Obama: Strike on Hold if Syria Abandons Chemical Weapons

[rhoenix]

If Syrian President Bashar al-Assad gives up his chemical weapons, a military strike would "absolutely" be on pause, President Obama said today.

"I consider this a modestly positive development," Obama told ABC News' Diane Sawyer in an interview at the White House when asked whether Syria's apparent willingness to relinquish control of its chemical weapons would prevent a U.S. strike.

"Let's see if we can come up with language that avoids a strike but accomplishes our key goals to make sure that these chemical weapons are not used," the president said.

Obama's comments come after the Russian foreign minister suggested today that Syria could avoid a U.S. attack by turning over its chemical weapons stockpiles over to international control and destroying them, a proposal the Syrian government "welcomed."

Obama said that Secretary of State John Kerry would pursue the proposal with Russia, an ally of Syria.

But at the same time, Obama said that a potential diplomatic resolution doesn't mean that Congress should withdraw the threat of military action.

"I don't think we would have gotten to this point unless we had maintained a credible possibility for a military strike and I don't think now is the time for us to let up on that," Obama said.

Assad is accused of using chemical weapons against his own people on a small scale "multiple times" since March and, according to the White House, an Aug. 21 attack on Damascus claimed 1,400 lives, 400 of them children.

Since then, Obama and his aides have worked feverishly for more than a week to build congressional support to strike Syria.

Today alone, more than 70 lawmakers of both parties came through the White House for briefings with the president's top advisers.

But while many lawmakers remain undecided, growing numbers are opposed to the use of force.

Obama suggested that Syria's willingness to pursue a diplomatic solution could give Congress more time to decide on whether to grant him the authority to strike.

"I don't anticipate that you would see a succession of votes this week or anytime in the immediate future," Obama said. "So I think there will be time during the course of the debates here in the United States for the international community, the Russians and the Syrians to work with us and say is there a way to resolve this."

Shortly after Obama's comments, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, R-Nev., said on the Senate floor that he would delay a vote on authorizing military force in Syria, which was originally scheduled for Wednesday.

"Before we vote, I want to make sure the President has an opportunity to present his case to the Senate and the American people," Reid said on Twitter.

And a new ABC News/Washington Post poll today found nearly two-thirds of Americans oppose military action in Syria.

Obama said he understood the "skepticism" of members of Congress and the American public, but he warned that U.S. national security interests are at stake if Syria is allowed to use "one of the world's worst weapons" without consequences.

"I would prefer not having to do it but I think it is important for us to understand that if in fact the choice is between a world in which dictators and other countries believe it is acceptable to use chemical weapons on civilians and children, that will make it more dangerous for us," Obama said.

I find this to be encouraging news.

[General Havoc]

Obama's looking for a way out of a strike he knows he's not going to be able to perform. But Assad will never surrender his weapons in totality. Never.

After all, why should he?

[SirNitram]

After all, why should he?

Because if he embarasses Russia like that, he risks them withdrawling support. No Russia, suddenly he's surrounded by enemies who want chunks of his hide on their mantles with no bigger guy to hide behind.

[Lys]

While it's true that Obama's looking for a way out of a strike he knows he's not going to be able to perform, this is not why this happened. This happened because sometimes Kerry's incompetence as SecState backfires in the right direction. See below:

Kerry Gaffes; The Russians Blink

In his latest stream of unpersuasive self-righteousness, John Kerry today threw out an idea. Instead of threatening an imminent military strike, Kerry actually got creative:

Asked if there were steps the Syrian president could take to avert an American-led attack, Mr. Kerry said, “Sure, he could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week — turn it over, all of it, without delay and allow the full and total accounting.”

He was, apparently, just being hypothetical. The State Department had to walk him back:

“Secretary Kerry was making a rhetorical argument about the impossibility and unlikelihood of Assad turning over chemical weapons he has denied he used,” Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, said in an e-mail to reporters after Mr. Kerry’s comments. “His point was that this brutal dictator with a history of playing fast and loose with the facts cannot be trusted to turn over chemical weapons, otherwise he would have done so long ago. That’s why the world faces this moment.”

I’d have thought a pretty basic qualification for being secretary of state is not to air hypothetical ideas in a public forum that the US does not intend to pursue. But Kerry, who is already doing a huge amount to make Hillary Clinton’s tenure at Foggy Bottom look magisterial, winged it. And the Russians immediately reacted:

“We don’t know whether Syria will agree with this, but if the establishment of international control over chemical weapons in the country will prevent attacks, then we will immediately begin work with Damascus,” Mr. Lavrov said at the Foreign Ministry. “And we call on the Syrian leadership to not only agree to setting the chemical weapons storage sites under international control, but also to their subsequent destruction.”

Wow. So we have the possibility of two things: that Russia might actually act decisively to rein Assad in, and also support the only viable policy to accomplish what Obama wants – protecting the world from these vile weapons. I have no idea whether this is a serious move by Lavrov – but it sure seems so, and it presents a fascinating non-binary option. It would manage to bring Russia in to solving this problem, without its having to acquiesce to what Putin regards as American grand-standing. And it would surely have some traction at the UN.

Sometimes, it seems, Kerry’s incompetence strikes gold. Here’s hoping.

This is hilarious. Especially because subsequent to the Russians going, "Hey that's a great idea!" to Kerry's hypothetical, it seems that communications within the White House and State Department completely down broke and nobody knew what the hell the new official policy was. As you can see from the quote, ate first they tried to backtrack. Someone even told the Jerusalem Post that the Russian proposal would go ignored. Or rather he said something implying that, and they in turn implied he actually said it, but that's modern journalism for you. It only a couple of hours later that Obama came up on TV to say explicitly that the US is on board with the Russian proposal.

I'm not even being hyperbolic about it being hilarious. I was literally laughing out loud and holding my sides because it's just that funny.

[General Havoc]

I'm glad the subject is funny to you. I'm further glad that the best thing people can think of to do in this situation is score cheap political points off one another. I can't tell which element of this entire thing makes me the most sick.

This article is the most vapid analysis of a world situation I've read in over a decade. I could get a better read on the situation from Fox News.

[Lys]

What's vapid about it? Everything in there is accurate. The Slate version provides a more respectable presentation if you like; its says much the same thing but with incredulity rather than well deserved mockery. If you cannot find humour in politicians fucking up and running around like headless chickens, then you need to lighten up man. Life's too short to pass up a chance at a good laugh.

[Josh]

Obama's looking for a way out of a strike he knows he's not going to be able to perform. But Assad will never surrender his weapons in totality. Never.

After all, why should he?

Still, this may be the best of a bad situation. If Assad surrenders the larger portion of his arsenal and then later use chemical weapons again it'll be a lot easier to build support for serious strikes. Assad obviously has some fear of a strike or he wouldn't be offering a compromise, which means we may be able to get chemical weapons off the table and let this shit sort itself with conventional weapons.

[General Havoc]

The article seriously suggests that Kerry made a collossal fuckup by stating a condition that the other side might agree to, and then turns around and calls the Russian offer serious despite no evidence and the fact that the previous 873 offers the Russians made on behalf of the Syrian situation were nothing of the sort. So basically, Kerry is an idiot because, and we should trust the Russians to reign in Assad because they've been doing a bangup job so far.

NOTHING about this situation is humorous to me, and I am under no obligation to treat it as such. This article is a hatchet-job written by a cheap, ignorant hack. And I find the concept that I should "lighten up" in response to this situation to be borderline offensive. A hundred thousand people have died because nobody wants to do a fucking thing about Syria except score cheap political points off of one another, and I will not engage further in an exercise I find devoid of basic human decency.

[Lys]

Kerry made an offhanded comment that wasn't a real offer, which was taken as a real offer by the Russians, and then the US government tried to take it back. If it was a real offer why did the State Department issue a retraction/clarification? It's a careless slip-up anyway you cut it: if you're SecState you don't make policy suggestions you don't actually intend, or let your Department contradict the ones you did intend. And the Russians offer sure sounds serious, heck the Syrian Foreign Minister said that they liked the plan, which is new. For its part our government certainly appears to be taking it seriously given the President went on TV to announce that, yes he would not strike at Syria if the Syrians did as the Russians suggested.

With respect to humour, in the words of Samuel Clemens, a joke is just tragedy plus distance. Evidently the situation in Syria does not seem distant to you, that much should have been obvious given your considerable agitation. In this situation most people would tell you take some perspective, hundreds of thousands die miserable preventable deaths the world over every day. But you're a smart guy, you surely know that, and yet you still have decided that Syria is more important. Rather than question your judgement, I'm going to do something else: I'm sorry, I should not tell you to lighten up about things that are important to you. I wouldn't like it if you did the same about things that are important to me.

[Rogue 9]

Meanwhile, in Syria... NPR; audio at the link.

Rebels Were 'Eager' To See U.S. Strikes On Syria
September 12, 2013 4:00 AM

Steve Inskeep talks to General Salim Idriss, commander of the Free Syrian Army. They discuss Syrian opposition reaction to President Obama's address to the nation this week, the Russian diplomatic initiative and what assistance the general is hoping to receive from the United States.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

And I'm Renee Montagne.

President Obama's decision to hold off on striking Syria dismayed Syria's rebels. This morning we reached General Salim Idriss, commander of the Free Syrian Army.

INSKEEP: He says that by negotiating over Syria's chemical attacks, the United States is missing the point.

GENERAL SALIM IDRISS: When we only talk about chemical weapons and putting these weapons under international control, then our citizens in Syria, they will think the international community, they don't have any kind of interest about the bloodshed, the destruction, about the eight million people who are refugees now.

INSKEEP: General Idriss spoke with us via Skype from Syria.

While some rebel groups are considered extremists, the Free Syrian Army is aligned with the United States. And though U.S. air strikes were not explicitly designed to aid them, the Free Syrian Army was eager to see them.

Were you poised to act in some way on the battlefield in coordination with U.S. strikes had they happened?

IDRISS: Yes. When Mr. - President Obama talked about the strikes, we did a meeting with the commander of the fronts. We told them to be ready to have control or to control the locations that will be targeted. We are ready, our forces are ready, our fighters are ready, and we were and still waiting for these strikes. And we hope that these strikes will be done in a short time because really the Russia initiative is just a lie and the Russian administration, especially the President Putin and Sergey Lavrov, are playing games.

They know that the regime in Damascus is a criminal regime. He is killing his own people. He's using his Scud missiles, chemical materials, the air force to destroy everything.

INSKEEP: What has happened to morale among your troops now that they know the strikes are not coming, at least not soon?

IDRISS: Yes, now it is very difficult. On the ground it is very difficult. And yesterday I had a meeting with my commanders of the five fronts and we discussed the situation after the Russian initiative. Our people are very frustrated and they think that our friends will leave us alone. And they told me yesterday we can't understand why the Russians and the Iranians are supporting the regime so clearly, and our friends are delaying and hesitating. We don't know.

I told them, let us wait. We respect the decision of the president and we know how decisions are taken in the democratic countries. Let us wait and we hope that our friends, at the end of the day, will be with us and will help us.

INSKEEP: General, what kinds of weapons, if any, have you received from the United States up to this point?

IDRISS: Yes, we received support from our American friends. And what we received really is humanitarian aid - food and the medical materials. We received bulletproof jackets. We received some types of flight(ph) vehicles and ambulances, night vision goggles, communications equipment, computers and satellite Internet equipment. Lesser materials, we didn't receive any kind of lesser materials from our American friends.

INSKEEP: Even up to today, you have received nothing, you're saying.

IDRISS: Yes. Yes. No military support, no direct military support.

INSKEEP: Because here I'm looking at the Washington Post from earlier this week, September 11, saying the CIA has begun delivering weapons to rebels in Syria ending months of delay. You're telling me that if any weapons are getting to any rebels, they're not getting to you. Is that correct?

IDRISS: No. No. That is correct. We didn't receive any weapons from our American friends.

INSKEEP: Because Americans have been under the impression that the policy was to deliver weapons to the rebels at this point. Why is that not happening?

IDRISS: We were waiting and still waiting to receive weapons and ammunition. And we told our friends in the United States we hope that you will support us. We are in most need for anti-tank missiles, anti-aircraft missiles. They told us that it is very difficult to support us with anti-aircraft missiles. But we discussed with them the military support. They say that they will go back with these ideas to Washington and discuss that with the administration, and then we will get an answer.

We are in contact with our friends, American friends here. But till now, honestly and frankly, there is no military support.

INSKEEP: General Salim Idriss of the Free Syrian Army. General, thanks very much.

IDRISS: Thank you. Thank you very much.

So if we're to believe their commander, their eagerness for the airstrikes aside, the Syrian rebels haven't received the promised military support and arms either. I would have been more comfortable had Inskeep asked General Idriss about the involvement of al Qaeda and company in the opposition, but from the sounds of it we're doing to the Syrians what we did to the Iraqi Kurds in 1991; promising support for an uprising against a dictator and then leaving the people who counted on it hanging out to dry. And they got gassed too. As much as I don't want to go to war with Syria, I'm really, really uncomfortable with that.