9.8.13: Syria and Chemical Weapons

"Once we're in, we're in."
          Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Mike McCaul (R-TX)

"It's not our problem, until it's our problem."
          Former Senior Adviser to President Obama, David Axelrod

If you boil down all the commentary from today's Meet The Press,  you're left with these two quotes as the arguments for the United States becoming involved in the Syrian civil war and why not.  We'll add one more adage to the mix:
         There are no perfect plans, only perfect intentions...

And that's where we begin, with the interview of White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough who said that the Administration's intention for airstrikes is that they will be 'targeted, limited, and consequential.'  Mr. McDonough continued with the argument that if we do not act in retaliation against the Assad Regime that it will send a signal to other players in the region that they can deploy chemical weapons, or in the case of Iran (as the Chief of Staff noted) the use of nuclear weapons without any retaliatory consequences.

However, no matter how good the intention, the plan that Mr. McDonough laid out is far from perfect, and Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) warned that once a tomahawk missile hits the ground in Syria, the United States will become a full player in the civil war, this being accurately summarized by Mr. McCaul (see above). 

The argument that Mr. McDonugh is making on behalf of the Administration is that 1) America's credibility is on the line if we don't act, 2) using chemical weapons violates a 100 year ban on such action (since WWI), and 3) we don't want to see these weapons ever used on U.S. soldiers.

Worthy arguments, but one flawed piece of logic on the part of the Administration is that air-strikes will effect the balance in the civil war, something the Mr. McDonough did admit will be a consequence of getting involved, but that there will be no after effect for the United States for doing so.  This will not be the case as Syria is not Bosnia and that is what the Obama Administration is thinking - that we'll have a bombing campaign, like the Clinton Administration conducted in Bosnia in the late '90's - where the country's leader will cower under the pressure.  That's not going to happen with Mr. Assad because he has strong outside allies, allies that would like nothing better than to see the United States become bogged down in another conflict to cripple U.S. power abroad even further, limiting its leverage.  Our credibility has been long established in the region already and military involvement in Syria will only further damage it. Simply, the United States is viewed by countries in the Middle East as a bad actor, despite the United States' best intentions.

Another piece of flawed thinking on the part of the Administration is that by making Congress a 'full partner' as Mr. McDonough explained, will spread the responsibility for involvement amongst all of our political leaders in the hopes that it will cause the U.S. to act in a unified manner.  Again, it's just not going to happen, and it's a consequence of the United States body politic being so divided on domestic issues.

Case in point, Rep. Pete King's (R-NY) stated support of the president's plan to hit Syria while criticizing him for not being a Commander in Chief as much as a community organizer.  Republican politicians who support military action against Syria don't support the way in which Mr. Obama is carrying it out.  In this one sense, fmr Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) was correct that politics are at work.  If the president goes to Congress for counsel, he is seen as weak because he can't make a decision on his own.  On the other hand, if Mr. Obama acts without Congress, he'll be accused of breaking with the Constitution for not getting Congress' approval first.

[Some would criticize the president for not reaching out enough to politicians on the opposite side of the aisle before such crises in an attempt to build some sort of rapport, but what would have been Mr. Obama's motivation to do so when an entire political party has tried to delegitimize his presidency from day one.]

What remains after all this back and forth is clear evidence that Bashar Assad's regime launched a chemical attack against his own people, killing over 1,400 - there's not other way to interpret this video released by the White House.

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"Heartbreaking," as Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) described it.

With sixty percent of the American people against getting involved with the Syrian Civil War and Representatives such as Ms. Sanchez saying that they fail to understand how this affects America's national security, why would the administration be pressing so hard as Mr. McDonough was today?

We agree with David Axelrod who correctly said that the world is getting smaller and we're all becoming more interconnected (it's not our problem until it's our problem), and the reality of chemical and nuclear (or even biological) weapons is that they know no borders.  There are some types of chemicals and energy that if unleashed, there's no going back.  (There are now reports that the Japanese are going to build a $500 million mile-long ice wall in the ocean in an attempt to contain radiated water from leaking out of the Fukushima Nuclear Plant. Stopping the flow of water in the ocean is like trying to stop the wind.)

Point being, we simply can not stand by and let a dictator like Mr. Assad use such weapons without the international community coming down hard, and we find it very telling when Andrea Mitchell reported that the Saudis are advising on a delay of military action to go back to the United Nations Security Counsel.  As we've outlined in a previous column, there are more options and ways to punitively punish the Assad Regime beside the United States unilaterally firing missiles into Syria, which would only make the situation worse as a result. Those options, such as getting Russia and China to vote with you through the United Nations, is more difficult, but the better way isn't always the easiest way especially when it comes to diplomacy.

The world's major governments, including the ones that support Mr. Assad, ignore the deployment of such weapons at all our peril. However, for military action to be justified, there simply has to be more of an international consensus, and we say that with the United States' national interests primarily in mind.


Round Table: former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich; former senior adviser to President Obama, David Axelrod; Director of the Wilson Center and fmr Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA); and NBC News Political Director and Chief White House Correspondent, Chuck Todd

Congressional Guests:  Senator Tom Udall (D-NM), Rep. Mike McCaul (R-TX); Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA); and Rep. Pete King (R-NY)