about preparations for the third trial of jailed oil tycoon and political opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky. It is equally unlikely that Russia’s ambitious plans to expand the Eurasian Union to include Armenia and Ukraine into the Customs Union will meet a vigorous U.S. response.

Obama may not realize that Putin, a former KGB recruiting officer, seems to have played him like a violin. Putin has demonstrated that he is capable of stopping the world’s only superpower from using force—making him “the go to” man, to whom many on the U.S. blacklist will run to seek protection.

Putin will also have demonstrated that Russia, despite being seven times smaller than the U.S. economically, and weaker militarily, is capable of gaining impressive geopolitical results even when dealt a poor hand. As the military operation against Assad is postponed, Putin has increased the chances of the pro-Iranian regime’s survival, and possibly ensured the continued presence of a modest Russian naval facility in Tartus.

Moscow also has a growing interest in a Shia strategic belt extending from Lebanon via Syria and Iraq to Iran, as it prevents Sunni radicals from flooding into the North Caucasus and Central Asia—Russia’s soft underbelly.

Moscow also sent a signal that a U.S. military operation against the Iranian nuclear program may not happen—without the UN Security Council—i.e., the Kremlin’s—sanction. And that sanction will not be forthcoming.

Not bad for a week’s work.

Recall (again) that one of the reasons given for re-electing the president in 2012 was that he is supposedly a much better geopolitical chess player than that bumbler, Mitt Romney, who had the effrontery to tell us that Russia's interests don't exactly line up with our own. How is that argument looking now?

Deeds. Not Words. Deeds.

Ray Takeyh is right on the money when he reminds us what we should expect from Hassan Rohani before we go around calling him "a reformer":

Rouhani's attempt to refashion Iran's image and temper its rhetoric should be welcomed. After eight years of Ahmadinejad provocations that often unhinged the international community, a degree of self-restraint is admirable. However, judge Tehran by its conduct and not its words.

It is not enough for Rouhani to condemn the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Is he prepared to withdraw the Revolutionary Guard contingents that have done much to buttress Assad's brutality?

It is not sufficient for Rouhani to speak of transparency; he must curb Iran's troublesome nuclear activities and comply with the U.N. Security Council resolutions.

And it is not enough for Rouhani to speak of a tolerant society unless he is prepared to free his many former comrades and colleagues who are languishing in prisons under false charges.

Rouhani's reliability has to be measured by his actions, not by his speeches or tweets.

There are many out there who are willing to believe that Rohani is a reformer based solely on cosmetic gestures and somewhat more mild rhetoric--especially when compared to Ahmadinejad. These people might very well be setting themselves up for a major disappointment. 

I Am Sure that This Is a Sign of a Thriving Society

Everything is going just fine in Venezuela. What could make anyone think otherwise?

Oh.

A Venezuelan state agency on Friday ordered the temporary takeover of a factory that produces toilet paper in what it called an effort to ensure consistent supplies after embarrassing shortages earlier this year.

Critics of President Nicolas Maduro say the nagging shortages of products ranging from bathroom tissue to milk are a sign his socialist government's rigid price and currency controls are failing. They have also used the situation to poke fun at his administration on social media networks.

A national agency called Sundecop, which enforces price controls, said in a statement it would occupy one of the factories belonging to paper producer Manpa for 15 days, adding that National Guard troops would "safeguard" the facility.

"The action in the producer of toilet paper, sanitary napkins and disposable diapers responds to the state's obligation to ensure a steady supply of basic goods for the people," Sundecop said, adding it had observed "the violation of the right" to access such products.

Further commentary really isn't needed, is it?

Hassan Rohani Is No Moderate

To wit. Of course, one does not have to be a "historian" to know that the Holocaust occurred anymore than one has to be a physician to know that the appendix is not responsible for higher cognitive functions. And of course, it should surprise precisely no one to see that the standard language used to denounce Israel remains in use.

Perhaps President Obama could write a letter to Rohani, reminding him that if one wants to be taken seriously as a moderate, one actually has to act like a moderate. And perhaps, we ought to put aside for the moment all of this talk about a thaw in relations between Iran and the rest of the world.

Oh, and don't say that you weren't warned that Rohani is no moderate.

Devastating Criticism for the Obama Administration on Syria

From two of the administration's former defense secretaries, and from its former acting director of Central Intelligence:

President Obama’s first two defense secretaries publicly questioned the administration’s handling of the Syrian crisis on Tuesday night and expressed skepticism about whether Russia can broker a deal to remove Syria’s chemical weapons.

In a joint appearance in Dallas, both former Pentagon chiefs, Robert M. Gates and Leon E. Panetta, were critical of Mr. Obama for asking Congress to authorize the use of force against Syria in retaliation over its use of chemical weapons. But they disagreed on whether military action would be an effective response. Mr. Gates said Mr. Obama’s proposed military strike was a mistake, while Mr. Panetta said it was a mistake not to carry out an attack.

“My bottom line is that I believe that to blow a bunch of stuff up over a couple days, to underscore or validate a point or a principle, is not a strategy,” Mr. Gates said during a forum at Southern Methodist University. “If we launch a military attack, in the eyes of a lot of people we become the villain instead of Assad,” he added, referring to President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.

Mr. Gates, the only cabinet member from the administration of George W. Bush whom Mr. Obama asked to stay, said missile strikes on Syria “would be throwing gasoline on a very complex fire in the Middle East.”

[. . .]

Mr. Panetta, also speaking at the forum, said the president should have kept his word after he had pledged action if Syria used chemical weapons.

“When the president of the United States draws a red line, the credibility of this country is dependent on him backing up his word,” Mr. Panetta said.

“Once the president came to that conclusion, then he should have directed limited action, going after Assad, to make very clear to the world that when we draw a line and we give our word,” then “we back it up,” Mr. Panetta said.

[. . .]

Another former high-ranking Obama administration official, Michael J. Morell, who recently retired as the deputy director of the C.I.A., also expressed skepticism about the negotiations brokered by Russia.

“I think this is the Syrians playing for time,” Mr. Morell told Foreign Policy magazine in an interview published Tuesday on its Web site. “I do not believe that they would seriously consider giving up their chemical weapons.”

Mr. Gates said he doubted whether President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was sincere in his efforts to broker a deal, and said he was skeptical that the Syrian government would disarm. He said it was absurd that Syria needed days or weeks to identify the location and size of its chemical weapons arsenal, and he suggested that the timetable should be an ultimatum of 48 hours.

When asked whether the West should trust Mr. Putin, Mr. Gates said, “Are you kidding me?”

Obviously, I am with Gates on whether military action should have been threatened or taken over Syria, but Panetta's point is not without merit; the Obama administration looks non-credible for having backed down--especially given the entirely appropriate skepticism expressed for the Putin plan. It would have been nice if the administration had reached out to Gates, Panetta and Morell prior to signing on to the Russian plan--and it would have been nice if John Kerry had not given the Russians an opening to begin with by being clumsy enough to answer a hypothetical question. Too bad that no one from the administration saw fit to engage Gates, Panetta or Morell in the discussion.

Speaking of the difference between former and current Obama administration officials, are those who championed the confirmation of Chuck Hagel as defense secretary still glad that he is in the cabinet, given his endorsement of the awful Russian plan and his disagreement with Gates, Panetta and Morell (a disagreement the New York Times story linked above references)?

Thomas Friedman Could Not Be Reached for Comment

Link:

The Chinese government has intensified its crackdown on the internet, describing online criticism of the ruling Communist party as illegal and airing a televised confession from one of the country’s most popular online commentators.

An article in Monday’s edition of the influential party journal “Seeking Truth” described online criticism of the party and government as “defamation”, while Chinese-American investor and internet personality Charles Xue appeared on state television in handcuffs on Sunday to praise new legislation that in effect criminalises online dissent.

The moves are part of a wider campaign launched in recent weeks by newly installed President Xi Jinping to stifle calls for political reform in China and assert control over the country’s unruly internet.

Mr Xue, who boasts 12m followers on the Twitter-like Sina Weibo, was arrested in August for allegedly hiring prostitutes for group sex sessions, but most analysts and even senior officials say his arrest was intended as a warning to other prominent internet personalities.

There was no mention of the prostitute allegations in a 10-minute segment aired on China Central Television on Sunday, during which a chastened Mr Xue described how he had contributed to an “illegal and immoral” atmosphere on the Chinese internet.

“I felt like the emperor of the internet,” Mr Xue said when describing the thrill of speaking directly to more than 12m followers. “How do you think that felt? Awesome.”

The shackled Mr Xue also praised a legal interpretation issued by China’s judicial authorities last week, which allows people to be prosecuted for defamation or “spreading online rumours” if their posts are viewed by more than 5,000 internet users or forwarded more than 500 times.

Our Remarkably Unfabulous Middle East Policy

One of the best--and most depressing--analyses that I have seen regarding the recent Russian-American deal on Syria:

The United States and Russia have now averted U.S. military action against the Syrian regime for Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons against civilians. Is the agreement reached by Secretary Kerry and Foreign Minister Lavrov on September 9 a diplomatic triumph for the Obama administration, or was it, as retired British ambassador Charles Crawford called it, “the worst day for U.S. and wider Western diplomacy since records began?”

While perhaps not as bad as Ambassador Crawford suggests, we agree that the outcome is one of the worst defeats for U.S. foreign policy in decades. We write as two scholars and former national-security practitioners who agree on almost nothing else regarding Syria: one is a traditional realist who opposed military action against Assad, and the other is a recent arrival in the camp of the post-Cold War liberal internationalists who supported striking the Syrian regime. We come not only from diverging views but also from different academic disciplines (history and political science), and while both of us have served in positions relevant to American foreign and security policy, we speak on our own behalf, especially since we ourselves are otherwise so deeply divided about U.S. intervention overseas.

We share, however, a background in the study of Russia, and it is here that we find the outcome of the Syrian crisis to be so disastrous. For nearly seven decades, American efforts in the Middle East have been based on a bipartisan consensus—one of the few to be found in U.S. foreign policy—aimed at limiting Moscow’s influence in that region. This is a core interest of American foreign policy: it reflects the strategic importance of the region to us and to our allies, as well as the historical reality Russia has continually sought clients there who would oppose both Western interests and ideals. In less than a week, an unguarded utterance by a U.S. Secretary of State has undone those efforts. Not only is Moscow now Washington’s peer in the Middle East, but the United States has effectively outsourced any further management of security problems in the region to Russian president Vladimir Putin.

A halfway competent United States Congress, interested in doing its job, would call hearings and call out Secretary Kerry and others in the administration--including the president himself--for undermining a key American foreign policy interest. Oh, and perhaps newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post should come out with editorials demanding the resignations of people like Secretary Kerry, and anyone else who sold President Obama on the idea that accepting increased Russian influence in the Middle East is a good thing.

Russia: Revealing Its True Self

There was a terrible shooting at the Washington Navy Yard today, which elicited concern, shock and sympathy from people of decent and elevated sensibilities, and gloating from Alexey Pushkov, the Russian parliamentary foreign affairs chief. I don't know why Pushkov believed that it was necessary to taunt and make fun of Americans in the aftermath of the shooting, and I don't know whether the government of Vladimir Putin has the wit to be upset about Pushkov's behavior, but it ought to go without saying that none of this behavior serves Russian interests in the slightest.

I suppose it is worth noting that this little but meaningful incident is yet another indication that Russia is not nearly the kind of friend to the United States that we were led to believe it is during the 2012 presidential election, when Barack Obama and Mitt Romney were arguing about whether we should be concerned about Russia. Through actions great and small, Russia appears to have done everything within its power in order to show that it cannot be counted on as an ally. Maybe Russian activities--both substantive and petty--will cause us to see Russia for what it is; not the "number one enemy" of the United States that Mitt Romney seemed to think it is, but no friend either.

Shadi Hamid on the Obama Administration's Diplomatic Non-Victory

Scathing, and entirely accurate:

A deal with Russia on chemical weapons may be a "win" for President Obama but only in the narrowest sense. He managed to avoid a war he desperately did not want. But with the near-obsessive focus on chemical-weapons use, the core issues have been pushed to the side. These were always more or less the same -- a regime bent on killing and terrorizing its own people and a brutal civil war spilling over into the rest of the region, fanning sectarian strife and destabilizing Syria's neighbors.

For his part, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is effectively being rewarded for the use of chemical weapons, rather than "punished" as originally planned. He has managed to remove the threat of U.S. military action while giving very little up in return. Obscured in the debate of the past few weeks is that chemical weapons were never central to the Syrian regime's military strategy. It doesn'tneed to use chemical weapons. In other words, even if the regime does comply with inspections (which could drag on for months if not years), it will have little import for the broader civil war, which Assad remains intent on winning.

If anything, Assad finds himself in a stronger position. Now, he can get away with nearly anything -- as long as he sticks to using good old conventional weapons, which, unlike the chemical kind, are responsible for the vast majority of the more than 100,000 deaths so far in the civil war. Let's say Assad intensifies the bombardment of villages and cities using aircraft and artillery. What if there are more summary executions, more indiscriminate slaughter? What we have already seen is terrible, of course, but it is not the worst Assad can do with conventional weapons.

Assad and his Russian backers played on Obama's most evident weakness, exploiting his desire to find a way -- any way -- out of military action. There was a threat of military force, but it was a weak and not entirely credible one, and this has only been further confirmed by the events of the last few weeks. Assad is still in power, prosecuting his war. Before the "deal," Assad had to at least worry about the possibility of military intervention and modulate his daily kill rate accordingly.

Little--if anything--has been accomplished by this deal. Assad will continue to lead Syria, he and the Russians will drag out any process regarding the inspection and elimination of chemical weapons, and as Hamid points out, the Obama administration will have neither the will nor the backing to put the military option back on the table. The United States has seen itself drawn into a conflict in which it had no strategic interest whatsoever, and its diplomatic aims in that conflict have not been achieved. I am glad that there will be no war, but war should have been abjured with the pronouncement that at the end of the day, the United States had no dog in the Syrian fight. Instead, the Obama administration rushed headlong into the middle of a conflict, rashly threatened military action, realized only later that it did not want a war, signaled that realization to everyone else, and accepted a bad deal in order to avoid military conflict with the Assad regime. It is difficult to imagine a worse outcome.

Quote of the Day

It is now clear that Snowden was not focused on unearthing for public debate only selected matters that raise issues of privacy and that ought to be debated. He instead was, like his contemporary Bradley Manning, engaged in wholesale compromising of any secrets he could get his hands (or his keyboard) on, consequences be damned. He was conducting an unrestricted attack on U.S. government information security. Perhaps he and Manning exhibit a naïve belief that secrecy is not necessary for conducting programs of foreign policy and national security. But traitors are not all sophisticated; some are naïve.

--Paul Pillar on Edward Snowden. And here is an alternative quote of the day from the same piece:

It is well past time to discard the notion that Snowden wasn't doing something terribly wrong because he was not working all along, in classic spy-novel fashion, as an agent of a foreign government. For one thing, foreign governments (and terrorist groups) read U.S. newspapers. For another, when Snowden went to Moscow he put himself at the mercy of the Russian government. When he was given permission to stay in Russia, it could be assumed that anything he had on whatever laptop or thumb drive he had with him came into the possession of the Russian intelligence services. Given his earlier stop in Hong Kong, when he also was looking for help in where to go, probably something similar happened with the Chinese. In short, Snowden's actions entailed bushels of U.S. secrets being given to Russia and China. There are various terms that can be applied to that, but it certainly isn't “whistle-blowing.”

I suppose that it is worth noting that the last two paragraphs of Pillar's piece are really good too.

Quick Links on Syria

In no particular order . . .

  • This is what results when a foreign leader struts after thoroughly outwitting and outmaneuvering an American president. Yes, the Putin editorial is hypocritical in the extreme (was United Nations permission requested by the Putin regime before Russian forays into Chechnya or Georgia?). Yes, it is replete with falsehoods--and the fact that the New York Times allowed it to be published anyway says something about the Times's editorial standards. But for those who wondered whether the Times allows itself to be used as a medium for transnational taunting between world leaders, you now have your answer in the affirmative. 
  • I suppose that the good thing about the Syria fracas is that it has helped re-engage the American people on the issue of foreign policy. Who knows? Perhaps we can look forward to a time when foreign policy, international diplomacy and statecraft become major campaign issues during election season.
  • This story informs us that "the CIA has been delivering light machine guns and other small arms to Syrian rebels for several weeks, following President Barack Obama's decision to arm the rebels." It also informs us that "in the northeastern province of Hassakeh, clashes pitting Kurdish fighters against members of the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant in the past two days killed 13 Kurdish gunmen and 35 militants." So, armed rebel groups are fighting other armed rebel groups, some of which are Islamic fundamentalist militants related to al Qaeda. Query: How do we know that the weapons that we are providing to "Syrian rebels" don't fall into the hands of the wrong kind of "rebels"?

Going from Bad to Worse (Syria Edition)

I missed the president's speech on Syria, but looking through it, I can't find anything that makes me feel more confident in the White House's handling of the situation. Chemical weapons are awful and horrendous things, but I don't see any rationale for making the use of chemical weapons the trigger for a possible American intervention, especially since before the use of these weapons, we've known that "[o]ver a hundred thousand people have been killed," and that "[m]illions have fled" Syria. It seems to me that we have had a monumental humanitarian catastrophe on our hands even before the use of chemical weapons. Why didn't we intervene before that catastrophe got worse, before chemical weapons were used? Other than telling us that "we cannot resolve someone else’s civil war through force, particularly after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan," the president doesn't explain why humanitarian catastrophes brought about without chemical weapons are somehow less deserving of international attention than are humanitarian catastrophes brought about with chemical weapons.

The president tells us that "[i]f we fail to act, the Assad regime will see no reason to stop using chemical weapons," and that in addition, "other tyrants will have no reason to think twice about acquiring poison gas and using them." But what reason do they have to stop now? Will the "unbelievably small" consequences that the Assad regime might have to face somehow deter the regime, or "other tyrants"? Will the fact that a coalition of the willing that is smaller, less coalesced and certainly less willing than its predecessor coalition--along with possible Russian assistance that will help Syria replace bombed assets--help deter the Assad regime, or "other tyrants"? We are told that if we do not intervene, fighting might possibly spill "beyond Syria’s borders," which would mean that "these weapons could threaten allies like Turkey, Jordan and Israel." This raises some questions:

  1. How and why do we think that fighting might spill "beyond Syria's borders"? I have read my Clausewitz and I know that war is difficult to control, but why do we think that a civil war might possibly spread to other countries? By what particular mechanism will spillage occur?
  2. Who exactly will "threaten allies like Turkey, Jordan and Israel"? The Assad regime? If so, they would be fools to do so; such an act would directly bring American national security interests into the picture and spell the regime's doom. Seeing as how it is not in the regime's interests to destroy itself with so brazen and militaristic an act, one rather doubts that they will do so. The Syrian rebels? If so, why are we potentially acting to help them?

There are, of course, no answers to these questions in the president's speech. But the president goes on to tell us that

. . . a failure to stand against the use of chemical weapons would weaken prohibitions against other weapons of mass destruction and embolden Assad’s ally, Iran, which must decide whether to ignore international law by building a nuclear weapon or to take a more peaceful path.

Look, Iran wants nuclear power. We all know that. The Iranians have wanted nuclear power since the shah's time. Given this history, how seriously can anyone take the administration's claim that Assad's use of chemical weapons will encourage the Iranians to get nuclear weapons, when history plainly shows that Iran has not waited for the Assad regime's cue in order to work to obtain nuclear power?

The president goes on to promise "targeted strikes," and swears up and down that the campaign will not be "open-ended," or "prolonged," which is just another way of assuring the Assad regime that if it hunkers down, it will survive any American attack and that once the attacks are finished, the regime can go ahead and continue to gas opponents. How this is expected to constitute deterrence is anyone's guess.

Later on, we get this:

Other questions involve the dangers of retaliation. We don’t dismiss any threats, but the Assad regime does not have the ability to seriously threaten our military. Any other -- any other retaliation they might seek is in line with threats that we face every day. Neither Assad nor his allies have any interest in escalation that would lead to his demise. And our ally Israel can defend itself with overwhelming force, as well as the unshakable support of the United States of America.

If this is the case, then why worry that fighting might possibly spill "beyond Syria’s borders," which would mean that "these weapons could threaten allies like Turkey, Jordan and Israel"? If "[n]either Assad nor his allies have any interest in escalation that would lead to his demise," why do we think that there may be spillage? The president plainly believes that Assad won't encourage or bring about such spillage and if there are elements in the Syrian opposition that might encourage or bring about such spillage, then we shouldn't be helping them, should we? And if "our ally Israel can defend itself with overwhelming force, as well as the unshakable support of the United States of America," then doesn't that mean that spillage--while potentially a serious issue--is one that we can handle without the use of preemptive airstrikes that are too weak to accomplish anything in the first place?

I chuckled a little bit when the president said that "al-Qaida will only draw strength in a more chaotic Syria if people there see the world doing nothing to prevent innocent civilians from being gassed to death." I presume that he would have no problem with the following very similar statements:

  • "Al Qaeda will only draw strength in a more chaotic Iraq if people see the world doing nothing to prevent innocent civilians from being gassed to death."
  • "Al Qaeda will only draw strength in a more chaotic Iraq if people see the world doing nothing to prevent innocent civilians from being persecuted, tortured and executed for their political beliefs."
  • "Al Qaeda will only draw strength in a more chaotic Afghanistan if people see the world doing nothing to prevent innocent civilians from being persecuted, tortured and executed for their political beliefs."

I had no idea that the president is secretly a fan of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He must be, because similar logic applies to both countries. You learn something new everyday.

The latest development in the Syrian sitzkrieg is that John Kerry, our secretary of state, stepped in it recently:

This, apparently, is how diplomacy happens these days: Someone makes an off-hand remark at a press conference and triggers an international chain reaction that turns an already chaotic and complex situation completely on its head, and gives everyone a sense that, perhaps, this is the light at the end of the indecision tunnel. 

Speaking in London next to British Foreign Secretary William Hague on Monday, Secretary of State John Kerry said that perhaps the military strike around which the administration has been painfully circling for weeks could be avoided if Bashar al-Assad can "turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week. Turn it over, all of it, without delay, and allow a full and total accounting for that.” 

The fact that Kerry immediately followed with, “But he isn’t about to do it, and it can’t be done, obviously,” didn't seem to bother anyone. (Probably because they were focusing on his other slip-up: calling the promised strikes "unbelievably small.")

The Russians immediately jumped on the impromptu proposal, calling Kerry to check if he was serious before going live with their proposal to lean on Syria. An hour later, they trotted out Syria's foreign minister, Walid al-Mouallem, who said he too was down with the proposal, which was a strange way to get the Syrians to finally admit they even had chemical weapons to begin with. Before long, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, the English, and the French were all on board, too.

Meanwhile, back in Washington, the White House was just as surprised as anyone. Asked if this was a White House plan that Kerry had served up in London, Deputy National Security Advisor Tony Blinken was unequivocal. "No, no, no," he said. "We literally just heard about this as you did some hours ago."

So that's good. At least everyone's on the same page.

Read the whole thing. While reading, be sure to remember that John Kerry once wanted to be president. Probably still does. Anyone want to tell me how easy it will be to (a) stop a civil war; and (b) send in an international force that removes all chemical weapons before (c) announcing to civil war participants that it's okay for them to shoot at each other again? Or will we just not bother with (a)? As Julia Ioffe notes, this proposal--and its possible embrace--mean that "Moscow and Damascus have all the time in the world, and the Kremlin, which has never met a legal norm it couldn't waltz around, will quibble and hair-split and insist that this is all done legally—whatever that means in Moscow." The Obama administration has officially been bamboozled out of its ability to launch "unbelievably small" strikes against the Syrian regime, which takes some doing, if you ask me.

If all of this is not bad enough for you, read Colum Lynch:

A day after President Obama expressed hope of a "breakthrough" on Syria's chemical weapons, Britain, France, and United States clashed on Tuesday with Russia over the terms of a plan that would place Syria's chemical weapons under international supervision and require Syria to join the international Chemical Weapons Convention.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dubbed a U.S.-backed French initiative threatening possible military action against Syria "unacceptable." The plan to monitor Syria's chemical weapons "can work only if we hear that the American side and all those who support the United States in this sense reject the use of force," Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a television address.

The Russian stance left in disarray Western plans to establish a legally binding inspection regime, backed by the threat of force. The move also raised questions about whether a diplomatic breakthrough welcomed by President Obama is still in reach. Yet Security Council diplomats said that Russia's abrupt decision on Tuesday to drop its demand for an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council suggested there was still hope of diplomatic progress.

In an effort to overcome Russian opposition, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry plans to travel to Geneva to meet on Thursday with Lavrov. American, British, and French diplomats, meanwhile, pressed ahead here at the United Nations with efforts to refine the French U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the Syrian government and placing Syria's chemical weapons program "under international control" in preparation for their destruction.

If they succeed in gaining passage of their resolution, they will give the United Nations a new reason to do business with President Assad. The senior Arab diplomat said, "This all reminds me of Iraq, when Kofi Annan said he has a partner in Saddam Hussein," who then spent years in a cat-and-mouse game with U.N. weapons inspectors. "Do we know we have a partner in Bashar al-Assad?"

All of which means that the proper response to the question posed by the title of Lynch's column is "yes." But hey, let's "trust the Russians." What could possibly go wrong with that plan?

Finally, to close out this very long post, let's take a trip down memory lane. Somewhere, Mitt Romney laughs.

The Latest on Syria

Some links:

The Rush to Feel-Good Belligerency

Some more useful links analyzing our seeming willingness to get involved in a completely unnecessary war:

  • Once upon a time, Barack Obama inveighed against unilateralism and thought that getting United Nations approval for American military actions overseas would be a good idea. Nowadays? Not so much.
  • Even if we bomb Syria, Russia might "replace any military assets the U.S. destroys in a strike." Assuming no Russian interference whatsoever, our strikes would be of limited value. But if the Russians work to help the Syrians replace bombed assets, our ability to change the situation on the ground for the better might be even further reduced. And are we really willing to get into a proxy war with the Russians in a conflict where no American national security interests whatsoever are at stake?
  • Seriously? I mean, who actually thought that this enterprise would bear fruit?
  • Once again, it is worth noting that the new coalition of the willing is less coalesced and less willing than its predecessor coalition.
  • Searching for fourteen missing people is going to require some big milk cartons.

The Vindication of Mitt Romney?

A lot of his comments during last year's election campaign look rather prescient, don't they? I still don't agree that Russia is our number one geopolitical foe, but I am betting that there are a number of people in the Obama administration who are far less willing nowadays to dismiss some of the comments Romney made about the state of Russian-American relations.

Before Syria, There Was Libya

As we contemplate a new Obamaesque military adventure, it is perhaps useful to remind ourselves how the old one is shaking out:

A little under two years ago, Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, urged British businessmen to begin “packing their suitcases” and to fly to Libya to share in the reconstruction of the country and exploit an anticipated boom in natural resources.

Yet now Libya has almost entirely stopped producing oil as the government loses control of much of the country to militia fighters.

Mutinying security men have taken over oil ports on the Mediterranean and are seeking to sell crude oil on the black market. Ali Zeidan, Libya’s Prime Minister, has threatened to “bomb from the air and the sea” any oil tanker trying to pick up the illicit oil from the oil terminal guards, who are mostly former rebels who overthrew Muammar Gaddafi and have been on strike over low pay and alleged government corruption since July.

As world attention focused on the coup in Egypt and the poison gas attack in Syria over the past two months, Libya has plunged unnoticed into its worst political and economic crisis since the defeat of Gaddafi two years ago. Government authority is disintegrating in all parts of the country putting in doubt claims by American, British and French politicians that Nato’s military action in Libya in 2011 was an outstanding example of a successful foreign military intervention which should be repeated in Syria.

In an escalating crisis little regarded hitherto outside the oil markets, output of Libya’s prized high-quality crude oil has plunged from 1.4 million barrels a day earlier this year to just 160,000 barrels a day now. Despite threats to use military force to retake the oil ports, the government in Tripoli has been unable to move effectively against striking guards and mutinous military units that are linked to secessionist forces in the east of the country.

Libyans are increasingly at the mercy of militias which act outside the law. Popular protests against militiamen have been met with gunfire; 31 demonstrators were shot dead and many others wounded as they protested outside the barracks of “the Libyan Shield Brigade” in the eastern capital Benghazi in June.

Though the Nato intervention against Gaddafi was justified as a humanitarian response to the threat that Gaddafi’s tanks would slaughter dissidents in Benghazi, the international community has ignored the escalating violence. The foreign media, which once filled the hotels of Benghazi and Tripoli, have likewise paid little attention to the near collapse of the central government.

This is the part where I am supposed to recite the definition of insanity. But I'm betting that you already know it by now. Too bad the White House doesn't.