Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Syria Crisis - Another Quagmire?

I'm watching and listening to our first black President Barack Obama speak at the 50th anniversaary of the March on Washington - just after the bells rang out to commemorate the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech on this day in 1963.  As the President included himself as evidence of the progress made since then -- and challenged new generations to fight for the racial equality still not won -- I wondered if he was totally "in the moment".

I certainly wasn't.

Because marring this day of both celebration and rededication to King's dream was the specter of Syria almost visable over Mr. Obama's shoulder. Was he thinking about King and The Dream and his own place in that dream?  Or was he thinking about cruise missile strikes on strategic Syrian government military targets?

We heard alot today from various pundits and analysts about how the White House has gone too far down the road of those missile strikes -- of a one time slap on the wrist for the Assad regime's apparent use of chemical weopons -- to stop now.  But some analysts acknowledge the danger.  That once again the US will take the lead in military involvement in a Middle East nation, running the risk of another ever-escalating involvement.

Since we can't risk hitting the chemical weopons storehouses themselves, what happens when Syrian President Bashar al-Assad -- backed by his allies Iran and Russia -- decides to loose them again on his rebelling people?  Do we strike again? And again?  What does Israel do? And Iran?

Today UN chief Ban Ki-moon appealed for a diplomatic solution, pleaded with the US and other Western powers to go first to the Security Council (where of course Russia would veto any threat of military response).  But the US -- talking vaguely about another Bush-era "coalition of the willing" -- seems hell-bent on pushing ahead into the land of unintended consequences.

Why is it our job to strike Assad?  If every civilized nation has outlawed the use of chemical weopons, why isn't there a unified outcry backed by the UN?  Isn't a failed war in Iraq, a failed war in Afghanistan and at least two failed revolutionary states -- Lybia and Egypt -- enough for the US???

There are many reasoned, well-written assessments of President Obama's Syrian dilemma. Among them the one which sparked this blog post by veteran writer and reporter Christopher Dickey.  If only the President and his advisors would read it!

I haven't heard any ordinary American enthusiastically backing this so-called one time strike in Syria. My European friends are horrified that this out-of-control involvement in an unstable region seems to be happening again.

Is the White House just going to jump in with its missiles blazing before or over the Labor Day weekend -- while many Americans are distracted by what's left of summer? 














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