Mick Hartley

Frederic Hof adds to the clamour on Obama's disastrous Syria policy:

More than half of Syria's pre-war population now falls into one of the following categories: dead; dying; disabled; tortured; terrorized; traumatized; sick; hungry; homeless. The regime of Bashar al-Assad is responsible for the bulk of this rampant, remorseless criminality. The administration of Barack Obama, if it stays on its present course, will make it through noon, January 20, 2017, without having defended a single Syrian civilian from the Assad-Russia-Iran onslaught. This thoroughly avoidable result may well serve to define Mr. Obama—accomplishments at home and abroad notwithstanding—as a failed president.

President Obama has provided historians with important—and potentially damning—evidence in his various interviews on the subject of Syria. Describing the September 2013 red line climb down—a body blow to American credibility not lost on Russia's Putin—as his proudest presidential moment, will not likely attract critical acclaim in the decades to come. And White House spokesman Joshua Earnest continues to violate the first rule about climbing out of a hole: stop digging….

In fact the administration's policy toward Assad Syria (as opposed to ISIS Syria) rests on its desire to accommodate Iran—a full partner in Assad's collective punishment survival strategy—so that the July 14, 2015 nuclear agreement can survive the Obama presidency. In the case of ISIS, Earnest noted with evident pride that the United States has put boots on the ground in eastern Syria and is at war with a loathsome terrorist group. In the case of offering Syrian civilians not the slightest modicum of protection from Assad, however, Mr. Earnest had an excuse evidently not applicable to ISIS: Iraq 2003.

According to Earnest, "We've got a test case just over the border in Iraq about what the consequences are for the United States implementing a regime-change policy and trying to impose a military solution on the situation." Warming to the subject, Mr. Earnest went on to say, "And look, there are some people who do suggest that somehow the United States should invade Syria."

Shame on a news media that consistently permits this dissembling to go unchallenged. Mr. Earnest, if asked, would be unable to name anyone counseling the invasion of Syria. Mr. Earnest would be unable, if asked, to explain why limited military measures designed to end Assad's mass murder free ride—such as that offered by the 51 dissenting State Department officers—amounts to "regime-change" and "trying to impose a military solution." Indeed, if challenged, Mr. Earnest would be required to retract his subsequent false claim that no critic of the president's Syria policy has ever offered specific, operationally feasible alternatives to a catastrophe-producing approach….

The view here is that a colossal mistake has been made: one fully exploited by Russia and by an Iran not likely to abandon the nuclear agreement if its client gets spanked. Indeed, the supreme leader is probably as stunned as anyone by American passivity in the face of a civilian slaughter that is genocidal in terms of effects and results. But retiring the straw men and putting the real issue on the table ought to be a high priority. Doing so might actually advance the cause of democracy and self-government in America.

Quite apart from the fact that, as Hof says, no one is advocating a militarily-imposed regime change anyway, there's the undeniable point that the Syrian bloodbath has long since passed the "test case" of Iraq in terms of body count, and every other measure of barbarity. If Iraq was a test case for US intervention, and Syria a test case for non-intervention, there's no question which has turned out worse.