Americans who believe military force should be the first choice in asserting US power criticize him for timidity and a failure of leadership, without counting costs down the road, as hammered home by Iraq and Afghanistan. Ditto for those who see Iran as the big bugaboo in the region and fear that it and Hezbollah will be the big winners if the United States does not help the rebels prevail. Human rights activists criticize him for not toppling Assad straightaway, which Obama himself called for two years ago, as though Syria, in the middle of the world’s most volatile region, is another “Libya” — which, as far as US interests go, could be on Mars. They also ignore the notion that the likely replacement regime in Damascus would take bloody revenge on the Alawites, while the worst of the Islamist terrorists would continue to have free play and also threaten Israel. Meanwhile Britain and France egg Obama on, but so far accept no responsibility for helping to deal with the post-Assad mess. Missing in all of this is clarity about how Syria fits in the regional picture. It is only one facet of an expanding Sunni-Shia civil war in the Middle East, unleashed in its current phase when, by invading Iraq in 2003, the US unwittingly ended centuries of minority Sunni dominance over the majority Shias. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and Turkey seek to redress the balance by toppling Alawite (Shia) authority in Syria. Meanwhile, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Arab states, Turkey, and Israel are playing out in Syria their competitions for regional influence. Whatever the US does there has to be only one element of a policy that makes sense for the entire Middle East. It will not be easy for Obama to get on top of his game — America’s game. He has to start by mandating the first truly rigorous assessment of US interests across the entire Middle East since the end of the Cold War. He has to demand coherent, integrated, strategic analysis and planning from his staff. He has to draw in others, including European allies and other stakeholders that can’t be ignored, notably Russia. And he has to follow one key dictum that is so often lost: what matters to the United States must come first. lobelog/obamas-war/
Posted on: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 23:34:48 +0000
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