As the Obama administration contemplates its next moves in Syria, a decision that is now more pressing with Israel twice bombing Syria in the past week, U.S. credibility hangs in the balance.
Americans today debate possible new interventions, withdrawals, disputes over what does and does not constitute a "red line," and other applications of power abroad in light of enormous geopolitical changes and challenges. Let the debate consider the long history of cautious realism.
President Obama is right to have declared a red line on the Assad regime's use or movement of chemical weapons in Syria. The ban on the use and posses...
Having once misled the public during the year prior to the invasion of Iraq, the media appear to be reprising that role in order to lend an air of inevitability to potential U.S. military intervention in Syria. Exhibit A is the appearance of Christiane Amanpour on The Daily Show.
You have to assume that by continuing to pursue the Benghazi "scandal" story, the GOP is trying to imply that Obama is "soft on terrorism," when in fact he has done more to destroy the al Qaeda terrorist network than the neo-cons who surrounded Bush could have dreamed.
Syria today is Afghanistan circa 1998. We don't need a crystal ball to see how it will end up if left to its own fate. If, or rather when this war explodes and threatens the regional balance of power, the West will recalculate its current standing of staying on the sidelines.
When strong majorities hold opinions opposing military intervention in Syria there is something other than isolationism going on.
Keller concludes: "Whatever we decide, getting Syria right starts with getting over Iraq." Then we can get over Syria -- with Iran? Remember when Iraq was supposed to help us "get over" Vietnam?
There has been mounting criticism of the Obama administration for setting a line in the sand on Syria -- the movement or use of chemical weapons -- and then apparently failing to act out on its promise. The criticism has come in two varieties.
In April, Obama's numbers returned to a normal level, after experiencing a very short post-election "honeymoon period" with the public which bounced his numbers up to a peak, and then bounced them right back down again.
While trying to flee from rockets and bullets, millions of Syrians have also been displaced and civilians are suffering from acute shortages of food, water, and medicine
There is no compelling national interest that requires American intervention in Syria's civil war. In fact, such an intervention would be a strategic error.
By attacking Syrian military targets, Israel has finally (if inadvertently) taken the conflict in the region to where it belongs -- to the doorstep of Assad's corrupt and bloody regime.
Doing nothing is actually doing something and that is sending the message that the rallying cry against genocide -- never again -- is a redline that can be crossed.
It is both the best of times and the worst of times for the Internet. It's also the best and worst of times for the freedoms the Internet is supposed to nurture.
After more than a decade of elective wars and nation-building projects in Iraq and Afghanistan, America's supposed imperial necessities in Syria must be suppressed, and an intervention avoided, at all costs.