Just a few observations about the President’s speech last night. As I watched
it, I had to remind myself that it was he who had requested the time from the
networks. There he was, for all the world to see, a man clearly annoyed that he
had to, once again, explain brilliant strategy to his slow-on-the-uptick citizens.
There I was trying to make sense of the bazillion contradictions flying around,
sometimes within the same sentence. Something is clearly wrong with either the
world’s greatest communicator…or me.
The President described the horror of chemical
weapons, the tragic image of children laid out on concrete floors covered by
sheets, the agony of a father holding his dead children in his arms begging them
to wake up. What remedy did he then propose to right this monstrous wrong? A
limited, targeted strike designed to limit Assad’s future use of chemical
weapons which absolutely, positively will NEVER involve one American boot on
the ground. So, which is it, Mr. President? When you’ve got your Secretary of
State running around making references to the holocaust and Harry Reid throwing
around Hitler comparisons, it would seem like your moral indignation would produce
something a bit more lethal. This “shot across the bow” strategy would be like
discovering that Hitler had murdered 6,000,000 Jews, then putting him in time
out for a week with no television.
Then I was treated to the bizarre sight of a United
States President reminding me that although he doesn’t need Congressional approval
to bomb Syria, he wants it because we are the oldest Constitutional Democracy
in the world and it’s always better when the President and Congress work together.
In the very next sentence he then informs us that the Congressional vote that
just last week he was demanding immediately if not sooner, now he wants to be
put on hold until a diplomatic solution can be pursued through that champion of
freedom and democracy, Vladimir Putin. By this time, my head was about to fall
off my shoulders from the rhetorical whiplash.
Ok, so what to make of this? First a summary of
events:
1. Obama
makes “red line” comment about Syrian chemical weapons and their use.
2. Chemical
weapons are used in Syria
3. Obama
immediately talks tough, telegraphing his intention to carry out military
strikes on Syria.
4. The
Prime Minister of America’s oldest ally, the United Kingdom, goes before
Parliament to make the case for and gain approval for his country’s
participation in said military action whereupon, he loses the vote in
humiliating fashion.
5. Obama
takes a walk after dinner and suddenly sees the need for Congressional approval
6. Our
Secretary of State goes before Congress and testifies to the horror of it all
and the urgency to act immediately, if not sooner.
7. Members
of Congress are not persuaded and the Congressional switchboards are lit up
with calls coming in at a rate of 100-1 against intervention.
8. Days
turn into weeks after the President’s initial telegraphing announcement that a missile
strike was in the works, giving Mr. Assad lots of time to rearrange his assets,
to redeploy everything he doesn’t want destroyed by cruise missiles to a safer
place.
9. Sec.
Kerry gives a convoluted answer to a reporter’s question about a hypothetical,
something any beginner politician knows to never do, especially at a time of
great crisis when the less said the better.
10. Vladimir Putin rushes in to the breech
caused by Kerry’s feckless remark and buys more time for his client Assad, by
proposing that he turn over his entire stockpile of chemical weapons so they can
be destroyed.
11.
This, we are told by our President is a development
worth pursuing. Nothing is said about how maddeningly difficult it is to “destroy”
chemical weapons even in the best of conditions, let alone inside of a country
racked by civil war. Indeed the United States is not even in compliance with
the provisions of the much heralded Chemical Weapons treaty outlawing their use,
since we have yet to destroy all of our stockpile, yet we are now asked to
believe that the Syrians will be able to manage their safe destruction in a
country where the air is thick with artillery fire.
What a fine mess we’ve gotten ourselves into. Here’s
my view. If John Kerry’s bumbling and the President’s ham fisted incompetence
has opened the door for Vladimir Putin to win HIS Nobel Peace prize, I say,
thank God for small miracles. I care not how we’re able to wiggle off this
hook. All I want is for the United States of America to stop interfering in the
Middle East. If the result of this Keystone Cop routine we call our foreign policy
is no intervention in Syria, I’ll be more than happy to give the President all
the credit he will demand for his brilliant statecraft.