HARDER ANSWERS
BY AMY DAVIDSONSEPTEMBER 23, 2013
A frequent complaint about President Obama’s Syria policy is that he keeps making matters more complicated. The photographs and the videos that began arriving from Ghouta, outside Damascus, on August 21st seemed clear enough: children crying as they struggled with the effects of some sort of gas; bodies wrapped in shrouds. Obama was ready, on his own authority, to launch air strikes against the regime of Bashar al-Assad, and an attack was expected within days, when the President surprised everyone by announcing that he had decided to seek congressional approval first. Then, last Tuesday night, in an address to the nation, he said that he’d asked Congress to delay the vote while he tried to make a last-minute diplomatic gambit work.
That twist came after a reporter asked Secretary of State John Kerry if Syria could do anything to avoid military action. “Sure,” he said: Assad could hand over “every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community,” adding, “But he isn’t about to do it, and it can’t be done, obviously.” Kerry had been making a rhetorical point, his spokesman said, but Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, called to say that he was interested in the idea, and that the Russians might be able to get the Syrians to agree to it.
Not everyone thought this plan wise: it was trouble enough, some said, to put a decision on Syria in the hands of the likes of Rand Paul and Ted Cruz; Vladimir Putin was less easily distracted by votes to defund Obamacare, and far cannier. The day after Obama’s speech, the Russian President published an Op-Ed in theTimes, in the form of a letter to the American people, titled “A Plea for Caution from Russia,” which was a model of disingenuousness. (The Pope, Putin said, was on his side.) And taking control of the weapons would not be simple. Forty-two sites have been associated with chemical weapons, and the arsenal is said to be on the move. Verifying, collecting, and destroying the weapons would be a long and intricate process, involving protocols and checklists, detective work, inspectors, and laboratory tests, all in the midst of a civil war.
The President has brought some of the criticism of his handling of the affair on himself. He has seemed puzzled when people asked how military action would help, and has never successfully explained what’s supposed to happen after American cruise missiles hit the ground. In his address on Tuesday, he spoke with feeling about the unacceptability of a world in which dictators aren’t punished for atrocities. But he deflected questions about the scope and the effect of an attack, with empty phrases like “the United States military doesn’t do pinpricks.”
Obama’s worst moments, in other words, have come when he ignores complexity, not when he embraces it. Last year, he narrowed his options by talking about the use of chemical weapons as a “red line.” His performance since has had a fly-by-night quality that has not inspired confidence. But, by belatedly turning to Congress and, now, to diplomacy, he has given the process more time and increased the number of possible outcomes. In a situation in which there are no good choices, that’s not a bad thing.
An immediate air strike would be easier to order, and treating a dictator to a burst of military force is an act of seductive clarity. But then come the disordering consequences. If dealing with forty-two weapons sites seems hard, try diagramming the dozens of rebel groups that might benefit from an air strike, and assessing their true loyalties. A United Nations report released last week found evidence of pervasive war crimes in Syria; most were the work of the government, but enough were attributed to the rebels to give anyone pause. Next, think about the Al Nusra Front, a group linked to Al Qaeda, or—as Putin may have—the Chechens fighting with the rebels taking control of a chemical-weapons site, perhaps following an American military action. Then count the ways that Assad might respond to an attack, how many civilians might be killed, and how the situation could escalate, drawing in the United States and any number of Syria’s neighbors.
Since the events of August 21st, Obama has been excoriated as a bumbler, a drifter on the road to Damascus for whom revelation never comes, a man without “credibility.” Reince Priebus, the head of the Republican National Committee, said, “This rudderless diplomacy has embarrassed America on the world stage.” From that point of view, every turn looks like an act of weakness: Obama hesitated, went to Congress not knowing if he had the votes, and, when it became clear that he didn’t, decided to grab whatever cover he could, even if it meant making Putin look strong—and now his Presidency is effectively over.
There are problems with this version of the story. It would have been easier for the President to have stuck with his initial decision, for the sake of credibility. A willingness to improvise, to appear indecisive, carries more risk, but it is also far preferable to the careless certainty that drove George W. Bush in Iraq and Richard Nixon in Southeast Asia. It is also more in keeping with Obama’s character. The arms-control process might produce nothing but months of obfuscation, but turning to it at least affirms the international system that the Administration wants to strengthen. Similarly, the President’s decision to go to Congress was an important one, even if he is not as adept as he might be at working with that body. The political price he’ll pay for backing away from something that a majority of the House and the Senate, his own party, the American people, and many of our allies never wanted may just be overstated.
Lyndon Johnson is considered to have been a master of legislative maneuvering. In 1964, he went to Congress for authorization to use force after the Gulf of Tonkin incident, to respond to an “outrage,” after which he would “seek no wider war.” The bill passed, 88-2, in the Senate, and 416-0 in the House. The debate was brief. “It is a solemn responsibility to have to order even limited military action by forces whose over-all strength is as vast and as awesome as those of the United States of America,” Johnson said—the U.S. military doesn’t do pinpricks. There’s more than one way to undo a Presidency. ♦
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