Updated. Cruise missiles are not on their way to Syria, although President Obama certainly wishes they were. Earlier today he announced (full text) he believes the United States should conduct a military strike on Syria, but that he first would seek congressional debate and approval.
His reason for attacking Syria? National security, of course:
This attack is an assault on human dignity. It also presents a serious danger to our national security. It risks making a mockery of the global prohibition on the use of chemical weapons. It endangers our friends and our partners along Syria’s borders, including Israel, Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and Iraq. It could lead to escalating use of chemical weapons, or their proliferation to terrorist groups who would do our people harm. (Emphasis added.)
In other words, if we don’t blow up part of Damascus, the part where the bad guys live, and only that part, it won’t be long before Syrian terrorists will be spraying sarin down Pennsylvania Avenue. But if we do blast part of Damascus to Kingdom Come, we’ll deter Assad from retaliating with attacks in our shopping malls and football stadiums.
Those who believe that will believe anything.
That Obama is consulting — grudgingly — with Congress only because politically he has no choice is clear from these paragraphs:
I’m confident in the case our government has made without waiting for U.N. inspectors. I’m comfortable going forward without the approval of a United Nations Security Council that, so far, has been completely paralyzed and unwilling to hold Assad accountable. As a consequence, many people have advised against taking this decision to Congress, and undoubtedly, they were impacted by what we saw happen in the United Kingdom this week when the Parliament of our closest ally failed to pass a resolution with a similar goal, even as the Prime Minister supported taking action.
Yet, while I believe I have the authority to carry out this military action without specific congressional authorization, I know that the country will be stronger if we take this course, and our actions will be even more effective. We should have this debate, because the issues are too big for business as usual. And this morning, John Boehner, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell agreed that this is the right thing to do for our democracy.
That’s the arrogance of power that I’m beginning to think afflicts every occupant of the White House regardless of party.
Our President may be comfortable not waiting for the results of the investigations of the U.N. inspectors, but I’m not. The analysis of the samples collected by the inspectors will provide hard, physical proof of a nerve gas attack, if one was made, which seems likely, and will identify the chemicals, although it will not identify who used them. Obama’s not waiting, and arguing that he doesn’t need to wait, is irresponsible. He needs not only physical proof that chemical weapons were deployed in Syria, he needs hard proof that they were deployed on the explicit order of Assad, not by a rogue commander or by a rebel group seeking to frame Assad.
His assertion that he has the authority to attack Syria without Congressional authorization patronizes both Congress and American citizens, and arrogates to himself powers not found in the Constitution. We are not under attack by Syria, nor is an attack imminent. This isn’t a question of self-defense, where a President clearly has the authority to order military action to repel an attack. It isn’t even a case of the United States’ acting as an overeager international policeman under the authority of international law. It’s a case of a President deciding that he’s morally obligated, and legally entitled, to unilaterally, perhaps even in contravention of international law, initiate military action that makes the United States an international vigilante.
His assertion that our national security is at stake is unsupported, ridiculous on its face, shameless, irresponsible, and reminiscent of the hollow assertions that George W. Bush used to trump-up his war against Iraq.
All this boils down to one simple fact: Obama’s frustrated that the U.N. and the world community are not doing what he believes ought to be done, so he’s decided “to hell with the U.N. and everyone else, I’ll just do the right thing and the rest of you can sort out the legalities and bodies later.”
Let’s sort out the legalities and the facts now, so that we do not have to sort them out after we have killed people who are not nice but who pose no threat to us.
President Obama gives every indication that he’s made up his mind to attack Syria for using nerve gas in its civil war. The cruise missiles may be on their way as I write this.
The rationale for attacking? Humanitarian first principles. Syria must be punished for using chemical weapons, and someone has to administer the punishment. His ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, a strong advocate of swinging the sword in support of human rights, undoubtedly has his ear on this.
Who hasn’t got his ear? Apparently, those who believe the United States should have logical and compelling strategic interests and objectives for attacking Syria, and those who believe that punishment administered without the sanction of Congress and the United Nations is vigilante justice. On the former, read Fred Kaplan in Slate. On the latter, read Jack Goldsmith in the New York Times.
If Assad ordered nerve gas attacks on rebel strongholds, killing old men, women, and children, as well as rebel soldiers, he committed an atrocity. That, as Secretary of State Kerry said, would be a moral outrage. But also a moral outrage would be the United States’ administering vigilante justice in a land where we have no vital interests.