Daily Times Editorial Sept 12, 2013

Obama’s quagmire before a quagmire It is a measure of the way the world is changing when we contemplate US President Barack Obama’s increasingly desperate efforts to cobble support for his desired military strike on Syria over alleged chemical weapons’ use by Damascus. The US President, in an unprecedented cul de sac over his plans, faces opposition from an overwhelming majority of allies, world opinion, the American people and the US Congress. When it became clear that even the British parliament rejected military intervention in Syria, and given the unlikelihood of getting his way in the UN Security Council because of the veto possibility by Russia and China, Obama turned in desperation to the US Congress for approval. That too looks dubious, since both the Republicans and the Democrats appear divided about plunging the US into another war with uncertain objectives and the very real prospect of being trapped in another quagmire. The US case against the Bashar al-Assad regime rests on dubious foundations, and even the most well disposed of observers towards Washington remain unconvinced by the flaky evidence presented by Washington. Obama failed to persuade the G20 countries in their summit in Saint Petersburg as well. Meanwhile Bashar al-Assad in an interview with US television has warned of the catastrophic fallout of any such military strikes by the US. Without specifying this, it is obvious that Bashar is warning that the whole region would explode, and arguably the conflagration could spread further abroad. The world, far from becoming a safer place as the Washington hawks argue, would enter a new phase of uncertainty and conflict that then may not easily lend itself to being controlled. As it is, the brutal Syrian civil war has remained confined to the battlefield because the UN-sponsored Geneva peace conference is being ignored by the US, effectively sabotaging efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the Syrian conflict. Europe, with the exception of France’s ‘socialist’ President Francois Hollande, remains sceptical, worried, and reluctant to get involved in another war in the Middle East. Russia and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon have independently suggested plans to tackle the chemical weapons issue through Damascus surrendering its chemical weapons stockpiles to a UN-led mission that would then oversee their destruction. Syria has indicated its readiness for such a development. However, what is missing from the plan is any method of assessing, investigating and destroying any chemical weapons that may be in the possession of the Syrian opposition. The cast of usual suspects that are gung-ho about bombing Syria includes, apart from the US and France, the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, with Saudi Arabia and Qatar leading the chorus for military action against the Syrian government. Obama’s struggle, verging on a political and diplomatic quagmire, to convince the American people (through Congress and direct appeals) and the world of the need, importance and necessity of military intervention reflects the suspicion that has arisen about the US and its few backers’ motives. The hangover f previous disastrous military interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya have hardened these suspicions to the point of disbelief in the claims of Washington and its satraps and the growing conviction that even a so-called ‘limited’ strike would be the prelude to a full blooded intervention to bring about regime change. Military means may have yielded such a result in the three countries named above, but each one subsequently proved a disaster, with the collateral effect of the rise and spread of jihadi terrorism, led ideologically of not practically by al Qaeda. The Syrian opposition includes a conglomerate of al Qaeda-affiliated groups. The irony is that the US is fighting al Qaeda all over the globe, yet willing to turn a blind eye to what the Syrian opposition represents. It is the same shortsighted expedient policy that has led to such disturbing developments post-intervention in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. Mr Obama, the world is older and wiser since you and your predecessors in the White House got away with deception in the name of ‘humanitarian intervention’. When you argue that not to act would threaten the US’s credibility, it would seem to be in the fitness of things for you first to consider whether such credibility exists. The sensible majority of the world must come together to stay the hands of the aggressors and redouble efforts to find a political and diplomatic solution to the Syrian quagmire before the US gets itself entrapped in this quicksand, in the process seriously destabilising the peace of the world.