POTUS Address on the Syrian Comedy of Errors

[Dusty]

Read what Noonan says in anticipation of tonight's speech:

http://blogs.wsj.com/peggynoonan/201...ense-of-syria/

This is what I think we’re seeing:

The president has backed away from a military strike in Syria. But he can’t acknowledge this or act as if it is true. He is acting and talking as if he’s coolly, analytically, even warily contemplating the Russian proposal and the Syrian response. The proposal, he must know, is absurd. Bashar Assad isn’t going to give up all his hidden weapons in wartime, in the middle of a conflict so bitter and severe that his forces this morning reportedly bombed parts of Damascus, the city in which he lives. In such conditions his weapons could not be fully accounted for, packed up, transported or relinquished, even if he wanted to. But it will take time—weeks, months—for the absurdity to become obvious. And it is time the president wants. Because with time, with a series of statements, negotiations, ultimatums, promises and proposals, the Syria crisis can pass. It can dissipate into the air, like gas.

The president will keep the possibility of force on the table, but really he’s lunging for a lifeline he was lucky to be thrown.

Why is he backing off? Because he knows he doesn’t have the American people and isn’t going to get them. The polls, embarrassingly, show the more people hear the less they support it. The president’s problem with his own base was probably startling to him, and sobering. He knows he was going to lose Congress, not only the House but very possibly—likely, I’d say—the Senate. The momentum was all against him. And he never solved—it was not solvable—his own Goldilocks problem: A strike too small is an embarrassment, a strike too big could topple the Assad regime and leave Obama responsible for a complete and cutthroat civil war involving terrorists, foreign operatives, nihilists, jihadists, underemployed young men, and some really nice, smart people. Obama didn’t want to own that, or the fires that could engulf the region once Syria went up.

His plan was never good. The choices were never good. In any case he was going to lose either in terms of domestic prestige, the foreign result or both. Likely both.

He got himself into it and now Vladimir Putin, who opposes U.S. policy in Syria and repeatedly opposed a strike, is getting him out. This would be coldly satisfying for Putin and no doubt personally galling for Obama—another reason he can’t look as if he’s lunging.

A serious foreign-policy intellectual said recently that Putin’s problem is that he’s a Russian leader in search of a Nixon, a U.S. president he can really negotiate with, a stone player who can talk grand strategy and the needs of his nation, someone with whom he can thrash it through and work it out. Instead he has Obama, a self-besotted charismatic who can’t tell the difference between showbiz and strategy, and who enjoys unburdening himself of moral insights to his peers.

But Putin has no reason to want a Syrian conflagration. He is perhaps amused to have a stray comment by John Kerry be the basis for a resolution of the crisis. The hidden rebuke: It means that when Putin met with Obama at the G-20 last week Obama, due to his lack of competence, got nothing. But a stray comment by the Secretary of State? Sure, why not rub Obama’s face in it.

* * *
All this, if it is roughly correct, is going to make the president’s speech tonight quite remarkable. It will be a White House address in which a president argues for an endeavor he is abandoning. It will be a president appealing for public support for an action he intends not to take.

We’ve never had a presidential speech like that!

So what will he say? Some guesses.

He will not really be trying to “convince the public.” He will be trying to move the needle a little, which will comfort those who want to say he retains a matchless ability to move the masses. It will make him feel better. And it will send the world the message: Hey, this isn’t a complete disaster. The U.S. president still has some juice, and that juice can still allow him to surprise you, so watch it.

He will attempt to be morally compelling and rhetorically memorable. He will probably, like Susan Rice yesterday, attempt to paint a graphic portrait of what chemical weapons do—the children in their shrouds, the suffering parents, what such deaths look like and are. This is not meaningless: the world must be reminded what weapons of mass destruction are, and what the indifference of the world foretells.

He will claim the moral high ground. He will temporarily reserve the use of force and welcome recent diplomatic efforts. He will suggest it was his threat of force that forced a possible diplomatic solution. His people will be all over the airwaves saying it was his deft leadership and steely-eyed threat to use force that allowed for a diplomatic break.

The real purpose of the speech will be to lay the predicate for a retrospective judgment of journalists and, later, historians. He was the president who warned the world and almost went—but didn’t go—to war to make a point that needed making.

Before or after the speech there will be some quiet leaking to the press that yes, frankly, the president, with so many difficult domestic issues facing him and Congress in the fall, wanted, sympathetically, to let lawmakers off the hook. They never wanted to vote on this.

Once that was true, they didn’t. But now, having seen the polls and heard from their constituents, a lot of them are raring to go, especially Republicans. It is Democrats who were caught in the crosshairs between an antiwar base and a suddenly hawkish president. But again, a Democratic White House can’t admit it put its people in a fix like that.

In any case it’s good for America that we’ve dodged either bad outcome: Congress votes no and the president moves anyway, or Congress votes no and he doesn’t. Both possibilities contained dangers for future presidents.

The president will assert that as a lover of peace he welcomes the Russian move and reports of the positive Syrian reaction, that he will closely monitor the situation, set deadlines. He will speak of how he understands the American people, after the past 12 years, after previous and painful mistakes by their leaders, would feel so reluctant for any military engagement. He not only understands this reluctance, he shares it. He knows he was elected, in part, because he would not think of war as the first, or even second or third, option. But he has a higher responsibility now, and it is to attempt to warn the world of the moral disaster of the use of weapons of mass destruction. If we don’t move in the firmest opposition our children will face a darker future.

The speech will end. Polls will be taken. Maybe a mild uptick, maybe a flatline. Probably more or less the latter—people have made up their mind. They sense the crisis has passed or is passing. They’re not keen for more presidential rhetoric.

* * *
Then get ready for the spin job of all spin jobs. It’s already begun: the White House is beginning to repeat that a diplomatic solution only came because the president threatened force. That is going to be followed by something that will grate on Republicans, conservatives, and foreign-policy journalists and professionals. But many Democrats will find it sweet, and some in the political press will go for it, if for no other reason than it’s a new story line.

It is that Syria was not a self-made mess, an example of historic incompetence. It was Obama’s Cuban Missile Crisis—high-stakes, eyeball-to-eyeball, with weapons of mass destruction and an implacable foe. The steady waiting it out, the inner anguish, the idea that crosses the Telex that seems to soften the situation. A cool, calibrated, chancy decision to go with the idea, to make a measured diplomatic concession. In the end it got us through the crisis.

Really, they’re going to say this. And only in part because this White House is full of people who know nothing—really nothing—about history. They’ve only seen movies.

The only question is who plays Bobby. Get ready for a leak war between Kerry’s staff and Hillary Clinton’s

An important thing. The president will be tempted, in his embarrassment, to show a certain dry and contemplative distance from Putin. The Obama White House should go lightly here: Putin could always, in his pique, decide to make things worse, not better. It would be good for Obama to show graciousness and appreciation. Yes, this will leave Putin looking and feeling good. But that’s not the worst thing that ever happened. And Putin has played this pretty well.

Snip

[TrapperFrank]

Dear Leader Obumbles got punked by Putin, plain and simple. The Russians played chess while we were playing go fish.

[JHD]

All of the above in an attempt to save his legacy, his library, his future book deals, and to not be known as "worse than Carter".

[ddoering]

Originally Posted by JHD

"worse than Carter".

Too late. He crossed that Rubicon years ago....

[Toaster]

At this point what difference does it make?

I'm reckoning that this can go here rather than make a new thread.

The author of an article that John Kerry and John McCain both quoted supporting Syria was not written by a real Doctor. She has been fired, but still has someone standing by her work.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/0...red-96637.html

snip

"The Syria researcher whose Wall Street Journal op-ed piece was cited by Secretary of State John Kerry and Sen. John McCain during congressional hearings about the use of force has been fired from the Institute for the Study of War for lying about having a Ph.D., the group announced on Wednesday.

“The Institute for the Study of War has learned and confirmed that, contrary to her representations, Ms. Elizabeth O’Bagy does not in fact have a Ph.D. degree from Georgetown University,” the institute said in a statement. “ISW has accordingly terminated Ms. O’Bagy’s employment, effective immediately.'"


I just don't understand claiming to be something you're not. Probably will end up working in the White House as a press corespondent

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by Broadsword2004

I wonder if that is true, that Putin really would like a U.S. president that he can talk things like grand strategy with in-depth and so forth, and negotiate. I have always assumed that such a U.S. president would be the kind he would not want, as that type would be much tougher, whereas Obama is probably someone easier to deal with.

The term, "useful idiot" comes to mind.

TR

[Max_Tab]

The Game continues.

Open letter to the American people, from Putin....

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/op...yria.html?_r=0

I don't even know what to say...yet other than wow. He is definitely pushing for saint of the year. Maybe we should call him Saint Vlad. It will probable play with the low information voter who doesn't really know anything and it shows that he is just so much better at "the game" than our President.

[Richard]

What Vladimir has to say about it all in Pravda on the Hudson.

Richard

A Plea for Caution From Russia: What Putin Has to Say to Americans About Syria
VPutin, NYT, 11 Sep 2013

Recent events surrounding Syria have prompted me to speak directly to the American people and their political leaders. It is important to do so at a time of insufficient communication between our societies.

Relations between us have passed through different stages. We stood against each other during the cold war. But we were also allies once, and defeated the Nazis together. The universal international organization — the United Nations — was then established to prevent such devastation from ever happening again.

The United Nations’ founders understood that decisions affecting war and peace should happen only by consensus, and with America’s consent the veto by Security Council permanent members was enshrined in the United Nations Charter. The profound wisdom of this has underpinned the stability of international relations for decades.

No one wants the United Nations to suffer the fate of the League of Nations, which collapsed because it lacked real leverage. This is possible if influential countries bypass the United Nations and take military action without Security Council authorization.

The potential strike by the United States against Syria, despite strong opposition from many countries and major political and religious leaders, including the pope, will result in more innocent victims and escalation, potentially spreading the conflict far beyond Syria’s borders. A strike would increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism. It could undermine multilateral efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and further destabilize the Middle East and North Africa. It could throw the entire system of international law and order out of balance.

Syria is not witnessing a battle for democracy, but an armed conflict between government and opposition in a multireligious country. There are few champions of democracy in Syria. But there are more than enough Qaeda fighters and extremists of all stripes battling the government. The United States State Department has designated Al Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, fighting with the opposition, as terrorist organizations. This internal conflict, fueled by foreign weapons supplied to the opposition, is one of the bloodiest in the world.

Mercenaries from Arab countries fighting there, and hundreds of militants from Western countries and even Russia, are an issue of our deep concern. Might they not return to our countries with experience acquired in Syria? After all, after fighting in Libya, extremists moved on to Mali. This threatens us all.

From the outset, Russia has advocated peaceful dialogue enabling Syrians to develop a compromise plan for their own future. We are not protecting the Syrian government, but international law. We need to use the United Nations Security Council and believe that preserving law and order in today’s complex and turbulent world is one of the few ways to keep international relations from sliding into chaos. The law is still the law, and we must follow it whether we like it or not. Under current international law, force is permitted only in self-defense or by the decision of the Security Council. Anything else is unacceptable under the United Nations Charter and would constitute an act of aggression.

No one doubts that poison gas was used in Syria. But there is every reason to believe it was used not by the Syrian Army, but by opposition forces, to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons, who would be siding with the fundamentalists. Reports that militants are preparing another attack — this time against Israel — cannot be ignored.

It is alarming that military intervention in internal conflicts in foreign countries has become commonplace for the United States. Is it in America’s long-term interest? I doubt it. Millions around the world increasingly see America not as a model of democracy but as relying solely on brute force, cobbling coalitions together under the slogan “you’re either with us or against us.”

But force has proved ineffective and pointless. Afghanistan is reeling, and no one can say what will happen after international forces withdraw. Libya is divided into tribes and clans. In Iraq the civil war continues, with dozens killed each day. In the United States, many draw an analogy between Iraq and Syria, and ask why their government would want to repeat recent mistakes.

No matter how targeted the strikes or how sophisticated the weapons, civilian casualties are inevitable, including the elderly and children, whom the strikes are meant to protect.

The world reacts by asking: if you cannot count on international law, then you must find other ways to ensure your security. Thus a growing number of countries seek to acquire weapons of mass destruction. This is logical: if you have the bomb, no one will touch you. We are left with talk of the need to strengthen nonproliferation, when in reality this is being eroded.

We must stop using the language of force and return to the path of civilized diplomatic and political settlement.

A new opportunity to avoid military action has emerged in the past few days. The United States, Russia and all members of the international community must take advantage of the Syrian government’s willingness to place its chemical arsenal under international control for subsequent destruction. Judging by the statements of President Obama, the United States sees this as an alternative to military action.

I welcome the president’s interest in continuing the dialogue with Russia on Syria. We must work together to keep this hope alive, as we agreed to at the Group of 8 meeting in Lough Erne in Northern Ireland in June, and steer the discussion back toward negotiations.

If we can avoid force against Syria, this will improve the atmosphere in international affairs and strengthen mutual trust. It will be our shared success and open the door to cooperation on other critical issues.

My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is “what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.” It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.

Vladimir V. Putin is the president of Russia.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/op...f=opinion&_r=0

[miclo18d]

Putin played by Denzel Washington and Obama played by Ethan Hawk.

What politic on the international level is about!

[BMT (RIP)]

Barack Obama’s Syria speech was an incoherent mess – he is outperforming Jimmy Carter as the most feeble US president of modern times

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/ni...-modern-times/


BMT

[tonyz]

A Plea for Caution From Russia: What Putin Has to Say to Americans About Syria
VPutin, NYT, 11 Sep 2013

Recent events surrounding Syria have prompted me to speak directly to the American people and their political leaders...

...We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.

Vladimir V. Putin is the president of Russia.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/op...f=opinion&_r=0

I find it curious when this communist and former KGB officer - three time Russian president and twice Russian prime minister - refers to God. I understand when the alleged conversion took place but as time passes I have become even more skeptical of this communist and his seemingly limitless power grabs.

MOO, Putin is providing Obama a lesson in world politics...and the only "flexibility" Obama is showing after the election is how far he can be bent over by an experienced, albeit evil, political adversary.

"We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal."

Vladimir V. Putin is the president of Russia.

PLEEEEASE.

ETA: Putin control over Russian oil and Putin viewed as powerbroker in oil rich mid-east...what possible problems to USA?

[tonyz]

Bill Whittle in a video commentary - these are indeed interesting times.

AFTERBURNER w/ BILL WHITTLE Umbrella Men Neville Chamberlain and Barack Obama

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6y0N5CF...%3D6y0N5CFXsBE

[Max_Tab]

Very interesting video. 2 things that stuck out, was the comment how under Carter the Iranian's kept Americans hostage for 444 day's, but within hours of Reagan becoming president they were released. Those people only respect one thing, and that is strength. Look at how the mideast treated us after 9-11, and when Bush made his famous speech, "if your not with us, your against us". Every damn one of em was scared, because they new that the sleeping giant had been woken up....

Almost all Muslim political and religious leaders condemned the attacks. The leaders vehemently denouncing the attacks included the leaders of Egypt (Hosni Mubarak), the Palestinian Authority (Yasser Arafat), Libya (Muammar Gaddafi), Syria (Bashar al-Assad), Iran (Mohamed Khatami) and Pakistan (Pervez Musharraf).[4][16] The sole exception was Iraq, when the then-president Saddam Hussein, said of the attacks that "the American cowboys are reaping the fruit of their crimes against humanity".[17] Saddam would later offer sympathy to the Americans killed in the attacks.[18]

Renowned Muslim scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi denounced the attacks and the unprovoked killings of thousands of American civilians as a "heinous crime" and urged Muslims to donate blood to the victims. He did, however, criticize the United States' "biased policy towards Israel" and also called on Muslims to "concentrate on facing the occupying enemy directly", inside the Palestinian territories.[19] The alleged Hezbollah "spiritual mentor" and Lebanese Shia cleric Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah condemned the attacks.

Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas, said he was not interested in exporting such attacks to the United States, however he criticized the "unfair American position".[20]

Afghanistan's Taliban rulers condemned the attacks and also vehemently rejected suggestions that Osama bin Laden, who had been given asylum in Afghanistan, could be behind them.[20]

Huge crowds attended candlelit vigils in Iran, and 60,000 spectators observed a minute's silence at Tehran football stadium.[21][22] (Look at em now)

The Sahrawi national liberation movement Polisario Front condemned the "criminal attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in the USA and, particularly, against defenceless innocent civilians".[23]

Sorry it is from Wikipedia, but it meshes with what I remember
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactio...ber_11_attacks

I remember standing on the Serbian border up in the mountain a few day's afte 9-11. We had stopped to piss, it was a beautiful field, there was a stream running in the trees, everything was green. It was incredible peaceful. After a few minutes of the peace we heard something and looked up and there were at least a dozen bombers B-52's and B-1's I believe, flying overhead heading east. Me and my partner looked at each other and just smiled.

The second and more important thing is I now know why I HATE seeing men with umbrellas (unless they are being a gentleman and holding it for a lady). An umbrella is a "symbol of Appeasement, Weakness, and Surrender". Maybe that is why you only see Air Force guy's in uniform carrying umbrellas.

[Badger52]

PJ O'Rourke actually has quite a few speech options for POTUS that are useful in a variety of situations.

Here's his example channeling The Bard:

Shakespeare’s Henry Barack V,
Act IV, Scene iii

That he which hath no stomach to this fight,

Let him depart. So I’m out of here.

[exit muttering]

We few, we very few, we hardly any .  .

Amusing read.

[Dusty]

Kerry's now playing it off like he nuanced the relinquishment offer as a form of diplomatic technique.


The press will continue to cover for these clowns until Hillary is formally in the running for the Madame President slot, then all this crap will be rewritten with a timbre of ridicule and villification.