Obama Is Right!

Whenever I find myself in agreement with the Obama administration about something, I usually chalk it up to that old saying about a broken clock being right twice a day. Such is the case with this administration’s approach to the increasingly dangerous situation in Syria.

Over the weekend Israel began a series of targeted airstrikes to take out newly arrived missile shipments from Iran. Before that, last week, came word that evidence has been found of chemical attacks by the Assad regime on the Syrian people. Previously, Obama had said that the use of such weapons would be crossing a “red line” that would bring some unspecified American response. Once the evidence was found, talk of red lines ceased and diplomatic double talk and ass-covering began in earnest. Good. An un-named Obama aide was quoted in the papers over the weekend asking the rhetorical question, “So, if Assad is stupid enough to use chemical weapons on his own people, how is that an American problem?” Excellent question.

An even better question would be, “As bad as gassing your own citizens is, there are far worse atrocities happening every day in Africa, but there is no talk of “red lines” being crossed. Why not?”  Come on Dunnevant, some of you will say, the Middle East is different! Yes, it is, it’s worse. If we were to intervene in some African country where some drugged out leader is committing genocide, we might actually save some innocent people. Intervening in the Middle East gets us…what exactly? What innocent people will we be rescuing in Syria? The rebels fighting Assad are as degenerate a group of thugs as has ever walked the earth! If history has taught us anything about the Middle East it’s this; the hatred and violence is unsolvable this side of eternity. Theirs is a family feud that has been raging since Eden. The United States of America has no compelling national interest in that cesspool, and even if we did, we are broke. If there isn’t enough money to keep air traffic controllers on the job, how can we afford fighting a war in freaking Syria? Besides, from the looks of things over the weekend, the Israeli air force seems more than equal to the task.

So, bravo to the Obama Administration for a healthy dose of skepticism, and an unwillingness to be dragged in to another endless Middle Eastern quagmire.