Credit Obama, he’s (finally) doing the right thing over Syria

As the Syrian crisis has escalated with the chemical attack in the Damascus suburb, the American military build-up in the eastern Mediterranean and David Cameron’s defeat in parliament, Barack Obama’s decision to refer the final authorisation to Congress looks like a masterstroke.  Again derided as indecisive (a charge that his loser critics believe if they say it enough times will stick), Obama has a get-out if Congress reject it because despite bi-partisan support (in the form of John McCain and Lindsey Graham), there are many Republicans who refuse to accede to any request of his because they are pathologically prejudiced against all Democratic presidents.  This means all Assad’s careful secretion of weapons and army in civilian areas and packing of military installations with prisoners will have to continue, hampering his war-making capabilities for at least another week.  Had America attacked before Labour Day (yesterday), the Syrian government would have had many juicy PR photos of civilian and prisoner casualties.    Assad’s guns have not fallen silent but impeding the Damascus regime’s advance gives the rebels a vital chance to regroup.

Obama has been very reluctant to be drawn into the Syrian civil war when he could have nipped in the bud early on, shortly after the fall of Gadaffi, with the kind of strikes now being contemplated   The steady tightening of sanctions has had no effect as Iran has been pumping in billions to prop up the regime and being in sending fighters (as well as mobilising Hizbollah) in flights over Iraq, where Nouri al-Maliki – who was given refuge by the Assad family while Saddam Hussein was in power – has been performing the role of a dutiful client leader to Tehran.  It seems a cliché but brute force is the only thing that Assad understands.  A significant degrading of his military facilities will counter all the help that Russia and Iran have been giving him.  All will be done without an American in uniform in sight – Tomahawks and drones doing the pulverising.

All these votes seemed to validate the old dictator line about democracies not being suitable for war, as the element of surprise and maximum inflicting of damage is lost.  With a vote against the war paralysing the Cameron administration (interestingly from both sides of the Blairite stable, John McTernan saying Ed Miliband was right to crush weak opponents and Dan Hodges resigning his Labour Party membership for such brazen politicking), Assad seemed in a stronger diplomatic position than ever.  Then came Obama’s decision to put it to Congress which won’t be heard until the standard date for return of 9^th September, which changes the entire calculus.  After the British pulled out, he may have felt he had to do so (and this increases pressure on Francois Hollande to ask the French parliament, not the first time a promised British vote has inconvenienced a French president), but it gives the chance to really pile on the pressure on Russia in Russia, as the French release a dossier that is pretty conclusive that the Assad government carried out the chemical attack in the Damascus suburb (notwithstanding the stonewalling while UN inspectors were ensconced a few miles away and the sniper fire when they did try to advance).  I would have voted with a heavy heart for the missile strikes because punitive strikes do not achieve anything when so much warning has been given but a forceful statement must be made about the use of chemical weapons.  Only a significant pounding, annihilating Assad’s command-and-control structure, troop positions and chemical weapons dumps (whose movements are constantly monitored by satellites), is worthwhile.  110,000 people have died, more than two millions refugees, with probably both sides using chemical weapons and repercussions spilling over into Lebanon, to sit back and do nothing is gross irresponsibility.  People say things could get worse but I refuse to believe that so many must die.  Deaths have now matched that in Bosnia, if they reach the levels in Rwanda all those who vote against it (and support those against it) will have a share of culpability.  Yes, that’s an uncompromising message and talks would be better but we’ve been talking for two years and Russia won’t even support a limited Yemen-style transition.  It is the Russians who are abusing international law and their war-weary useful idiots in the West who are just letting Syria bleed.