The president still emphasizes the “credible threat of military action,” but does anyone think Obama won’t seize upon the Russia-Syria WMD proposal as the preferable way out of his red-line corner than congressional vote gambits?
Probably not, and given the character of the man Americans inexplicably re-hired to wield our nukes (and continue to wreck the economy), the Putin proposal that Assad turn over control of its chemical weapons to international monitors is the least-worse possible scenario to “resolve” President Obama’s Syrian debacle, given other likely options.
Otherwise, the Obama Administration would be faced with having to “put up” or “shut up”. The former being defined by Secretary of State John Kerry as an “unbelievably small” attack on the Bashar al-Assad terrorist regime in Syria in retaliation for crossing the use-of-weapons-of-mass-destruction red line the world drew in the sand after WWII. The latter being accepting certain defeat of his attempt to get Congress to bail him out of his red-line gaffe with resolutions affirming his incompetence:
“We want to take a hard look at the proposal,” deputy national security adviser Tony Blinken told reporters at a White House briefing. “We’ll obviously discuss the idea with the Russians, and of course, we would welcome a decision and action by Syria to give up its chemical weapons.”
Obama seems poised to pay lip service to threat-of-force deterrence for the first time in his liberal life, and in any event, America would be able to avoid having its Commander-in-Chief repudiated utterly by We the People’s representatives in such a public way on issues of war. Of course, Republicans in Congress can’t fix what, anti-Western dreams from his father, Rev. Wright sermons and voting twice as senator to cut off funds for troops in the field of war, rendered Obama a typical weak liberal Democrat; but it is best that the GOP not gratuitously further weaken the only President we will have until Inauguration Day, 2017.
So yes, let’s re-hire Hans Blix and re-visit the War in Iraq since Democrats have been forced to re-visit the “Bush-Lied” era they created as an excuse for their Dear Leader’s inability to get congressional majorities or even a minimal coalition of the international-willing to join him in “unbelievably small” (but big enough to deter?) future use of WMD.
The United States did not invade Iraq primarily to seize supposed stockpiles of WMD. Ok, I’ll wait until the masses of misinformed get up off the floor. You heard me right.
Yes, the Bush Administration bent over backwards to try and get the United Nations to pass the “serious consequences” resolutions, lest Saddam Hussein refuse to fully cooperate with the U.N. inspections team headed by Hans Blix after Iraq agreed to a ceasefire/surrender to conclude the First Gulf War. And yes, then Secretary of State Colin Powell essentially played limbo trying to get an essentially redundant second U.N. resolution explicitly authorizing the use of military force after Saddam continued to play cat-and-mouse games with Blix. Meanwhile, Iraq had months to hide what WMD had (including possibly exporting them to Syria, as reported at the time), if any.
But before all that activity, some seminal events had already occurred that didn’t need to be confirmed by Blix or CIA intel. Saddam Hussein:
- Used chemical weapons against the Kurds in Iraq;
- Used chemical weapons against Iran, numerous times, in their decade-long war;
- Invaded Kuwait;
- Came close to assassinating then-former-President George H.W. Bush, causing President Bill Clinton to take military action against them in Desert Fox; and
- Violated the bought-with-American-blood, Desert Storm-initiated, First Gulf war-ceasefire by playing cat-and-mouse WMD games and firing on American pilots enforcing the no-fly zone meant to protect Kurds and other enemies of Saddam from chemical or other aerial military action.
Then came the September 11, 2001 attacks at the hands of a terror nation-state in Afghanistan where the Taliban gave safe haven to Usama bin Laden’s al Qaeda. At that time, terrorists also enjoyed safe haven in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Libya. Moreover, each of the remaining safe havens were also terror nation-states much more wealthy than Afghanistan themselves ruled by terrorists.
What was Saddam, who also after 9/11 was publicly rewarding the parents of suicide bombers on national Iraqi TV, but a terrorist? What was Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi in Libya? Merely a colonel? We think not. What were and are the Iranian mullahs but terrorists? Mere holy men? Please.
And finally, what was and is Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Despite the exceedingly poor judgment of John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama that considered him a “reformer” worthy of re-established diplomatic relations upon taking office in 2009, his regime had never stopped harboring Hezbollah as Iran’s puppet. President George W. Bush recalled our ambassador from Damascus due to his 2007 complicity in the assassination of Lebanon’s leader. Yet, the Left, consistent with its love for Fidel Castros and Bill Ayers, and even Colonel Gaddafi for that matter, swooned at the Oxford-educated ophthalmologist wearing Brooks Brothers-or-better suits.
To so misjudge a terrorist as a reformer should have disqualified Obama from being nominated for dog catcher by a major American political party, much less to wield U.S. nukes, but I digress.
Thankfully, our post-9/11 world is rid of the rich terror-nation state of Saddam Hussein. Thankfully, Libya’s former colonel so feared Dubya that he unilaterally surrendered his WMD including, significantly, allowing American inspectors unfettered access to every square inch of the nation of Libya to confirm the absence of WMD.
The only way to affirm or refute WMD-intel is to have TOTAL access to a nation’s land. One can’t prove a negative otherwise. Hence the post-9/11 risk that Democrats un-patriotically turned into the “Bush-Lied” BIG LIE.
But Mike, didn’t Navy Seal Obama kill UBL? And didn’t Drone-Commander Obama kill Anwar al-Aulaqi in Yemen and scores of other terrorists? So why don’t terror-nation states and Russia fear Obama?
The world saw Obama oppose the killing of tens of thousands of trained al qaeda and other terrorists in Iraq. Obama unilaterally surrendered post-surge victory in Iraq (and thus the intel-gathering and anti-terror base position) without salvaging even one American blood-stained footprint in Babylon. The world saw that. Wouldn’t a base in Iraq be convenient in the non-War on Terror that President Obama is apparently and suddenly prepared to fight? Obama dabbled in an Afghan War surge, while simultaneously promised to withdraw on a date certain. Bad guys saw that and licked their lips. Allies heard that and became less of a U.S. ally. Before the puny sequestration, Obama and the Democrats slashed U.S. defenses. Obama promised post-election flexibility to Russia to slash our nuclear stockpiles and SDI. Obama promises not to muss a hair on a captured terrorist’s head who just might get to have a show trial at Fort Hood, Texas or an Attorney General Eric Holder-sponsored one across the street from where the WTC towers fell in New York City. Finally, Obama made an apology tour to Cairo trashing his own country, insisted that the Sharia Law-loving Muslim Brotherhood rule Egypt and traded in a boxed in Libyan Colonel for Wild west al Qaeda safe havens in Libya as he proposes to advance al Qaeda in Syria.
Yes, Assad is willing to genuflect a bit in public lest the man-child pitches a hissy fit and accidentally destroys one of his Tripoli beach houses, especially if all he has to do is tango with Blix and some puny chemicals. Meanwhile, on the 12-year and 12-month anniversaries of 9/11 and Benghazi tomorrow, it might be illuminating to reflect on the fact that they did NOT involve the use of WMD. Nor did the Fort Hood shooting or Boston Marathon bombing.
Knowing that Dr. Obama’s Obamacare eschews the Hippocratic Oath, is it too much to ask that his foreign policy first do no harm and let terrorists named Assad and al Qaeda kill each other rather than be compelled to draw red lines as they do?
Mike DeVine‘s Right.com
“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson
