SYRIA AND THE WAR PARTY: “AFTER YOU GET WHAT YOU WANT YOU DON’T WANT IT…”

6/17/13

President Barack “W” Obama has decided it’s a good idea to take sides in the Sunni/Shia civil war in Syria (See my 5/24/13 post THE SYRIAN CIVIL WAR:  A FRIGHTENING HISTORICAL ANALOGY for a not surprisingly amazingly prescient piece on this aspect of the war for which Mr. Obama now has such enthusiasm.) and has authorized sending arms to the Sunnis radicals to fight the Alawite/Shia radicals; see my 6/15/13 piece SYRIA:   HOW LONG BEFORE WE’RE CALLING OUR STOOGES “BRUTAL DICTATORS”?, only my latest piece on this impending next disaster for U.S. foreign policy.

Suddenly, though, the bipartisan War Party, of which, apparently, “W” Obama is now seeking to become the most salient member, is not satisfied with the small arms it was demanding we send to the Al Qaeda affiliates in Syria.   Prominent War Party mouthpiece Senator Bob Menendez (D., but really War Party, NJ) says

“You can’t simply send a pea shooter against a blunderbuss.”

Senator Saxby Chambliss (R., but really War Party, Ga.) talks of sending more powerful weapons to the “moderates” he is confident we have found in Syria and of enforcing no-fly zones.   Penultimate War Party leader Lindsey Graham (R., but really War Party, SC, pictured with the Dr. Frankenstein to whom he plays Igor, John McCain) says that the rebels can’t bring Bashar Assad down with small arms; they need something stronger.

The old expression regarding giving people inches only to have them demand yards immediately comes to mind.

Senator Mark Udall (D., but really War Party, Colo.) whimpers that he is afraid of a slippery slope but, lest he fall out of favor with the “defense” contractors who keep War Party members well larded and comfortably ensconced in Washington, says

“But I think we ought to be listening to the president, we ought to be listening to the military leadership.”

What Mr. Udall doesn’t understand, or understands but delights in, is that we are already on a slippery slope.  First it’s non-lethal aid, then it’s small arms, next it’s a no-fly zone, then it’s American “trainers” (what the Kennedy and Johnson administrations used to call “advisers,” only the “advisers” knew that they were really “troops,” but I digress.), then it’s….well, you know the logical conclusion of this game.  

Among all this craziness, the voice of reason comes from, of all people, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who asked the West, referring to the Al Qaeda dominated Syrian rebels,

“You want to support these people?  You want to supply arms to these people?  This bears little relation to the humanitarian values that countries all across Europe have been propagating for hundreds of years.” 

It’s not as if Mr. Putin’s horse in this race, Bashar Assad, has his feet firmly planted in the soil from which sprang the Magna Carta, either.   Mr. Putin is backing his thug not only out of a degree of affinity but also out of self-interest; not only is Syria Russia’s sole friend in the Arab world  (See my 5/17/13 post, AMERICAN ASSURANCES IN SYRIA:  A RUSSIAN GUANTANAMO IN AL QAEDA’S COURT?), but if the rebels win in Syria and it either descends into an ungovernable dystopia or becomes a radical Sunni dominated state (the only two options, despite the War Party’s disingenuous reassurances to the contrary), Russia’s terrorist problem, which makes ours look quite mild by comparison, will become virtually uncontrollable.   Mr. Putin is understandably bewildered that the West is so gung-ho about supporting people who mean the West, and Russia, so much harm.   This makes absolutely no sense to him, and understandably so.   For all his faults, the Russian president has something that most western leaders, and certainly the two U.S. presidents he has had to suffer through, lack…a sense of strategic perspective and, well, common sense.  Mr. Putin must be baffled as the United States and its allies sink further into the miasma of another deadly, expensive, and unwinnable conflict in a place we have no business being.

Somewhere, however, LBJ is smiling.  But not nearly as broadly as John McCain, the War Party’s leader, and the arms merchants who support the lifelong ego trip he and his fellow War Party members call careers.