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Intervention in Syria is extremely, undeniably unpopular.

"Americans strongly oppose U.S. intervention and believe Washington should stay out of the conflict even if reports that Syria's government used deadly chemicals to attack civilians are confirmed," Lesley Wroughton of Reuters reported August 24. "About 60 percent of Americans surveyed said the United States should not intervene in Syria's civil war, while just 9 percent thought President Barack Obama should act." And if there were proof that Bashar al-Assad's forces used chemical weapons? Even then, just one in four Americans favors intervention.

The citizenry wants us to stay out of this conflict. And there is no legislative majority pushing for intervention. A declaration of war against Syria would almost certainly fail in Congress. Yet the consensus in the press is that President Obama faces tremendous pressure to intervene. In fact, the same Reuters reporter, Lesley Wroughton, co-bylined another piece last week that began:

With his international credibility seen increasingly on the line, President Barack Obama on Thursday faced growing calls at home and abroad for forceful action against the Syrian government over accusations it carried out a massive new deadly chemical weapons attack ...

If allegations of a large-scale chemical attack are verified -- Syria's government has denied them -- Obama will surely face calls to move more aggressively, possibly even with military force, in retaliation for repeated violations of U.S. "red lines." Obama's failure to confront Assad with the serious consequences he has long threatened would likely reinforce a global perception of a president preoccupied with domestic matters and unwilling to act decisively in the volatile Middle East, a picture already set by his mixed response to the crisis in Egypt.
Where is this pressure coming from? Strangely, that question doesn't even occur to a lot of news organizations. Take this CBS story. The very first sentence says, "The Obama administration faced new pressure Thursday to take action on Syria." New pressure from whom? The story proceeds as if it doesn't matter. How can readers judge how much weight the pressure should carry? Pressure from hundreds of thousands of citizens in the streets confers a certain degree of legitimacy. So does pressure from a just-passed House bill urging a certain course of action, or even unanimous pressure from all of the experts on a given subject.

What I'd like is if news accounts on pressure to intervene in Syria made it clear that the "growing calls ... for forceful action" aren't coming from the people, or Congressional majorities, or an expert consensus. The pressure is being applied by a tiny, insular elite that mostly lives in Washington, D.C., and isn't bothered by the idea of committing America to military action that most Americans oppose. Nor are they bothered by the president launching a war of choice without Congressional approval, even though Obama declared as a candidate that such a step would be illegal. Some of them haven't even thought through the implications of the pressure they're applying.

Why is their pro-war pressure legitimized as the prevailing story line, despite the fact that they hold a minority position, even as pressure against intervention -- that is to say, the majority position -- is all but ignored? Consider a variation on the "pressure" story that isn't written, though it would be accurate:

President Obama Faces Mounting Pressure to Stay Out of Syria
With his credibility seen increasingly on the line, President Barack Obama today faced growing calls at home and abroad to stay out of the conflict in Syria, despite the presence of chemical weapons and his former declarations that their use would be a red line.

Various Syria experts warned that intervention could touch off a regional conflict, do more to harm than help Syrian civilians, and draw the United States into a more costly, protracted war than anyone wants. Anti-war group Code Pink used their Facebook page to organize a rally against missile strikes. A subset of conservatives warned that intervening on the side of rebels could empower Islamist extremists. Deficit hawks argued that America can't afford costly military strikes at this time in a conflict with little relation to our national interests, and Obama's 2007 statements about the illegality of a president going to war without Congress absent an immediate threat to American security risks making him look like a hypocrite if he unilaterally intervenes. An inability to get UN approval would also arguably make the conflict illegal under international law. And Obama's Nobel Peace Prize would seem to hem him in further.

A story like that would never be written. The political press unconsciously treats hawkish positions as if they're more serious and legitimate, in part because they've thoughtlessly bought into the frame that experts can control geopolitics. This is a consequence of so many political journalists living inside a Washington subculture that attracts foreign-policy thinkers with an inflated sense of their own ability to understand and shape global events.

The American people are well aware of the shortcomings of those elites, having witnessed their performance in Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs, Beirut, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, among other places. It's no accident that so few Americans favor intervention in Syria. They don't know much in particular about the country or its people. They've just learned to be skeptical of wars of choice because the assumptions of the people who launch them are so often wrong. That skepticism ought to be given more weight, especially given how many so-called foreign-policy experts are nothing of the kind.

I'd never claim to be a foreign-policy expert. But I know enough to scoff when The Weekly Standard grants "expert" status to Karl Rove, and to discount the prognostication skills of everyone who urged American intervention in Iraq without the faintest idea of what would follow. But in D.C., expert status is never taken away for being repeatedly, catastrophically wrong.

"Legitimacy" in these circles is a matter of social standing and institutional affiliations, not knowledge or track record.

Then there are all the stories about how Obama's credibility depends on him striking Syria. Isn't that something? A president's credibility hinging on him doing something just 9 percent of Americans want him to do! It only makes sense if the unwritten thought is, "His credibility among people who matter." D.C. people, who inflate the importance of rhetoric and looking tough. If Obama doesn't intervene in Syria, his credibility among the American people won't suffer at all.

Why does the American press treat credibility among an insular elite as if it matters most?

Washington elites are doing all they can to diminish the people's ability to exert pressure in foreign affairs. The Constitution vested the war power in the legislature so that decisions about war and peace would be debated by elected officials from every community in the country -- people easily reached by their constituents and not personally empowered by war. The legislature isn't nearly as enamored of executive-branch wisdom as executive-branch staffers are.

But popular and legislative skepticism is a non-factor when the president is empowered to go to war on his own say-so, and the people's perspective is further diluted by a press that excessively emphasizes pressure from D.C. elites, writing as if that's what Obama ought to respond to. The president is on the cusp of launching a war of choice that the people don't want, and yet that isn't treated as problematic or even framed as a countervailing pressure against intervention! The press doesn't suggest that Obama would lose credibility by acting against the people's will, because he won't lose any credibility in "This Town," and opinions within it are unconsciously treated as if they are the ones that really matter, even when the subject is war.

It's true that Washington elites, and a few foreign governments, have exerted increasing pressure on Obama to intervene in Syria. But the press shouldn't report as if, overall, the pressure on Obama to act is overwhelming, and that he'll lose credibility if he doesn't, especially insofar as journalistic attitudes become self-fulfilling prophecies. Were the will of the people given its due, there would be more pressure on Obama to refrain from intervening.

General Havoc wrote:If sixty percent of Americans want us to do nothing even with proof that Assad wantonly employed chemical weapons to exterminate his own populace, then I wish nothing further to do with this country. We deserved to be exterminated in nuclear fire during the cold war. A malignant curse on all of us forever.

Josh wrote:This is ridiculous.

abcnews wrote:Syria today "welcomed" an offer by Russia to put its chemical weapons arsenal under international control so that they could eventually be destroyed.

Syria's statement came very quickly after the proposal was made by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in what he said was an attempt to avoid a U.S.-led strike on Syria.

"We call on the Syrian leadership not only agree on a statement of storage of chemical weapons under international control, but also its subsequent destruction, as well as about the full accession to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons," Lavrov said in a statement to reporters.

"We will immediately join the work with Damascus if establishing international control over chemical weapons in that country helps prevent attacks," Lavrov continued.

Syria's Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem, who met with Lavrov in Moscow earlier in the day, responded almost immediately.

"The Syrian Arab Republic welcomed the Russian initiative, based on the concerns of the Russian leadership for the lives of our citizens and the security of our country," Muallem told reporters, according to Russia's Interfax news agency.

Muallem said Syria agreed to the move because of its "trust in the wisdom of the Russian leadership, which is trying to prevent the American aggression against our people."

The proposal also received quick support from United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and British Prime Minister David Cameron.

Lavrov's comments came after Secretary of State John Kerry suggested earlier in the day that if Syria gave up its chemical weapons by the end of the week an attack could be avoided.

"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 a full and total accounting," Kerry told reporters during a press conference in London with his British counterpart.

The State Department later walked Kerry's statement back, calling it an off-hand "rhetorical argument."

"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," Kerry's spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement.

Earlier this week Syrian President Bashar al-Assad explained why he had "not yet" signed the Chemical Weapons Convention.

"Because Israel has WMD, and it has to sign, and Israel is occupying our land. So that's why we talked about Middle East, not Syria, not Israel. It should be comprehensive," he told PBS' and CBS News' Charlie Rose in an interview.

Assad denied his forces used chemical weapons in the Aug. 21 attack on a Damascus suburb that the United States says killed over 1,400 people including hundreds of children. He said the United States has been unable to provide "a single shred of evidence" that his forces were responsible for the attack.

The German magazine Bild seemed to give some credence to Assad's claims this weekend, reporting that Syrian government forces might have carried out the chemical weapons attack without Assad's permission.

In response, Kerry argued that Syrian chemical weapons are tightly controlled and that there is "no question about responsibility."

Assad also warned of an unspecified retaliation if the United States and its allies go ahead with the attack.

During their press conference earlier in the day, around the same time that Kerry spoke in London, Lavrov and Muallem presented a united front against American-led calls for intervention in the Syrian conflict.

Lavrov said Moscow was focused on preventing a Western strike, which he warns will only destabilize the region and make a negotiated solution more difficult. He also denied he was working behind the scenes to hammer out a deal.

"There cannot be any deals made with regard to Russian policy that were concluded behind the Syrian people's back. That will not happen," he said.

Russia has remained Syria's strongest ally throughout the conflict. It continues to provide the Assad government with arms and economic support. It has also blocked efforts to pressure Assad in the United Nations Security Council.

Kerry, as he has done for the past week, tried to walk a fine line between sounding a battle cry in Syria and claiming the United States was "not going to war," a reflection of how difficult the Obama administration is finding it to sell an attack on Syria.

When arguing for the need to strike, Kerry compared the chemical weapons attacks to the Holocaust, which killed more than 6 million, and the Rwandan genocide, during which almost 1 million people died in the 1990s.

"If one party believes he can rub out countless numbers of his own citizens with chemical weapons, he will never get to the negotiation table," Kerry argued. "A resolution will never get done on the battlefield. It will be done at the negotiating table. But we have to get to that table."

But at the same time, he also tried to downplay the scope of the U.S. plans, saying an attack was not an act of war.

"We're not talking about war. We are not going to war," Kerry said. "We are going to be able to hold Bashar Assad accountable, in a very limited, very targeted, very short-term effort that degrades his capacity to deliver chemical weapons without assuming responsibility for Syria's Civil War."

A small group of protesters outside the British foreign office disagreed, holding up signs that said, "Hands Off Syria."

"One, two, three four," they chanted, "we don't want another war."

After the news conference, Kerry left for Washington to lobby Congress to authorize the military strike in Syria.

General Havoc wrote:

Josh wrote:This is ridiculous.

No more so than half the shit I read here. And perfectly heartfelt, I assure you.

Josh wrote:It's on a par with the people who were going to leave the country whenever Bush/Obama got reelected. Furthermore, it's not taking into account that a lot of people are particularly opposed to pointless token action that won't accomplish anything but waste money and make us look like idiots. There's a lot of nuance to this issue and to go all "Fuck this shitty planet" over it is massive overreaction.

Honestly, the reason I pointed it out is because you're not the guy I expect to go off in this direction. We've had our beefs, but you're normally not given to this sort of massive hyperbole.

rhoenix wrote:Honestly Havoc, even posting pictures of kids who've been gassed to death aren't going to sway me here, and it's precisely because of the "might-makes-right" principle you're objecting to.

In my view, by attacking Syria for this happening, The US is essentially saying that the rule of law as it applies to nations does not apply when force of arms is easier. That on an international field, criminals should not be prosecuted - they should instead simply be killed, and that's a principle I cannot agree with.

Let the weapons inspectors do their work, let the investigations be done, and if there's conclusive evidence that can satisfy a court of law, Assad and his administration goes to the Hague for what they did. If that's not possible for some reason, then I would have no objections to a multi-national military operation being used on Assad's administration in Syria.

General Havoc wrote:

Josh wrote:It's on a par with the people who were going to leave the country whenever Bush/Obama got reelected. Furthermore, it's not taking into account that a lot of people are particularly opposed to pointless token action that won't accomplish anything but waste money and make us look like idiots. There's a lot of nuance to this issue and to go all "Fuck this shitty planet" over it is massive overreaction.

Honestly, the reason I pointed it out is because you're not the guy I expect to go off in this direction. We've had our beefs, but you're normally not given to this sort of massive hyperbole.

Believe me, I'm not exempting myself from this declaration. People who go to Canada (or more specifically, threaten to go to Canada), do so because they believe that they alone bear no responsibility for the political issue they object to. I do not. We are all damned in this matter together. Because if we don't attack Syria, I too will be responsible for the consequences of inaction. That is the responsibility of living in a democratic society.

I could give you reasons as to why I reacted this way. I could trot out all of my arguments from before, or suggest, for instance, that establishing a precedent that it is nobody's responsibility to come to the aid or defense of the denizens of a city being nerve gassed by a madman would seem to be a hollow victory should, by some horrid mischance, it be your city or mine that winds up being gassed next. But that doesn't illustrate the reason properly.

No, you want to know why I respond this way? Here's why:



No hyperbole here. No screaming. No arguments. Just do me one favor and look at that image for a good long while. Look at it until you can see it with your eyes closed. And then, after you've done so, if you still think we shouldn't attack Syria because it will be too expensive, or because it won't accomplish anything useful, or because it's political suicide, or some other practical objection to launching a military strike against Assad, then I won't say another word against you.

But if anybody ever suggests again that I am reacting this strongly in favor of a military strike because of some self-centered hissy fit over the fact that my side didn't win an election, or because I'm a insular beltway elitist who wants to go kill Arabs and be damned to the consequences, then I assure you, the beefs we have had in the past will be nothing compared to what happens next.

You, and those who think as you do may be right. There are indeed legitimate reasons to object to a strike. But even if you are right, that image, and others like it, should stick with all of us forever. Because one way or another, by not attacking, we are making a choice, informed or otherwise, to do nothing about it. Even if the choice turns out to be objectively correct, the consequences of it should haunt our very nightmares. They already do mine.

Josh wrote:I didn't say you were reacting to this because you lost an election or any such. I said that your reaction in damning the entire country without consideration as to the legitimate reasons behind objecting to a military action here was over-the-top in a similar fashion, and I stand by that. I also certainly would never accuse you of wanting to kill Arabs for any given reason.

I respect the principle you're standing by here, and I would ask the same of you. I would further ask that you grant that among those of us who have voiced objections to the military response are not dismissively waving away the deaths of children and other innocents. I said during our last argument that I'd be content to see Assad and the other shitbags among his forces who engage in atrocities stood up against the wall and shot.

It's a shitty situation for which there's no good answer- your answer or mine. I still contend that if you require military intervention to protect civilians, you'll have to A: accept that our intervention will likewise kill civilians if it's going to be an effective one and B: probably very promptly have to turn around and start blasting the other side in order to protect the Alawite/Christian civilian population after the Assad regime.

Basically, you're damning this country for not being able to provide a miracle.

I'm sorry there's not a better answer for this. Honestly I am.