Tag Archives: Syria

Frank Gaffney of the Center For Security Policy On Why To Stay Out Of Syria

 

TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

HH: Joined now by Frank Gaffney, president of the Center For Security Policy, www.securefreedom.org. Frank Gaffney, my first question to you is did the announcement that AIPAC is going to storm the Hill next week in support of intervention, and the New York Times story on the Israel government’s surprise you, that the Israeli government also supporting intervention? Did those stories surprise you?

FG: No, Hugh, I’m afraid that AIPAC, and sort of the organized Jewish lobby more generally, has been Obama’s poodle, basically, since he came to office. I think that they have long since lost the bubble on what’s in the interest of American Jewry, let alone Israel. And I think this is in keeping with that. You know, they didn’t fight Chuck Hagel’s nomination, they didn’t fight Samantha Power’s nomination, they haven’t said beans about the peace process, even when John Kerry threatened Israel with de-legitimation if they don’t make sweeping concessions to the Palestinians in the nature of a second state. All of this is evidence, I think, of a kind of rot that I fear is going to do two things. One, I believe this will put Israel in greater jeopardy, not less, and two, that it’s going to create an image in a lot of other Americans’ minds which you can be will be exploited by enemies of Israel, and I’m certainly not one, that the Jews are making us go to war in Syria. And that ain’t good for any of us. I really don’t think this is advisable.

HH: All right, now the Israeli government is also, according to the New York Times, urging that the President strike Syria. Does that surprise you? Or do you not believe that report?

FG: Again, no, I think it is consistent with the posture that the Netanyahu government has taken, basically, since President Obama came to office, and that is do whatever is necessary to stay on good terms with Obama. I’d like to think that at least they recognize that Obama is very hostile to Israel, but I am afraid that it is at least in part borne of this notion that if they just stay on his good side, then he won’t be too beastly to them. I don’t think it’s going to work out that way. I think he’s going to be beastly to them as he will before he’s done.

HH: Now I have been canvassing all of the center-right’s people this week, and trying to keep my eye on the news at the same time. And I just was, Brian Todd was just on CNN talking about possible retaliatory actions if we strike Syria. I am afraid, Frank Gaffney, that if we don’t, Khamenei will say I wonder what the real red line is, let’s see what…you know, as you know better than anyone, you and Ledeen, the Iranians use to go and assassinate people when no one stood up to them. They would send their killers everywhere. What signal would Khamenei take, Frank, because I have been persuaded we have to do this because of Khamenei.

FG: Look, can I say, first of all, how appreciative I am that you’re taking national security really seriously? I mean, you do more than just about anybody in talk radio, but the fact that you’re devoting this kind of time, your time, as well as your audience’s time, to a real debate about this is extremely laudatory, even if you’ve got this absolutely wrong.

HH: (laughing)

FG: You’re making the effort to inform us, and frankly, that’s not happening much in Washington these days.

HH: No, by the way, that’s exactly the way people should respond on this debate. They should just, okay, we’ve got to listen to each other, so tell me more.

FG: To your point, you are hanging your hat on being able to influence the Khamenei regime and its strategy for becoming even more of a threat in the future. I see absolutely no evidence that their behavior has been modulated in the least. Have they stopped assassinating people? Well, not since I’ve noticed. I mean, they did try to blow up the Saudi ambassador here a year or two ago in Washington.

HH: Yes, they did.

FG: And it’s, the problem, fundamentally, Hugh, the problem is this. They’ve already understood this president has no stomach for enforcing a red line against them. They already know. They’re good to go. I frankly think they probably already have got nuclear weapons, but if they don’t, there’s no, nothing standing in the way of them doing it. And our getting embroiled in a civil war in Syria, which would divert not only our attention, but also our military’s diminished resources, you’re absolutely right, we need to make a spot around the President acknowledging he’s been hollowing out our military. Indeed he has. We go waste it in a strike, and believe me, it’s not going to be the Goldilocks strike. It will turn into an escalating problem, because not least, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, if their resolution makes it through, it’s, I gather what you want, you’re going to have us committing to changing the momentum on the battlefield.

HH: We’ll come back and talk about that. Frank’s going nowhere. He’s coming back, and we’ll take our calls.

— – – – –

HH: Frank, Fox News, the reason we were off the mark there, we were watching a report on Fox News just now that the Pentagon has been asked to revise the Syrian retaliation plan more than 50 times. Now that is a talking point in your favor, I know. But it also suggests they’re getting very serious about deposing Assad, and as we went to break, you’re worried about that. Tell people why.

FG: Well, Hugh, you and others, many of whom are good friends of mine, and with whom I agree on a lot of things, have created what I believe is a delusional outcome, namely that when we go to war on behalf of the so-called opposition, and help them overthrow Bashar Assad and his regime, and run whatever retaliatory response we get in the course of that, which probably means more war, probably, I would argue, more regional war, not just confined to Syria, but that when we do all that, the guys that are going to come out of this on top are the so-called Free Syrian Army. And actually, if you know enough about it to be following the unfolding saga about these guys, it turns out it’s a subset of the Free Syrian Army that might be pro-secular, might be pro-democratic, might be pro-Western, but are absolutely unlikely to succeed as the dominant force in the country, at least probably for the rest of our lives for the simple reason that far more numerous, far better armed, far more disciplined and ruthless and combat hardened, are the Islamists. Best case as a result, Hugh, you get out of this the Muslim Brotherhood. Worst case, you get al Qaeda. And…

HH: All right, let me get some calls…

FG: …not in favor of turning over Syria to al Qaeda. We’ve already switched sides in this war, for God’s sake. I don’t think that’s an advisable thing to do, and the American people don’t want to do it, either.

HH: John in Minneapolis, your comment or question for Frank Gaffney.

John: Hi, Hugh. Yeah, I agree completely with Frank. What I was going to say is we’ve got perfect examples recently. Going back to Gaza, they were allowed to elect Hamas. Going to Egypt, they elected Muslim Brotherhood. Libya is chaotic right now we got rid of Qaddafi. I mean, there’s example after example. Even Iraq’s not stable, and look at the investment there.

HH: All right, thank you, John. Let me also go to Steve in Los Angeles. He has a question for Frank. Steve, go ahead.

Steve: Hey, hi again, Hugh. And Frank, it’s a pleasure to talk to you. Hugh had Jack Keane on, and boy, you know, I was going back and forth until I heard him, and he really thinks there’s a viable group that we can support. What do you think of Jack Keane’s observation?

FG: Well, I’m a great admirer of Jack Keane, and I’m afraid in this case, as we talked about, I think it was last night, Hugh, he is relying upon this young graduate student by the name of Elizabeth O’Bagy, who it turns out works for the Syrian opposition…

Steve: Wow.

FG: …who gets a cut of contracts anytime she brings more business to the so-called Syrian Emergency Task Force. And you know, if there’s another source of information about the relative strength of these competing factions, I’d be all ears. But when the Secretary of State and John McCain and Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, and just this morning, National Public Radio all cite this young woman as the savant of what we’re dealing with here, I don’t feel too comfortable with it, I must say, especially since she’s not acknowledging the conflict of interest.

HH: And Frank, I want to follow up on that. I saw your Tweet on that. Steve, thank you for reminding me about this. I saw your Tweet on it this morning. And that’s a serious charge about a conflict of interest. How do you know that?

FG: It is a matter of public record, Hugh, that she is associated with, as the political director, of this group called the Syrian Emergency Task Force, which is run by a fellow by the name of Mouaz Mustafa, who until, I don’t know, five or six years ago, was an intern in Blanche Lincoln’s office. This is kind of like the Children’s Crusade, if I can just say…

HH: Oh, my gosh.

FG: But the point is that she’s been called it. Neil Cavuto did it the other day. The Wall Street Journal today had to issue a sort of a backhanded clarification that they failed to acknowledge that she works for the opposition. And all I’m saying is she’s entitled to work for the opposition. We’re entitled to know she’s working for the people that she’s trying to get us to help. And I don’t think that’s a basis for going to war.

HH: Yeah, the reason I bring it up is because…once I saw, because I follow your Tweet feed, obviously. Everyone should, @frankgaffney. And when you pointed it out, I went to the Center For the Study of War’s website, and I read their conflict of interest policy. Kim Kagan is very high in my esteem, very high, as is Fred. And their adamant statement on their conflicts is you can’t do that and work at the Center for the Study of War.

FG: Yeah, it’s a little curious. She seems to be running government contracts through ISW, and you know, she’s got this relationship. And she claims that it isn’t affecting her judgment. I don’t know. I just want to know that she is working for the Syrian opposition. And again, Hugh, the point is I’m willing to accept that there are some people in this Syrian opposition that might not be so bad. It’s just the problem that they A) swear fealty to the al-Nusra Front, which is al Qaeda, and two, there’s going to be a problem, because I believe they won’t win.

HH: Okay, I’ve got to get one more question is, Frank, before we run out of time. Is there anything the President can say on Tuesday night to change your mind?

FG: Hugh, if his lips are moving, he’s lying.

HH: (laughing) I guess the answer is no, then.

FG: The only thing that would make me give him the benefit of maybe a little doubt is if he says, as Jimmy Carter did in December of 1979, I’ve got this all wrong, the Soviets then invaded Afghanistan, and he turned around his hollowing out of the military, if this president said now, I’ve got this all wrong, we are going into a full-scale rebuilding of our military capabilities, and then we’re going to take on the Iranians as well as the Syrians, then we can talk. But he’s not going to do that, and if he did, he’d be lying.

HH: But at least he knows what he’s got to do to get Frank Gaffney’s vote in Congress.

FG: Yeah.

HH: Frank Gaffney, president of the Center For Security Policy, great to speak with you as always.

End of interview.

O’Bagy’s Conflict of Interest

If President Obama actually launches air strikes to “change the momentum of the battlefield” in Syria, one woman may be more responsible than just about anybody else.

Her name is Elizabeth O’Bagy and her assessments of the nature and relative influence of the so-called “moderates” she claims could take over from Hafez Assad have been cited as authoritative by Secretary of State John Kerry, Senator John McCain and press outlets like the Wall Street Journal and NPR.

But O’Bagy is hardly an objective source.  Largely undisclosed is her role as a paid consultant and political director for the Syrian Emergency Task Force, which seeks arms and help for Assad’s opposition.  That is a blatant conflict of interest – and a scandal if allowed to influence whether America goes to war in Syria.

Go-Code for al Qaeda in Syria

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday approved a resolution green-lighting the attack President Obama is intent on launching in Syria.  A bipartisan majority would permit military strikes to “change the momentum” in Syria’s civil war.

Since that authorization is directly at odds with the sentiments of the American people – who oppose intervention in Syria by at least 56 to 19 percent – the Committee’s members must have found the arguments of the critics unpersuasive.  Oh wait, the Committee actually didn’t take testimony from any critics.

That’s right, Senators have only heard from administration witnesses, all of whom unsurprisingly support the President’s plan for military strikes that would help al Qaeda overthrow Syria’s dictator.  If this sounds to you like a recipe for disaster, you might let your representatives know.

Obama’s ‘Goldilocks’ strike on Syria

President Obama surprised friends and foes alike with his announcement in the middle of Labor Day weekend that he would attack Syria, but ask Congress for approval first.  Even more surprising is the idea that anyone – friends, foes or Congress – would take seriously his Goldilocks-like strike plan, with its promise of “not too much, not too little, just right” amounts of death and destruction somehow calibrated to punish Bashar Assad for using chemical weapons, but not defeat him.

Fairy tales are not a sound basis for American strategy, especially in as volatile a part of the world as today’s Middle East.  The coming debate on Capitol Hill must establish whether the President actually has a credible, coherent and reasonably promising plan, one that looks beyond his initial missile lay-down to shaping a positive outcome in Syria and minimizing the real dangers of retaliation from one or more quarters.

The following are among the issues Congress must be address:

  • If the object of the exercise is not only to penalize the Assad regime for killing large numbers of civilians with Sarin nerve gas and perhaps other chemical agents but to prevent his stocks of such weapons from being used in the future, will the U.S. attack serve that purpose?  It is hard to see how, unless it involves a concerted effort to destroy Assad’s chemical stockpiles.

Otherwise, there is a distinct possibility that either the regime’s own troops or allies (notably Iran and its proxy, the designated terrorist organization Hezbollah) or its enemies (notably, the Muslim Brotherhood and its partner in Syria, the designated terrorist organization al Qaeda) will get their hands on these weapons.  Either way, the prospect is for more chemical weapons use, not less, if Assad’s chemical arsenal is not eliminated.

Unfortunately, no one can promise that an effort to use force to neutralize Assad’s chemical stockpiles would be surgical and antiseptic – two attributes upon which Mr. Obama seems fixated.  Even if we actually know where all of them are (including those Saddam Hussein is believed to have covertly transferred to Syria before we liberated Iraq), blowing up the caches will almost certainly result in some of their deadly contents being released downwind.  So, what’s the plan?

  • Those like Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who insist the United States must help overthrow Bashir Assad, contend that there is an alternative in the Free Syrian Army (FSA).  They assert that the FSA is “moderate,” pro-Western and has a realistic possibility – with our assistance – of keeping Syria together and out of the hands of the Islamists who appear to dominate the opposition’s political and military operations.

There are a number of problems with this proposition, which President Obama may have to endorse more or less explicitly to secure the support he acutely needs in the coming debate from the Senate’s Dynamic Duo, Batman McCain and his sidekick, Robin Graham.  For one thing, it is far from clear that the Free Syrian Army is, as advertised, the secular great-white-hope for Syria.  As Daniel Greenfield points out at FrontPage Magazine (http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/the-wall-street-journals-misleading-report-on-the-moderate-syrian-opposition/), even Elizabeth O’Bagy – who waxed enthusiastic about the FSA in a Wall Street Journal op.ed. last Saturday – told the New York Times in April, “My sense is that there are no seculars [in the Syrian rebel leadership].”

Then, there is the natty problem that, if the Free Syria Army somehow does prevail over Assad’s forces and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah units now augmenting them, the FSA will also have to triumph over the avowedly Islamist units – including al Qaeda – with whom it is now aligned.  If President Obama is unable to offer a way to accomplish this hat-trick, the best that can be hoped for is that Syria remains chaotically riven between our enemies: Assad and Company on the one hand and the Sunni Islamists and their FSA partners on the other.  The unhappy alternative is that the worst in one or the other of these factions will emerge victorious, with dire consequences for Syria, the region and us.

O Among those most at risk from a bad outcome in Syria is Israel.  To be sure, an Assad victory would strengthen and embolden Iran.  Conversely, an Assad defeat, particularly at American hands, would be a strategic blow to the mullahs in Tehran – a prospect that is inducing some Israelis and many of their champions here to fall into line behind President Obama’s proposed attack.

These stakes suggest, however, that Iran will do everything possible to make a U.S. intervention in Syria very costly.  Its threats to retaliate against Israel if Obama pulls the trigger cannot be discounted.  Neither should the possibility that Hezbollah cells known to be in this country will be ordered to carry out attacks here.

For those who believe the United States must defeat the Iranian regime before it obtains nuclear weapons, there are other, more direct and certainly more effective means of doing so than by engaging in a bank-shot – particularly a Goldilocks-style one – by attacking Syria.  We should help the people of Iran free themselves from their Islamist oppressors.  Our success there would do more than any single other thing to assist the Syrian people.

A congressional debate on Obama’s Mideast policies is long-overdue.  If the impending one fails satisfactorily to address these critical topics, among many others, President Obama’s proposed attack on Syria will probably have – like some other fairy tales – an unhappy ending.

Plan for War

President Obama has decided to go to war with Syria and wants Congress to support him.  Oh, I know, he says it’s not war, just a punitive strike; it won’t take very long or involve U.S. boots on the ground.

Team Obama wants a tidy little military action – kind of like Goldilocks: not too much, not too little, just right amounts of death and destruction, without any real cost to us.

Unfortunately, fairy tales don’t make for good strategies.  And the enemy gets a vote in wars.  Thankfully, Congress is being given one, too.  And in the debate preceding their vote, our representatives must evaluate not only the President’s proposed strike, but also what is being planned in the event one or more of our enemies votes for a wider war.

Obama’s bread and circuses

Over the past week, President Barack Obama and his senior advisers have told us that the US is poised to go to war against Syria. In the next few days, the US intends to use its airpower and guided missiles to attack Syria in response to the regime’s use of chemical weapons in the outskirts of Damascus last week.

The questions that ought to have been answered before any statements were made by the likes of Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel have barely been raised in the public arena. The most important of those questions are: What US interests are at stake in Syria? How should the US go about advancing them? What does Syria’s use of chemical weapons means for the US’s position in the region? How would the planned US military action in Syria impact US deterrent strength, national interests and credibility regionally and worldwide? Syria is not an easy case. Thirty months into the war there, it is clear that the good guys, such as they are, are not in a position to win.

Syria is controlled by Iran and its war is being directed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and by Hezbollah. And arrayed against them are rebel forces dominated by al-Qaida.

As US Sen. Ted Cruz explained this week, “Of nine rebel groups [fighting the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad], seven of them may well have some significant ties to al-Qaida.”

With no good horse to bet on, the US and its allies have three core interests relating to the war. First, they have an interest in preventing Syria’s chemical, biological and ballistic missile arsenals from being used against them either directly by the regime, through its terror proxies or by a successor regime.

Second, the US and its allies have an interest in containing the war as much as possible to Syria itself.

Finally, the US and its allies share an interest in preventing Iran, Moscow or al-Qaida from winning the war or making any strategic gains from their involvement in the war.

For the past two-and-a-half years, Israel has been doing an exemplary job of securing the first interest. According to media reports, the IDF has conducted numerous strikes inside Syria to prevent the transfer of advanced weaponry, including missiles from Syria to Hezbollah.

Rather than assist Israel in its efforts that are also vital to US strategic interests, the US has been endangering these Israeli operations. US officials have repeatedly leaked details of Israel’s operations to the media. These leaks have provoked several senior Israeli officials to express acute concern that in providing the media with information regarding these Israeli strikes, the Obama administration is behaving as if it is interested in provoking a war between Israel and Syria. The concerns are rooted in a profound distrust of US intentions, unprecedented in the 50-year history of US-Israeli strategic relations.

The second US interest threatened by the war in Syria is the prospect that the war will not be contained in Syria. Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan specifically are threatened by the carnage. To date, this threat has been checked in Jordan and Lebanon. In Jordan, US forces along the border have doubtlessly had a deterrent impact in preventing the infiltration of the kingdom by Syrian forces.

In Lebanon, given the huge potential for spillover, the consequences of the war in Syria have been much smaller than could have been reasonably expected. Hezbollah has taken a significant political hit for its involvement in the war in Syria. On the ground, the spillover violence has mainly involved Shi’ite and Shi’ite jihadists targeting one another.

Iraq is the main regional victim of the war in Syria. The war there reignited the war between Sunnis and Shi’ites in Iraq. Violence has reached levels unseen since the US force surge in 2007. The renewed internecine warfare in Iraq redounds directly to President Barack Obama’s decision not to leave a residual US force in the country. In the absence US forces, there is no actor on the ground capable of strengthening the Iraqi government’s ability to withstand Iranian penetration or the resurgence of al-Qaida.

The third interest of the US and its allies that is threatened by the war in Syria is to prevent Iran, Russia or al-Qaida from securing a victory or a tangible benefit from their involvement in the war.

It is important to note that despite the moral depravity of the regime’s use of chemical weapons, none of America’s vital interests is impacted by their use within Syria. Obama’s pledge last year to view the use of chemical weapons as a tripwire that would automatically cause the US to intervene militarily in the war in Syria was made without relation to any specific US interest.

But once Obama made his pledge, other US interests became inextricably linked to US retaliation for such a strike. The interests now on the line are America’s deterrent power and strategic credibility. If Obama responds in a credible way to Syria’s use of chemical weapons, those interests will be advanced. If he does not, US deterrent power will become a laughing stock and US credibility will be destroyed.

Unfortunately, the US doesn’t have many options for responding to Assad’s use of chemical weapons. If it targets the regime in a serious way, Assad could fall, and al-Qaida would then win the war. Conversely, if the US strike is sufficient to cause strategic harm to the regime’s survivability, Iran could order the Syrians or Hezbollah or Hamas, or all of them, to attack Israel. Such an attack would raise the prospect of regional war significantly.

A reasonable response would be for the US to target Syria’s ballistic missile sites. And that could happen. Although the US doesn’t have to get involved in order to produce such an outcome. Israel could destroy Syria’s ballistic missiles without any US involvement while minimizing the risk of a regional conflagration.

There are regime centers and military command and control bases and other strategic sites that it might make sense for the US to target.

Unfortunately, the number of regime and military targets the US has available for targeting has been significantly reduced in recent days. Administration leaks of the US target bank gave the Syrians ample time to move their personnel and equipment.

This brings us to the purpose the Obama administration has assigned to a potential retaliatory strike against the Syrian regime following its use of chemical weapons.

Obama told PBS on Wednesday that US strikes on Syria would be “a shot across the bow.”

But as Charles Krauthammer noted, such a warning is worthless. In the same interview Obama also promised that the attack would be a nonrecurring event. When there are no consequences to ignoring a warning, then the warning will be ignored.

This is a very big problem. Obama’s obvious reluctance to follow through on his pledge to retaliate if Syria used chemical weapons may stem from a belated recognition that he has tethered the US’s strategic credibility to the quality of its response to an action that in itself has little significance to US interests in Syria.

And this brings us to the third vital US interest threatened by the war in Syria – preventing Iran, al-Qaida or Russia from scoring a victory.

Whereas the war going on in Syria pits jihadists against jihadists, the war that concerns the US and its allies is the war the jihadists wage against everyone else. And Iran is the epicenter of that war.

Like US deterrent power and strategic credibility, the US’s interest in preventing Iran from scoring a victory in Damascus is harmed by the obvious unseriousness of the “signal” Obama said he wishes to send Assad through US air strikes.

Speaking on Sunday of the chemical strike in Syria, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned, “Syria has become Iran’s testing ground…. Iran is watching and it wants to see what would be the reaction on the use of chemical weapons.”

The tepid, symbolic response that the US is poised to adopt in response to Syria’s use of chemical weapons represents a clear signal to Iran. Both the planned strikes and the growing possibility that the US will scrap even a symbolic military strike in Syria tell Iran it has nothing to fear from Obama.

Iran achieved a strategic achievement by exposing the US as a paper tiger in Syria. With this accomplishment in hand, the Iranians will feel free to call Obama’s bluff on their nuclear weapons project. Obama’s “shot across the bow” response to Syria’s use of chemical weapons in a mass casualty attack signaled the Iranians that the US will not stop them from developing and deploying a nuclear arsenal.

Policy-makers and commentators who have insisted that we can trust Obama to keep his pledge to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons have based their view on an argument that now lies in tatters. They insisted that by pledging to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power, Obama staked his reputation on acting competently to prevent Iran from getting the bomb. To avoid losing face, they said, Obama will keep his pledge.

Obama’s behavior on Syria has rendered this position indefensible. Obama is perfectly content with shooting a couple of pot shots at empty government installations. As far as he is concerned, the conduct of air strikes in Syria is not about Syria, or Iran. They are not the target audience of the strikes. The target audience for US air strikes in Syria is the disengaged, uninformed American public.

Obama believes he can prove his moral and strategic bonafides to the public by declaring his outrage at Syrian barbarism and then launching a few cruise missiles from an aircraft carrier. The computer graphics on the television news will complete the task for him.

The New York Times claimed on Thursday that the administration’s case for striking Syria would not be the “political theater” that characterized the Bush administration’s case for waging war in Iraq. But at least the Bush administration’s political theater ended with the invasion. In Obama’s case, the case for war and the war itself are all political theater.

While for a few days the bread and circuses of the planned strategically useless raid will increase newspaper circulation and raise viewer ratings of network news, it will cause grievous harm to US national interests. As far as US enemies are concerned, the US is an empty suit.

And as far as America’s allies are concerned, the only way to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power is to operate without the knowledge of the United States.

As the Military Weakens, So Too Does US Power in the World

With Seth Cropsey, Michael O’Hanlon, Fred Fleitz, Bill Gertz

SETH CROPSEY, former Deputy Undersecretary of the Navy, talks about US intervention in Syria and the hollowing out of the US military.

MICHAEL O’HANLON. of the Brookings Institute, analyzes the impending US military strike against Syria, as well as outlines what he feels the ultimate future goals in Syria should be.

FRED FLEITZ, of Lignet.com, exposes the flaws of the administration’s plan to possibly intervene into Syria and the implications this intervention could have on American allies in the region.

BILL GERTZ, of the Washington Free Beacon and Washington Times, analyzes US intervention in Syria and the new Chinese  Anti satellite satellites.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Obama’s Goldilocks Strike

The civil war in Syria is lurching into a new and more ominous phase.  The Obama administration evidently hopes to emulate Goldilocks in seeking to calibrate sea-launched cruise missile strikes against the Syrian government as punishment for the alleged use of chemical weapons against its own people:  Not too much, not too little, but just right.

That seems unlikely, as the Assad regime’s friends are warning of dire repercussions from any such strike.  For example, Russia has said “catastrophe” would ensue for the region and Iran warned yesterday that Israel will suffer retaliation.

Whether these threats materialize or not, Team Obama’s systematic hollowing out of our nation’s military is severely limiting our capacity to deal with whatever blow-back may result.  Worse yet, that perceived weakness may actually invite a wider war.

Obama’s Next War

President Obama seems poised to launch a war on Syria in response to the latest, murderous use of chemical weapons there that Secretary of State Kerry denounced yesterday as a “moral outrage.”

Preparations are said to be underway for sea-launched cruise missile strikes on targets critical to the Syrian government in its civil war against opposition forces now dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, al Qaeda and other Islamist enemies of the United States.  Britain and perhaps other nations may provide supporting fire.

We should be under no illusion.  Whether such interventions are justified on not – and they seem at least premature before inspectors on the ground confirm what happened – they probably won’t be the end of the matter.  More likely, they will precipitate a terrible regional, and perhaps wider, war.

Obama’s vanishing deterrent

Barack Obama appears at this writing to be poised to embroil the United States in a new war in Syria in response to the recent, murderous use of chemical weapons there.  Ill-advised as this step is, it is but a harbinger of what is to come as reckless U.S. national security policies and postures meet the hard reality of determined adversaries emboldened by our perceived weakness.

The focus at the moment is on what tactical response the President will make to punish Syrian dictator Bashar Assad for his alleged violation of Mr. Obama’s glibly declared “red-line” barring the use of such weapons of mass destruction.  There seems to be little serious thought given at the moment to what happens next:  What steps Assad and his allies, Iran and Hezbollah, may take against us, our interests and allies; what the repercussions will be of the United States further helping the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda forces who make up the bulk of Assad’s domestic opposition; and the prospects for a far wider war as a result of the answers to both of these questions.

Even more wanting is some serious reflection about decisions taken long before Mr. Obama came to office – but that are consonant with his own, deeply flawed predilections about deterrence.  Over two decades ago, President George H.W. Bush decided he would “rid the world of chemical weapons.”  The UN Chemical Weapons Convention has had the predictable – and predicted – result that the United States has eliminated all such arms in its arsenal, leaving only bad guys like Assad with stockpiles of Sarin nerve gas and other toxic chemical weapons.

No one can say for sure whether the threat of retaliation in kind would have affected recent calculations about the use of such weapons in Syria.  What we do know is that they have been used, evidently repeatedly, in the absence of such a deterrent.

Unfortunately, President Obama seems determined to repeat this dangerous experiment with America’s nuclear forces.  He has made it national policy next to rid the world of these weapons.  And, as with our chemical stockpile, Mr. Obama seems determined to set an example in the hope that others will follow.

This policy has set in train a series of actions whose full dimensions are not generally appreciated.  All planned steps to modernize our nuclear arsenal have either been cancelled or deferred off into the future – which probably amounts to the same thing.  Consequently, we will, at best, have to rely indefinitely on a deterrent comprised of very old weapons.  Virtually all of them are many years beyond their designed service life and most are deployed aboard ground-based missiles, submarines and bombers that are also approaching or in that status.

Confidence in the safety, reliability and effectiveness of these weapons has, since Bush 41’s tenure, relied upon exotic scientific calculations bereft of actual underground nuclear tests to confirm their accuracy.  Accordingly, certifications on these scores by the directors of the nation’s national nuclear laboratories have become a function of informed guesswork, rather than empirically proven analysis.  This is not a basis for reliable deterrence.

Another symptom of the deteriorating condition of our nuclear arsenal is the fact that the Air Force has taken disciplinary action for the second time in the past few months against some of those responsible for the operations of nuclear-armed ballistic missiles.  There are surely specific grounds for these punishments.  But we are kidding ourselves if we fail to consider the devastating impact on the morale and readiness of such personnel when they are told, at least implicitly, by the Commander-in-Chief that their mission is not only unimportant; it is one he wishes to terminate as soon as practicable.

Seem far-fetched?  Recall that eliminating outright our land-based missile force is something Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel personally endorsed prior to taking office. That may be the result if the President succeeds in reducing our nuclear forces to just 1,000 deployed weapons.  As of now, it is unclear whether he intends to take that step only if the Russians agree, or will do so unilaterally if they don’t.  Another uncertainty is whether Congress will go along with such rash cuts.

What is clear is that – with no more serious debate than has been applied to the implications of becoming embroiled in another war in the Middle East, this time with a country armed with chemical weapons against which we can threaten no in-kind retaliation – the United States has been launched on a trajectory towards a minimal nuclear deterrent.

Fortunately, a group of the nation’s preeminent nuclear strategists and practitioners under the leadership of the National Institute for Public Policy has just published a powerful indictment of this misbegotten policy initiative entitled Minimum Deterrence: Examining the Evidence.  It lays bare the faulty assumptions that underpin the Obama denuclearization agenda – not least the fact that the other nuclear powers, including all the threatening ones, are not following the president’s lead.

Some say America can no longer afford a strong and effective deterrent.  We may be about to test that proposition in Syria.  Heaven help us if we compound the error there by continuing our slide towards a minimum nuclear deterrent posture, en route to a world rid only of our nuclear weapons.