Bill Keller, "Syria Is Not Iraq": American Foreign Policy Credibility Hits a New Nadir

American foreign policy credibility has never been so low, and this is not being trumpeted by the neo-con right, but rather by the progressive left.

In a recent Washington Post opinion piece entitled "When governing is seen as a game, we all lose" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-governing-is-no-game/2013/05/03/09eff90a-b406-11e2-9a98-4be1688d7d84_story.html), Dana Milbank wrote:

"Obama and others in his administration have used the term in reference to food marketing standards (“truly a game-changer,” said the first lady), the JOBS Act (“a potential game-changer,” said the president), AmeriCorps, childhood-obesity prevention, Title IX, digital tutors, natural gas from shale, the Internet, the Independent Medicare Advisory Council, conversations about immigration, rail improvements, cyberspace research and foreign-aid standards.

So, when the president warns Syria that chemical weapons are a game-changer, is Assad to assume that he is using the term in the childhood-obesity sense or the Medicare sense?"

A few days ago, Jon Stewart (http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-april-30-2013/whose-line-is-it-anyway-) also poked fun at Obama's August 20, 2012 warning to Syria's Bashar al-Assad that the mere "moving around" of chemical weapons would be a "red line for us" and "that there would be enormous consequences."

As acknowledged on Saturday even by The New York Times in a lead story entitled "Off-the-Cuff Obama Line Put U.S. in Bind on Syria" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/world/middleeast/obamas-vow-on-chemical-weapons-puts-him-in-tough-spot.html?hp&_r=0):

"Confronted with evidence that chemical weapons have been used in Syria, President Obama now finds himself in a geopolitical box, his credibility at stake with frustratingly few good options."

Oh, my goodness! Without a teleprompter, Obama didn't mean what he said? What is the poor president to do?

Meanwhile, Israel can't wait for Obama to decide, and yesterday destroyed an arsenal of advanced Fateh-110 missiles that were making their way from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon, via Damascus, and a chemical weapons research facility.

Today, in a New York Times op-ed entitled "Syria Is Not Iraq" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/06/opinion/keller-syria-is-not-iraq.html?pagewanted=all), Bill Keller seems to support the following line of action by the US:

"For starters, President Obama articulates — as he has not done — how the disintegration of Syria represents a serious danger to America’s interests and ideals. The United States moves to assert control of the arming and training of rebels — funneling weapons through the rebel Supreme Military Council, cultivating insurgents who commit to negotiating an orderly transition to a nonsectarian Syria. We make clear to President Assad that if he does not cease his campaign of terror and enter negotiations on a new order, he will pay a heavy price. When he refuses, we send missiles against his military installations until he, or more likely those around him, calculate that they should sue for peace.

All of this must be carefully choreographed and accompanied by a symphony of diplomacy to keep our allies with us and our adversaries at bay. The aim would be to eventually have a transition government, stabilized for a while by an international peacekeeping force drawn mostly from neighboring states like Turkey.

I don’t mean to make this sound easy. It might well be that the internal grievances are too deep and bitter to forestall a bloody period of reprisals. But that outcome is virtually inevitable if we stay out.

The administration is now preparing contingency plans along those lines in the event that Assad’s use of chemical weapons forces our hand. Why wait for the next atrocity?"

Surprise, surprise. Keller makes sense.

Oh, I almost forgot: Will Assad retaliate against Israel? As reported by The Jerusalem Post (http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Report-Syria-will-strike-Israel-if-attacked-again-312193):

"Any further Israeli aggressions on Syrian territory would issue a "declaration of war", Syrian President Bashar Assad said, a source was reported as saying Monday in the Kuwait daily Alrai.

According to the report, Assad notified Washington via Moscow that orders had been given to allow deployed ground-to-ground and ground-to-air missile batteries to be used against Israel without advance notice in the event of another attack."

Or in other words, as you might well remember from kindergarten, "I dare you to do that one more time . . ."