The only consolation I had when Trump won the presidency is that our nation would not become militarily engaged in Syria -- that a diplomatic solution could be bartered with Russia and the conflict de-escalated. But diplomacy doesn't have near the macho sex appeal of missiles and unsubstantiated accusations, now does it?
5
We cannot win Syria's civil war. It's that simple. Their hate goes back for generation to generation.
8
I am just fine with the U.S war making blood lust if the President volunteers his sons, daughter and son-in-law and all the baying members of Congress do same same in a nationwide Draft for infantry duty. That would be real commitment.
21
Part of the confusion is that the Iraq War was won. The Iraq peace is what was lost. Saddem was ousted in two weeks. The Iraqi Army was defeated and surrendered in only a bit longer time. Then came the disaster. Iraqi soldiers sent home with no pay but with their weapons. Museums allowed to be looted. And above all else Americans sent to Iraq who did not know the country, the culture of the language.
10
Neither in Iraq nor Afghanistan, nor in Vietnam for that matter, have U.S. political or military leaders succeeded, let alone been victorious. Working with tin horn dictators, in countries rife with societal corruption, with no prospects for anything resembling democracy expends our soldiers' lives and our citizen treasure for nothing. Be forever vigilant about claims we can make a difference.
10
One major reason there was that period of reflection post-Vietnam was that so many families were impacted by the draft, we all got to watch the war on TV and in news magazines, while hearing and seeing our less than moral military behaviors, compounded by the lies about winning coming from our leaders. (till Mr Cronkite blew those lies out of the water on his famous broadcast)
As a nation we were sorta forced into a reflection period being that so many Americans suffered some losses in that war. Be it a family member's death, or a survivors psychological turmoil, or the divisions that protest/support created in so many families. Plus, the very real fact that by its end, a huge number of the population were somehow involved in protesting the war.
Americans in general were involved in the Vietnam action, unlike now. Few of us know an actual combat soldier, and very few Americans are in any way impacted or inconvenienced by the Iraq, or Afghanistan actions.
Plus there's this new thing going on where we keep our protest nearly silent, in order to show that we "support our troops" in full. Somehow protest over endless war equals non-support of the troops. Which couldn't be a more ridiculous social meme. But its very real.
With no real domestic anti-war protest movements in play, there's little cause for Americans to pay it attention. We do tend to see certain foreign affairs as a nominal threat, but its not moving many Americans to get involved. We seem to not care.
As a nation we were sorta forced into a reflection period being that so many Americans suffered some losses in that war. Be it a family member's death, or a survivors psychological turmoil, or the divisions that protest/support created in so many families. Plus, the very real fact that by its end, a huge number of the population were somehow involved in protesting the war.
Americans in general were involved in the Vietnam action, unlike now. Few of us know an actual combat soldier, and very few Americans are in any way impacted or inconvenienced by the Iraq, or Afghanistan actions.
Plus there's this new thing going on where we keep our protest nearly silent, in order to show that we "support our troops" in full. Somehow protest over endless war equals non-support of the troops. Which couldn't be a more ridiculous social meme. But its very real.
With no real domestic anti-war protest movements in play, there's little cause for Americans to pay it attention. We do tend to see certain foreign affairs as a nominal threat, but its not moving many Americans to get involved. We seem to not care.
11
Before Secretary Tillerson left for Moscow, President Trump filled Him in on the finer points of THE TRUMP DOCTRINE:
"I'm flexible. I'm very flexible. I take pride in my flexibility. It's my greatest strength. It's my flexibility that's a great inspiration to other world leaders. Other leaders--friends and foes--soon will be just as unpredictable, unbalanced and unhinged as me. I'm experienced in these matters. More experienced than anyone--than the generals. You name it. An unpredictable world I can deal with. Predictability is overrated. Throw the world a 180 degree curve ball. Get their attention. Get great press. Adulation even. Some say I have no foreign policy but flexibility is a great foreign policy--greatest policy ever. People love it. And they love me. Did you see the yuuugist crowd ever at my inauguration? National Mall, wall to wall people. And my election by acclamation? Flexibility is the key. Be flexible. Tell 'em whatever you want 'em to hear. Fool most of the people most of the time. The key to success in real estate development. In politics. In international affairs. Flexibility."
"I'm flexible. I'm very flexible. I take pride in my flexibility. It's my greatest strength. It's my flexibility that's a great inspiration to other world leaders. Other leaders--friends and foes--soon will be just as unpredictable, unbalanced and unhinged as me. I'm experienced in these matters. More experienced than anyone--than the generals. You name it. An unpredictable world I can deal with. Predictability is overrated. Throw the world a 180 degree curve ball. Get their attention. Get great press. Adulation even. Some say I have no foreign policy but flexibility is a great foreign policy--greatest policy ever. People love it. And they love me. Did you see the yuuugist crowd ever at my inauguration? National Mall, wall to wall people. And my election by acclamation? Flexibility is the key. Be flexible. Tell 'em whatever you want 'em to hear. Fool most of the people most of the time. The key to success in real estate development. In politics. In international affairs. Flexibility."
6
Trump probably owns stock in the company that makes those cruise missiles.
9
THE TRUMP DOCTRINE: "I'm flexible. I'm very flexible. I take pride in my flexibility. It's my great strength. It's my flexibility that yuuugely inspires other world leaders. Other leaders--friends and foes--soon will follow my lead. Be just as flexible, unbalanced and unhinged as me. Only Wall Street values predictability. Consistency is overvalued. An inconsistent flexibility gets great press. Adulation even. Some say I have no foreign policy but flexibility is a great foreign policy--greatest policy ever. People love it."
3
The real question folks is, can the United States do anything to make the situation(s) in Syria/Iraq better. There has been many arguments that ALL of our past actions have made the situation worse. It is difficult to see Trump or anyone on his team having any answers short of knee-jerk reactions. The United States is NOT going to replace the Assad govt. that would take a multi-national multi-year (decade?) commitment.
5
As usual, Trump saw an opportunity, to take the focus off of his possible ties with Russia, and the investigation of that tie, and he took it. He wasn't touched by the poor gasping children in Syria, as a result of Assad's chemical warfare on them. It just isn't in him. Beginning of last week, he was against any confrontation with Assad, by Thursday, he was dropping tomahawk missiles on them. Yesterday, Rex Tillerson, said that the bombing was only to show Assad we won't tolerate him using chemical gasses on Syrian people, but we are not going to interfere with their government. That only means,it is ok, if Assad uses other means to murder innocent people. A lot of people fell for Trump's action and saw him as a hero. He either cares or he doesn't, there is no 2 way about it.
He took the focus off of investigation of himself and some members of his administration, and it worked. If he is not guilty, the easiest way would be to order the investigation himself, to show, he and his administration are not guilty and put an end to this problem, and go about running the country.
He took the focus off of investigation of himself and some members of his administration, and it worked. If he is not guilty, the easiest way would be to order the investigation himself, to show, he and his administration are not guilty and put an end to this problem, and go about running the country.
3
It's about survival, not war. The Syria response was about atrocities only parenthetically. It was 1st & foremost about WMDs & a prez's only charge—protect/defend.
The phony chemical weapons deal in Syria is the canary in the coal mine. Consider: Putin—Assad sponsor—oversaw removal of Assad's chemical weapons! Purpose was not to save Syrians from sarin but for Obama to save face for his lack of moral courage.
Similarly, Obama's phony legacy-driven nuke deal/secret side deals: They de facto nuclearized Iran, setting up nuke arms race in entire insane, apocalyptic region—deals that IF OBEYED, give Iran nukes in a blink of an eye as they defeat the grim logic of MAD.
Against will of people, Obama gave a mortal enemy devoted to our annihilation the means to achieve that very end.
He gave Iran: its operating budget - govt/terror/nuclear; regional hegemony/nuclear threshold status/ever-shrinking breakout time/nukes/R&D/ICBMs/ABMs/legitimacy.
What did we get? Increased risk of dirty bombs in harbors, nukes reaching mainland, Iran's ABM-protected impregnable nuke sites & the nightmare scenario—nuke arms race in unstable, apocalyptic region PROPELLED by MAD–which reveals 1st-strike intention.
Obama's pick for advisor for Iran strategic communications & planning was Ben Rhodes, aspiring fiction writer. It's hard to miss the irony. Or the arrogance. Perversely, it was Rhodes who ultimately disclosed O's Big Nuke Lie (The Aspiring Novelist Who Became Obama's Foreign-Policy Guru—NYT
The phony chemical weapons deal in Syria is the canary in the coal mine. Consider: Putin—Assad sponsor—oversaw removal of Assad's chemical weapons! Purpose was not to save Syrians from sarin but for Obama to save face for his lack of moral courage.
Similarly, Obama's phony legacy-driven nuke deal/secret side deals: They de facto nuclearized Iran, setting up nuke arms race in entire insane, apocalyptic region—deals that IF OBEYED, give Iran nukes in a blink of an eye as they defeat the grim logic of MAD.
Against will of people, Obama gave a mortal enemy devoted to our annihilation the means to achieve that very end.
He gave Iran: its operating budget - govt/terror/nuclear; regional hegemony/nuclear threshold status/ever-shrinking breakout time/nukes/R&D/ICBMs/ABMs/legitimacy.
What did we get? Increased risk of dirty bombs in harbors, nukes reaching mainland, Iran's ABM-protected impregnable nuke sites & the nightmare scenario—nuke arms race in unstable, apocalyptic region PROPELLED by MAD–which reveals 1st-strike intention.
Obama's pick for advisor for Iran strategic communications & planning was Ben Rhodes, aspiring fiction writer. It's hard to miss the irony. Or the arrogance. Perversely, it was Rhodes who ultimately disclosed O's Big Nuke Lie (The Aspiring Novelist Who Became Obama's Foreign-Policy Guru—NYT
3
The last time we sided with Muslims to bomb a non-Muslim country was in 1999, when President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Tony Blair ordered NATO to bomb Serbia into submission. Since 9/11, we’ve launched missile attacks via drones or ships on predominantly Muslim nations in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia.
While there always is a justification for such attacks, each new one makes the problem of so-called “radical Islamic terrorism” even harder to solve. Vietnam should have taught us that you couldn’t bomb a strong-willed people into submission.
This raining of bombs from the sky has been a daily occurrence in Syria for almost six years – they don’t have much of a country left? If we want that horror to stop, we need to take out Assad, who’s comfortably ensconced in Damascus? Let’s stop playing with people’s lives on the periphery.
While there always is a justification for such attacks, each new one makes the problem of so-called “radical Islamic terrorism” even harder to solve. Vietnam should have taught us that you couldn’t bomb a strong-willed people into submission.
This raining of bombs from the sky has been a daily occurrence in Syria for almost six years – they don’t have much of a country left? If we want that horror to stop, we need to take out Assad, who’s comfortably ensconced in Damascus? Let’s stop playing with people’s lives on the periphery.
4
WASHINGTON—Amid concerns that a U.S. attack on a Syrian government air base would only escalate the ongoing conflict in the region, President Trump assured Americans Friday that his decision to order a missile strike came only after carefully considering every one of his passing whims. “I want to make it perfectly clear that the decision to launch a military intervention in Syria was the result of meticulously reviewing each fleeting impulse that I felt over the last 48 hours,” said Trump, adding that after learning of chemical weapons used by Bashar al-Assad’s forces to kill innocent Syrian civilians, he gathered his top military aides to pore over dozens of his sudden knee-jerk reactions to the situation. “I examined many different options that whirled through my mind in the moment, including authorizing drone strikes, deploying U.S. troops to Syria, sending in SEAL Team Six to take out Assad, getting up and grabbing a snack from the kitchen, doing nothing, and dropping all our nuclear bombs on Damascus at once. Ultimately, I concluded that an airstrike was the best option at that particular second.” Trump went on to say that if the Assad regime’s behavior continues, he will not hesitate to order further military action if he hasn’t already completely forgotten about Syria by then.
the onion
4
The authors seem puzzled that only 18% of Americans "judged [The Bush Wars] worth the price. Yet no antiwar politics followed", for 15 bloody years.
Why?
Our wars are "a poor mans fight and a rich man's war".
US Presidential War Doctrine asks only: is war "just" for the oligarchs?
Since WWII the answer has been a resounding, YES!!!!!!!!
Great politics, jobs stimulus, tax cuts and mind control.
Only the 1% fighting the wars wonder a bit, but, hey, it's a job when the others are gone over the border or to cheap import labor.
Americans love machismo, blood and debt, so the polls show.
Why?
Our wars are "a poor mans fight and a rich man's war".
US Presidential War Doctrine asks only: is war "just" for the oligarchs?
Since WWII the answer has been a resounding, YES!!!!!!!!
Great politics, jobs stimulus, tax cuts and mind control.
Only the 1% fighting the wars wonder a bit, but, hey, it's a job when the others are gone over the border or to cheap import labor.
Americans love machismo, blood and debt, so the polls show.
4
"His unseemly embrace of torture, which enrages his liberal audience more than his flirtation with any other taboo, requires condemnation."
I would invite anyone to just read Trump's interviews, stump speeches, etc. and see how he thinks about torture being worthwhile even if it doesn't work. By his own words, not even waterboarding is harsh enough, he wants something "much, much worse." During his campaign he went on to fantasize about punishing the families of terrorists. Fast forward and observe Steven Miller lecturing the nation and saying that Trump's power "will not be questioned." Note our new CIA director's (Pompeo's) past rationalization of torture. Note also that while everyone else in Trump's cabinet seems to be in the news, Pompeo is rarely seen at all. Where is he? What is he doing? One can only imagine.
I would invite anyone to just read Trump's interviews, stump speeches, etc. and see how he thinks about torture being worthwhile even if it doesn't work. By his own words, not even waterboarding is harsh enough, he wants something "much, much worse." During his campaign he went on to fantasize about punishing the families of terrorists. Fast forward and observe Steven Miller lecturing the nation and saying that Trump's power "will not be questioned." Note our new CIA director's (Pompeo's) past rationalization of torture. Note also that while everyone else in Trump's cabinet seems to be in the news, Pompeo is rarely seen at all. Where is he? What is he doing? One can only imagine.
4
Wow!
Talk about non-sense. The opinions in this article are based on opinions about several other things which are also based on the opinions of other Politicians and intellectuals.
"Mr. Trump’s victory indicates that when we lived through our own disaster, we failed to reckon with the past and paved the way for an even more terrifying future."
What on earth does this mean?
Talk about non-sense. The opinions in this article are based on opinions about several other things which are also based on the opinions of other Politicians and intellectuals.
"Mr. Trump’s victory indicates that when we lived through our own disaster, we failed to reckon with the past and paved the way for an even more terrifying future."
What on earth does this mean?
2
The title of the piece, The Long Road to Trump’s War, is strange. Trump is unpredictable, and we don’t know if it’s a war or just a stunt. Most likely, Trump doesn’t know. I would imagine he will conduct more military interventions in Syria if he thinks they’re a good opportunity to further his interests. When he no longer does, he’ll move on to something else that is close at hand.
The authors assert that the American people mistook for wisdom Trump’s political calculations on the campaign trail, and so they were suckered by Trump. This is nonsense. The alternative to Trump was Hillary. In an interview with Nicholas Kristoff she enthusiastically supported the airstrike and then went on to elaborate further plans for extended military intervention in Syria. If she had won the election, the gas attack would have been a pretext for her to put her plans into action, and the title of this piece would be, The Long Road to Hillary’s War.
As for Obama’s famous red line incident. I consider that his greatest achievement and a model for restraint in the use of violence. Remember, it isn’t that he did nothing. What he did do is he waited. He had patience, and an unexpected nonviolent diplomatic solution appeared. The author’s claim that Obama did nothing to prevent war, but by this single act he did. He showed that nonviolent alternatives to extremely difficult situations are possible and practical.
The authors assert that the American people mistook for wisdom Trump’s political calculations on the campaign trail, and so they were suckered by Trump. This is nonsense. The alternative to Trump was Hillary. In an interview with Nicholas Kristoff she enthusiastically supported the airstrike and then went on to elaborate further plans for extended military intervention in Syria. If she had won the election, the gas attack would have been a pretext for her to put her plans into action, and the title of this piece would be, The Long Road to Hillary’s War.
As for Obama’s famous red line incident. I consider that his greatest achievement and a model for restraint in the use of violence. Remember, it isn’t that he did nothing. What he did do is he waited. He had patience, and an unexpected nonviolent diplomatic solution appeared. The author’s claim that Obama did nothing to prevent war, but by this single act he did. He showed that nonviolent alternatives to extremely difficult situations are possible and practical.
7
Millions of dollars in Tomahawk missiles and the airport is up and running in less than one week; meanwhile the highways in NY have been impassable for years, the trains are unsafe, and our area airports looked great over 50 years ago. Great priorities
If this was a true assessment of "The Long Road to Trump's War," you would have to go back much further than Obama, or even Bush. The seeds of our current Mideast dilemma can be traced back to WWI and the Wilson Administration, but that would require an actual understanding of 20th Century American History, and Wilson's Doctrine of anti-imperialism, which did not include Western Colonialism; he was fine with the UK continued domination of their Mideast colonies.
2
The Cold War exempted, no American major military undertaking in the intervening 70 years has come remotely close to the stunning success of the US role in WW-II. Certainly not Vietnam, arguably not Desert Storm (which left Saddam Hussein to regroup from a crushing battlefield defeat), and clearly not Iraq Bush Two in 2003 (which we are still embroiled in both in Iraq and Afghanistan), and most certainly not Libya.
Almost unerringly America has doggedly persisted in the post WW-II doctrine of the necessity of overwhelming American military supremacy and the relentless exercise of its self-proclaimed role as the only power capable of sustaining a workable global order.
The entrenchment and scope of our military-industrial-political-economic complex is certain testimonial to our foremost national priority and a deep rooted inclination for the use of military means.
In fact the most seminal lessons of the consequences of our national proclivity for the use of military means have not been learned.
This most crucial issue is not about whether we choose the right objectives, or military strategies, or battles, but rather how we fundamentally define our world role and how we break the habituated link between our vast military infrastructure and the persistent inclination to use our military means — our most dominant resource for dealing with extra national challenges and crises.
Almost unerringly America has doggedly persisted in the post WW-II doctrine of the necessity of overwhelming American military supremacy and the relentless exercise of its self-proclaimed role as the only power capable of sustaining a workable global order.
The entrenchment and scope of our military-industrial-political-economic complex is certain testimonial to our foremost national priority and a deep rooted inclination for the use of military means.
In fact the most seminal lessons of the consequences of our national proclivity for the use of military means have not been learned.
This most crucial issue is not about whether we choose the right objectives, or military strategies, or battles, but rather how we fundamentally define our world role and how we break the habituated link between our vast military infrastructure and the persistent inclination to use our military means — our most dominant resource for dealing with extra national challenges and crises.
4
What was Obama supposed to do, force the 2010 status of forces agreement that Bush put into place down their throats. Except the fact that Maliki was an Iranian pawn.
As to antiwar politics; reinstate the draft and watch the antiwar movement escalate.
The fact is Americans have never been in favor of war, with the possible exception of WWII, that is until the draft was abolished.
There were draft riots during the Civil War, and Wilson was elected based on his promise to keep America out of WWI.
Even WWII, until Pearl Harbor, a national consensus to become involved did not exist.
As to antiwar politics; reinstate the draft and watch the antiwar movement escalate.
The fact is Americans have never been in favor of war, with the possible exception of WWII, that is until the draft was abolished.
There were draft riots during the Civil War, and Wilson was elected based on his promise to keep America out of WWI.
Even WWII, until Pearl Harbor, a national consensus to become involved did not exist.
3
Until our global society is ready to demilitarize individual nations to a point where a global police force can keep the peace, we will always be vulnerable to the type of mess that both Syria and North Korea represent.
The concept of a world governing body raises the back hairs for many nationalists, but it is the next logical step for an increasingly interdependent global society, and really the only way to address many of the ills that stymie even the world's lone superpower.
So here's a question for millennials and subsequent generations: what type of world do you want to live in?
The concept of a world governing body raises the back hairs for many nationalists, but it is the next logical step for an increasingly interdependent global society, and really the only way to address many of the ills that stymie even the world's lone superpower.
So here's a question for millennials and subsequent generations: what type of world do you want to live in?
1
The authors of this thoughtful op-ed piece pinpoint the main problem affecting the Trump regime : namely, a tendency to live in a perpetual present which eschews any interest in past events and confuses 'versatility' with a nimble way to deal with the future.
Can a reader out there please explain why the protests against Trump seemed to have disappeared since his inauguration? Is this a reflection of fear of the government's potential crack-down on dissidence? Or is it just that no one really cares today, as long as one earns one's daily bread each day? Time to take a stand for the not-so-distant future!
Can a reader out there please explain why the protests against Trump seemed to have disappeared since his inauguration? Is this a reflection of fear of the government's potential crack-down on dissidence? Or is it just that no one really cares today, as long as one earns one's daily bread each day? Time to take a stand for the not-so-distant future!
3
Stop Donald the Mad Bomber before it's too late! (Pressure your congressional reps to demand an inquiry and a war powers act today. Visit them while they are home on recess.)
Zakaria isn't the only pundit who gushed approvingly. Virtually all the MSM pundits did, including Michael Gordon in an "analysis" piece in our own dear Gray Lady. (Gordon, recall, was the co-author with Judith Miller of the article about "aluminum tubes" that helped Bush push the U.S. into the invasion of Iraq. He is, essentially, a neocon mouthpiece.)
And as we read this, a U.S. carrier fleet is steaming from Singapore to Korean waters. I've got a sneaking feeling the Mad Bomber will be at it again, and soon.
Trump's behavior is not policy. It's akin some drunk guy with a gun walking down main street and shooting at windows where he thinks bad hombres are lurking. It should be condemned, not lauded…before he drags us further into the Middle Eastern mess.
Zakaria isn't the only pundit who gushed approvingly. Virtually all the MSM pundits did, including Michael Gordon in an "analysis" piece in our own dear Gray Lady. (Gordon, recall, was the co-author with Judith Miller of the article about "aluminum tubes" that helped Bush push the U.S. into the invasion of Iraq. He is, essentially, a neocon mouthpiece.)
And as we read this, a U.S. carrier fleet is steaming from Singapore to Korean waters. I've got a sneaking feeling the Mad Bomber will be at it again, and soon.
Trump's behavior is not policy. It's akin some drunk guy with a gun walking down main street and shooting at windows where he thinks bad hombres are lurking. It should be condemned, not lauded…before he drags us further into the Middle Eastern mess.
6
In sending an impotent but dazzling tomahawk barrage , Trump didn't achieve presidential stature. He merely changed a subject and entertained us with a new tidbit.
He is nothing but a totally predictable reality TV showman, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
He is nothing but a totally predictable reality TV showman, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
6
I think the lessons from our misbegotten misadventures in the Middle East are fairly well understood:
Don't attack countries that haven't attacked us, or aren't about to.
Finer cut:
Don't send the military in to "solve" other people's civil wars.
Even finer:
Especially if those civil wars are in fake countries like Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya or Syria, with multiple nations held in check by a strongman.
Yet finer:
If we absolutely feel like we "need" to participate in such wars for geopolitical reasons, follow the Warren Zevon rule: send lawyers, guns and money. Not troops. That's how the Gulf states have kept the Syrian civil war humming along all these years and how many troops from say Qatar have you heard about dying in the fighting?
I think Obama got all of this exactly right, and am hoping Trump's 59 Tomahawk pinprick was simply an effort to enforce the no chemical warfare contract negotiated by O's counsel ( per the Zevon rule). And not the prelude to hopeless involvement in somebody else's civil war, particularly here where no outcome is tolerable.
What's wrenching in all of this is sitting on the sidelines watching the carnage while keeping history's most powerful military in check. But that's what we will have to get used to doing if we want to live by our lessons learned. Maybe we can start by stop blaming our Presidents for not getting into the middle of other people's domestic violence.
Don't attack countries that haven't attacked us, or aren't about to.
Finer cut:
Don't send the military in to "solve" other people's civil wars.
Even finer:
Especially if those civil wars are in fake countries like Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya or Syria, with multiple nations held in check by a strongman.
Yet finer:
If we absolutely feel like we "need" to participate in such wars for geopolitical reasons, follow the Warren Zevon rule: send lawyers, guns and money. Not troops. That's how the Gulf states have kept the Syrian civil war humming along all these years and how many troops from say Qatar have you heard about dying in the fighting?
I think Obama got all of this exactly right, and am hoping Trump's 59 Tomahawk pinprick was simply an effort to enforce the no chemical warfare contract negotiated by O's counsel ( per the Zevon rule). And not the prelude to hopeless involvement in somebody else's civil war, particularly here where no outcome is tolerable.
What's wrenching in all of this is sitting on the sidelines watching the carnage while keeping history's most powerful military in check. But that's what we will have to get used to doing if we want to live by our lessons learned. Maybe we can start by stop blaming our Presidents for not getting into the middle of other people's domestic violence.
39
Good point there at the end. How much effort would it take for the US to shift to an attitude that not getting involved is more a positive comment, then the alternative...?
When the headlines read. "US not involved in yet another endless escalation of force." "US staying out." "After deliberation and expert counsel, the US is not going to waste bombs on another random attack."
When the headlines read. "US not involved in yet another endless escalation of force." "US staying out." "After deliberation and expert counsel, the US is not going to waste bombs on another random attack."
Obama didn't get us back into Iraq because the Iraqi government wanted us out. Should we have said "we don't care what you want" and bullied our way back in? If we had done that, the whole George W. Bush promise of a free and liberated Iraq would have been exposed as a sham.
2
Hubris and rescue delusions combined with a love of money live deep in the American psyche. Yes, let's keep embracing war and drain our treasury. Any international incident that requires a moment of reflection and self-control are beyond the capability of this government and its supporters. How sad for our species!
2
It is interesting that the article contrasts the gulf wars with the war in Vietnam which convulsed the internal culture of the USA in the 60's and early 70's. The Vietnam war wasted social energies that had previously been focused on the war on poverty and there was also a draft during the war which engaged the attention of our young people and , of course, their relatives. Because of the draft the burden of the Vietnam war was more equally spread throughout our society; not fully equally but at least more equally. The death and suffering of the Iraq wars as well as the war in Afghanistan has fallen on a volunteer military and their families, a more narrow section of our society. Still, I don;t think it is accurate to say that President Obama was unwilling to deal with Iraq. I think he was trying to find a way to diminish our troop imprint there, scale down the occupation. As regards the middle east we are the ambivalent, often unwitting, heirs to Europe's(especially England's) long colonial rule. The middle east with its sectarian civil wars is still in the throes of shaking off this rule and we do not seem to know how to manage it, how to reset our own relationship with it.
5
NYT why aren't you reporting that Trump personally invests in Raytheon Military Contractor- maker of bombs launched, whose stock surged as a consequence. So Yeah -President Trump-Beneficiary of War-in all out mode. -Raytheon added about a billion dollars to its market value by the way....
10
Blaming Obama for either Assad's chemical weapons attack or Trump's response is the mantra de jour. It's a real stretch to blame Trump's response on Obama's supposed failure to make a public history lesson of the Iraq war. The problem of Syria and the problem of Donald Trump are two horrifying, intractable problems. Neither problem can be solved by simply letting one's mind wander to one's favorite gripe.
2
" The long road to Trumps war" does not describe the essence of this article. Or at least it does not relate to the concluding sentence at the end..."Mr. Trump’s victory indicates that when we lived through our own disaster, we failed to reckon with the past and paved the way for an even more terrifying future."
lets face it, intellectualism is dying and in its place is an America, or Trumps long road to war, that is tabloid driven and ratings driven that we all know is the tail wagging the dog. The great America that we all hold on to is collapsing slowing in front of us. Hacking, fake news, money in politics , nepotism and greed is the new symbol of America guys...
guys, next time write something - write an in-depth article that slaps us all in the face - wake us up to the collapsing America that we are witness to - Wake us up to Trumps real road to war - and that is to make America collapse on the false narrative of "greed is good".......
lets face it, intellectualism is dying and in its place is an America, or Trumps long road to war, that is tabloid driven and ratings driven that we all know is the tail wagging the dog. The great America that we all hold on to is collapsing slowing in front of us. Hacking, fake news, money in politics , nepotism and greed is the new symbol of America guys...
guys, next time write something - write an in-depth article that slaps us all in the face - wake us up to the collapsing America that we are witness to - Wake us up to Trumps real road to war - and that is to make America collapse on the false narrative of "greed is good".......
2
This column is a serious piece of confusion -- odd data choices, odd historical interpretations, and more. Hard to see exactly what conclusion we are supposed to draw from all the contradictory and inaccurate information. No wonder our foreign policy is so screwed up since people can't agree on wha thappened, is happening, or what should happen in the future. Poor America. So sad, as our fearless and witless leader would say.
3
This was half-hearted non-response to the chemical attacks in Syria. Anyone who thinks this makes Trump presidential is foolling themselves. The lack of any covert any policy by this administration is glaring.
3
Like most businessmen, Trump is an opportunist. It is my opinion that he hasn't the capacity to think beyond the next fiscal statement, which is why he took the opportunity to launch a missile strike without having a clue what to do next. Let's not blame Obama for this mess. He had no cooperation whatsoever from Congress, and an argument could be made that the extreme polarization evidenced by the Republican party has allowed this mess to fester. But let's also consider the bigger geopolitical picture. The Syrian civil war has been called the "first climate war" for a good reason. The only ethical solution may be to slow or stop global warming.
26
If climate is, now, a reason to launch, there will be many more wars to come. After all, someone's got to pay for the oligarchs' vacations on the Black Sea.
1
So Bush was indiscriminately aggressive & Obama was passive/aggressive in relation to military involvement in the Middle East? Expecting a "solution" to this region's failure to conform to Western values is the largest part of problem. What's the best way to deal with the Middle East? Answer: Get the hell out!
And expel any individual from that region with a hint of radical involvement from our shores.
And expel any individual from that region with a hint of radical involvement from our shores.
3
Joe Scarborough, who supported W's invasion of Iraq, now contrasts Trump's response to Assad's use of chemical weapons with Obama's passivity. It's enough to make you lose your breakfast.
8
In Trump's case he detailed his rationale for this missile strike years ago tweeting that Obama would take military action to improve his low poll numbers. This strike was a military Tweet--what passes for policy with Trump. It is a small step from falsely accusing Obama of a felony.
The question is: How can Congress ask any of our soldiers to go to war on the word of a dishonest President? Do we have another FBI investigation to see if Trump is telling the truth or provoking a war to end the investigations of his own ties to Russia.
Even in this case, Trump communicated with Russia beforehand, and while Tillerson and Haley are asking Russia to use its influence with Syria--once again Trump silently avoids criticizing Russia.
The question is: How can Congress ask any of our soldiers to go to war on the word of a dishonest President? Do we have another FBI investigation to see if Trump is telling the truth or provoking a war to end the investigations of his own ties to Russia.
Even in this case, Trump communicated with Russia beforehand, and while Tillerson and Haley are asking Russia to use its influence with Syria--once again Trump silently avoids criticizing Russia.
34
The cruise missile strike was just Trump sending a message to Assad to stop using chemical weapons. It will probably work because Russia, Assad's benefactor did nothing to stop it.
It doesn't make it Trump's war. I know the left desperately wants to rebrand the failed Obama policy, but it won't work. Trump is simply cleaning up the mess that Obama left. Including the chemical weapons that Obama told us were gone as a result of his "smart diplomacy". Turns out it wasn't smart, it was merely duplicitous.
It doesn't make it Trump's war. I know the left desperately wants to rebrand the failed Obama policy, but it won't work. Trump is simply cleaning up the mess that Obama left. Including the chemical weapons that Obama told us were gone as a result of his "smart diplomacy". Turns out it wasn't smart, it was merely duplicitous.
2
Since when does America have a record of successfully "straightening out" another country's war torn internal affairs? I'm still waiting on an answer: Vietnam, Korea, Grenada, Iraq, Afghanistan? The Truman doctrine did not contain communism. America hates independently elected governments in third world countries and subverts them. Apparently, the pipeline through Syria (as a threat to Russian energy dominance in Europe) is the real issue here. Blaming Obama is weak, lame, and deceptive. The Trump doctrine is NO doctrine except managing and dividing the spoils with Russia in some back channel Jared Kushner shenanigans.
Dear Richard Mays,
I agree Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan were not successful, in South Korea at least, we were able to establish a very vibrant democratic society. My uncle died very young from the wounds of that war. Korea may not be perfect but I would call that a success.
I agree Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan were not successful, in South Korea at least, we were able to establish a very vibrant democratic society. My uncle died very young from the wounds of that war. Korea may not be perfect but I would call that a success.
Van Jones and now, Fareed Zakaria. What is this obsession with CNN people the neee validating the day Donald finally becomes "President ?"
If he didn't become a President on Nov. 9th , why would he become a "President" any other day ?
If he didn't become a President on Nov. 9th , why would he become a "President" any other day ?
The authors' position is elusive, particularly because it seems to elevate the Vietnam experience to permanent status in the American psyche regarding military intervention in foreign affairs.
Left out is the age-old reality that every generation seems destined to learn its lessons in its own way, regardless of half-forgotten past experiences. In that regard, I'd offer this: the 1991 walk-over of the 1st Gulf War completely wiped out any misgivings about foreign military adventures, and even the disaster of the aftermath of the Iraq invasion wasn't sufficient to dampen that ardor.
America has largely "re-militarized" its thinking since Vietnam, and as Iraq recedes into the past, the potential for raising the citizenry to a frenzy such as that seen during Gulf War I and the first year of the Iraq invasion is very real.
After eight years of a steady hand at the helm, we now have a CINC who's clearly becoming inclined to steer the ship of state in the direction of war as "the continuation of politics by other means", as von Clausewitz put it.
Ignore Vietnam as a "quaint" relic of the past, and think of Gulf War I and the run-up to the Iraq invasion as a barometer of the American citizenry's sentiments and malleability. And then think about our president's remarkable ability to "read his audience" and raise it to a state of frenzy.
We should all fear that we're headed for deeply troubled waters.
Left out is the age-old reality that every generation seems destined to learn its lessons in its own way, regardless of half-forgotten past experiences. In that regard, I'd offer this: the 1991 walk-over of the 1st Gulf War completely wiped out any misgivings about foreign military adventures, and even the disaster of the aftermath of the Iraq invasion wasn't sufficient to dampen that ardor.
America has largely "re-militarized" its thinking since Vietnam, and as Iraq recedes into the past, the potential for raising the citizenry to a frenzy such as that seen during Gulf War I and the first year of the Iraq invasion is very real.
After eight years of a steady hand at the helm, we now have a CINC who's clearly becoming inclined to steer the ship of state in the direction of war as "the continuation of politics by other means", as von Clausewitz put it.
Ignore Vietnam as a "quaint" relic of the past, and think of Gulf War I and the run-up to the Iraq invasion as a barometer of the American citizenry's sentiments and malleability. And then think about our president's remarkable ability to "read his audience" and raise it to a state of frenzy.
We should all fear that we're headed for deeply troubled waters.
5
These guys must be watching too much Fox News or reading Breitbart News.
The real culprit to the unrest in the Middle East came about from the world wide recession, not a pining for representative government. Stability was higher in the pecking order than representative government. Starving and no jobs unleashed "revolution", but also unmasked sectarian divides. Once government in these countries became ineffective, there was no unifying vision how to govern, and most of the solutions were worse than what was being replaced.
The real culprit to the unrest in the Middle East came about from the world wide recession, not a pining for representative government. Stability was higher in the pecking order than representative government. Starving and no jobs unleashed "revolution", but also unmasked sectarian divides. Once government in these countries became ineffective, there was no unifying vision how to govern, and most of the solutions were worse than what was being replaced.
2
The two writers are from Harvard University in Cambridge, MA and Cambridge University in Cambridge, England--the two facing each other across the pond. I haven't read anyone asking for proof yet of the attack with chemicals. One reporter in France did say that the US reprisal to avoid further gas release deliberately avoided hitting the the sarin supply. Some of us do remember the aluminum rods in Iraq. but I trust the Trump administration to cal it fake news if prof ever comes out.
1
Trump has moved from lobbing tweets to lobbing tomahawk missiles. Same Trump, different headline. Question: what will he throw next when he throws a temper tantrum? And the GOP just sits by accomplishing nothing when there is an impeachment to get started.
3
The Iraq invasion in 2003 wan't a mistake, it was a war of aggression, a crime. We haven't reckoned with that, so whether we torture people or not, whether we bomb countries without provocation or not, becomes a political decision. If we elect someone who doesn't like torture or starting wars of aggression we don't do those things. But if we don't treat those things like crimes the next guy can come along and start them up again. We have to treat torture and starting wars of aggression as crimes and keep our leaders from doing them.
5
There is a difference between Vietnam then and the Middle East now. The difference is fear. Back then Americans didn't really believe that North Vietnam posed any danger to the United States. It was a war fought to limit Communism in east Asia, but what did that have to do with our lives, really? Our soldiers died, but we weren't really afraid. 9/11 changed everything.
2
Pleasant to read a sensible article in the midst of so much Trump-mania on the part of war-loving liberals. The lessons of history are clear: Obama explained why Libya was a fiasco and wisely, yes wisely, decided not to intervene in Syria in 2013. The results are in: rash intervention ends in defeat or chaos or both most of the time. The chaos affects foreign countries more than the US and underprivileged Americans rather than those who give the orders (and do not go to war themselves like W). Trump's unilateral bombing celebrated by so many liberals is typical of his impulsive, cruel personality and will not protect anyone in Syria while it fuels the flames of possible conflicts in the Middle East. Dumb, cruel and hopelessly Trumpist. And now Tillerson is a hero, not a Putin puppet any longer? Incredible short memory.
35
The editorial speaks of a lesson to be learned from the war in Iraq. But I don’t think America has learned the primary lesson. History repeats itself, & we still haven't learned the lesson that unnecessary war is morally wrong & irrational:
The Vietnam War was an unnecessary intrusion into another country’s civil war based on false pretexts leading to terrible loss of life & treasure & the savage Pol Pot reactive extremists. The War in Iraq was an unnecessary “war of choice” based on dishonest & exaggerated pretexts leading to terrible loss of life & treasure, regional instability, a refugee crisis, & the savage ISIS & Assad reactive extremists.
War, except as last resort self-defense or necessary defense of innocent others, is ethically equivalent to international murder, the culpability for which lies with those making the decisions, not soldiers under orders.
The main problem with unnecessary war is that even if the intentions of such a war are genuinely good (though they're usually dubious) and even if it "works" (though they're usually counter-productive), we are left in the dangerous position of having shown the whole world that evil means can achieve good ends. And then what? If ends justify means, which innocents should be sacrificed next for a workers’ paradise, or in holy submission to the will of God, or to forcibly spread democracy?
We no longer have any good choices in the Middle East - only a lesson to learn, and we haven’t learned it.
The Vietnam War was an unnecessary intrusion into another country’s civil war based on false pretexts leading to terrible loss of life & treasure & the savage Pol Pot reactive extremists. The War in Iraq was an unnecessary “war of choice” based on dishonest & exaggerated pretexts leading to terrible loss of life & treasure, regional instability, a refugee crisis, & the savage ISIS & Assad reactive extremists.
War, except as last resort self-defense or necessary defense of innocent others, is ethically equivalent to international murder, the culpability for which lies with those making the decisions, not soldiers under orders.
The main problem with unnecessary war is that even if the intentions of such a war are genuinely good (though they're usually dubious) and even if it "works" (though they're usually counter-productive), we are left in the dangerous position of having shown the whole world that evil means can achieve good ends. And then what? If ends justify means, which innocents should be sacrificed next for a workers’ paradise, or in holy submission to the will of God, or to forcibly spread democracy?
We no longer have any good choices in the Middle East - only a lesson to learn, and we haven’t learned it.
2
SARAH:Where a commenter writes from tells me a great deal. Arlington is a swanky place to live, property values start at, grosso modo, a half million. It's residents r mainly white, college educated, living in a soigne environment far from the slatternly quarters and perilous housing projects where TRUMP's down and out dirt poor supporters r forced to reside.Your comment is representative of the "grands blancs," as opposed to the "petits blancs" who r four square for The Donald. Hence, you deride him as a tin pot dump dictator, but what is your evidence? He did the right thing by sending an "avertissement" to Assad and his murderous cronies. Whether there were other, ulterior motives behind his action is for others to decide.No solution to the threat posed by ISIS is possible until P,M. ASSAD is forced from power.One cannot assume the moral high ground on ISIS while tolerating a c-in-c who has killed a half million of his own people and counting. Major disagreement with author of article Torture works.Evidence is police action in Algiers by Massu's 10th Paratroop Division, 1956-1959, ordered by Socialist P.M. Guy Mollet, which ended FLN terrorism in the capital city, partly through forced confessions, induced by "la noyade a l'eau," and use of the "gegene!"Read Massu's account, "La Vraie Bataille d'Alger!" Finally, at age 70, doubt strongly that Trump aspires to be a dictator.Liberal elitists should scratch that one off the list.
1
Does this article have a point? The NY Times tagline "Obama’s unwillingness to deal with Iraq opened the door to more mistakes to come," is barely supported, even if it's more nonsense. Bush got us into AND out of Iraq with the Status of Forces Agreement signed with the Maliki government in November 2008. Later the Obama administration opened up negotiations to get back into Iraq (in perhaps a small way) but the hangup was putting American forces under Iraqi Law. Leon Panetta (Obama's 3rd Secretary of Defense) complained afterwards that Obama wasn't forceful enough about getting us back into Iraq. Naturally the Congress and the Public were screaming for a return to Iraq (sarcasm). What do the authors expect human politicians to do, self-flagellation about policy failures? --Who would listen? And the "self-reflection and policy evolution" that resulted from the Vietnam War was next time don't send draftees!
1
Watching Sunday's political commentaries and major media responses in general was insane. For expletive sake, is there anyone out there capable of nuanced critical thinking? We've got to stop jumping on this emotionally charged band wagon that we always love to jump on and think this trough. One of the only ones getting this right is Bernie Sanders. Hey, Main Stream Media! Don't do this yet again!
3
He could draw another imaginary red line like Obama.
2
Two basic considerations -
1. "Patriotism" is the last refuge of political scoundrels.
2. Vietnam is Buddhist; Syria, Iraq, et al are Muslim. How these cultures respond - short & long term - to foreign military adventurism is vastly different.
1. "Patriotism" is the last refuge of political scoundrels.
2. Vietnam is Buddhist; Syria, Iraq, et al are Muslim. How these cultures respond - short & long term - to foreign military adventurism is vastly different.
Main street has always been told, when we either start a war or intervene in someone else's war, we are protecting our interest. So what interest is it we are protecting involved in the Middle East? Yes, anyone understands that is where all Muslim terrorism stems from, that ends up on our soil, or recruits home grown Muslims. With the support of Iran and Saudi, terrorism has no bounds. For many years were told we needed Saudi oil. We have enough of our own oil. We cannot seem to grasp we are dealing with a distinct other civilization. A civilization that is so primitive they want to re-construct the Ottoman Empire and manage to the Koran. So let them.
2
What a shallow and unsupported "thesis". "The American people" don't agree on Vietnam, a significant sector of us still believe we could have "won" if only the politicians would have let us. A significant sector of us NOW believes that we could have "won" in Syria if only president Obama had intervened with enough force. Two obvious lessons arise from Iraq; first and most importantly, don't let an ignorant GOP administration with little understanding of the Middle East invade a country there. Hillary was right on this point , at the time of the Use of Force resolution on Iraq W Bush and his posse were seen to be at least competent in the use of force, a hangover I guess from the H W Bush years. NOBODY voted for the incompetent invasion authored by W and his Neo-Cons. And second, removing the state apparatus from an ethnically/religiously divided Middle Eastern country is complicated, expensive both in blood and treasure, and VERY complicated, clearly beyond the qualifications of the Trump administration.
1
Perhaps technically nobody actually voted for the invasion,but anyone with an iota of common sense knew that, with the Bush administration's constant drumbeat of criticism of the UN's efforts in holding Sadat to account, Bush was looking for an excuse to invade and intended to do so. So, yes, Clinton (and Kerry) did vote for war and both reaped the consequences of that unprincipled action. Sadly, the country and the world reaped those consequences as well.
1
If trump persist with the false notion that "pinpricks' and telegraphed moves will change anything in the Middle East, he's in for a very rude and bloody awakening.
It will, however, be our good men and women who do the bleeding, and not trump or his pampered offspring.
#SAD
It will, however, be our good men and women who do the bleeding, and not trump or his pampered offspring.
#SAD
This country is so lucky to have a black man to blame for its missteps. That, after all, is the American way.
4
The underlying tenor of this article is that with some magical never-explained policy the US can have it both ways: avoid entering these wars, and yet have them either prevented or resolved the way we want them to be.
This is nuts!
The war in Syria is a brutal religious/ethnic civil war that has turned to genocide and war crimes. It is sustained by outside powers: Iran and Russia aiding Assad, Saudi Arabia, some of the other gulf states and to a limited degree the US aiding the rebels.
The US has no good policy or expectation in this war. There is no easy or cheap fix. And unlike Iraq ... we didn't start it.
This is nuts!
The war in Syria is a brutal religious/ethnic civil war that has turned to genocide and war crimes. It is sustained by outside powers: Iran and Russia aiding Assad, Saudi Arabia, some of the other gulf states and to a limited degree the US aiding the rebels.
The US has no good policy or expectation in this war. There is no easy or cheap fix. And unlike Iraq ... we didn't start it.
1
whoever edited this article made two sins at once:
by making the statement " Obama's unwillingness to deal with Irak..." the editor took away the interest of a reader who is now used to criticism of Obama's Syria's policy( or lack of policy) and is not interested in this aspect BUT more importantly the editor miss the opportunity for other readers to see the core of the article a clear analysis. In a rapid news cycle, the NYT should advocate practices that go beyond 'interesting' editing and follow the other column about a new way to look at the role of the press as demonstrated by Soviet dissidents. Ironic that both articles are on the same day
by making the statement " Obama's unwillingness to deal with Irak..." the editor took away the interest of a reader who is now used to criticism of Obama's Syria's policy( or lack of policy) and is not interested in this aspect BUT more importantly the editor miss the opportunity for other readers to see the core of the article a clear analysis. In a rapid news cycle, the NYT should advocate practices that go beyond 'interesting' editing and follow the other column about a new way to look at the role of the press as demonstrated by Soviet dissidents. Ironic that both articles are on the same day
So, "we failed to reckon with the past and paved the way for an even more terrifying future."? - after we thoughtfully worked through foreign policy issues following the Vietnam War? Your thinking is fuzzy, at best. Or did you just put that line in because it sounded good and reminded people to be afraid, be very afraid, for the future is "terrifying?" Is that the NYT message these days? Be afraid, be very afraid? Remind you of anyone? Or will you now say be terrified, be very terrified?
No wonder there are so many Chicken Little's out there!
No wonder there are so many Chicken Little's out there!
The global community might let this 1st strike by a inexperienced and intellectual challenged US president go mostly without reaction, but if the new president tries this with NK, Russia or China then we would be having a different conversation, if we were still alive to comment.
1
“Will you walk into my parlor?” said the spider to the fly; Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy. The way into my parlor is up a winding stair, and I have many pretty things to show when you are there.” “O no, no,” said the little fly, to ask me is in vain, for who goes up your winding stair can ne’er come down again.”" Trump's defense budget calls for a $54B increase which would bring defense spending to $603B. I wonder how far up the winding stair the USA can go with that budget.
2
Moyn & Wirtheim are right in their point that Obama's spurning any substantial official public engagement and repudiation of the fundamental strategic mistake underlying the Bush Jr. invasion of Iraq has left us vulnerable now to catastrophic re-involvement. But that's because the Obama administration, at root, continued to subscribe to the same overall approach, just more gingerly (and, in Libya, equally catastrophically). Andrew Bacevich's thesis that since the first OPEC oil crisis in the 1970s, US policy has been fundamentally about ensuring secure access to Middle East oil is compelling. Bush was persuaded that this could be permanently assured through regime change in Iraq. He was wrong and Obama tried to learn that lesson. But Bush's actions fundamentally destabilized the region and everything since has been damage control. If you want an idea of what regime change in Syria would look like, regard Libya. We are in a Pottery Barn shambles. And, while Russia's motivations are entirely self-serving, geostrategically it will do less damage to preserve the Assad regime (with or without Assad) than to insist on ousting him. And, yes, it's true, the innocent dead cry out for justice.
1
And in the end Moyn and Wertheim do not say what they would have differently from Obama, only that something different should have been done and that there should have been reckoning of the deeper problems.
So that means Moyn and Wertheim are just like Obama, and like Trump. They beat their breasts about how things should be different, but never provide any susbtantive sketch of what that should look like.
But, if you think about it, Obama and Trump did both present an alternate view.
Obama's alternate view was openness to and support for the Arab Spring, and that did not go well.
Trump's alternate view was America First, which was both a bad idea and a fraud to begin with, and now is in the fast filling trash bin of discarded Trumpisms along with Gen Michael Flynn, universal health insurance, instant defeat for ISIS and more than I can remember.
So what is Moyn's and Wertheim's road not traveled? Shouldn't they tell us?
So that means Moyn and Wertheim are just like Obama, and like Trump. They beat their breasts about how things should be different, but never provide any susbtantive sketch of what that should look like.
But, if you think about it, Obama and Trump did both present an alternate view.
Obama's alternate view was openness to and support for the Arab Spring, and that did not go well.
Trump's alternate view was America First, which was both a bad idea and a fraud to begin with, and now is in the fast filling trash bin of discarded Trumpisms along with Gen Michael Flynn, universal health insurance, instant defeat for ISIS and more than I can remember.
So what is Moyn's and Wertheim's road not traveled? Shouldn't they tell us?
1
The Syrian Civil War is about oil/gas money nothing else. Saudi Arabia and Qatar want Assad gone so they can build a two billion dollar natural gas pipeline in Syria to feed the EU eliminating the Russian gas monopoly.
Russia is in Syria to protect their largest form of income by far the EU gas sales.
As in all things middle east it is about oil / money. The US is just a Mercenary army fighting with our children's lives for Saudi / Opec oil.
Russia is in Syria to protect their largest form of income by far the EU gas sales.
As in all things middle east it is about oil / money. The US is just a Mercenary army fighting with our children's lives for Saudi / Opec oil.
3
We are " living through our own disaster". His name is Trump.
The idea expressed here, that Barrack Obama avoided the wars in the Middle East, is simply wrong. He followed a very precise and distinct policy. Remove our ground troops except for advisors and some special forces units, provide expertise and air support, and insist that Arabs and Kurds do the fighting on the ground. Also, use drones to take out terrorist leadership. In Iraq this meant that Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds had to work together. This was the hardest aspect of Mr. Obama's strategy, but he was able to bring it about. And it is succeeding. Once Mosul is won, the Islamic State will be pretty much out of Iraq, and the country actually has a chance of governing itself.
Syria is another matter. Mr. Obama fought the Islamic State there with air power, drones, some special forces and Arabs/Kurds on the ground , but otherwise felt that getting more involved would simply make matters worse. He left Bashar al-Assad for another day, another way. Critics say he should have done more. What, exactly? I think he did exactly the right thing. As long as Russia and Iran want the fighting to continue, it will continue.
Syria is another matter. Mr. Obama fought the Islamic State there with air power, drones, some special forces and Arabs/Kurds on the ground , but otherwise felt that getting more involved would simply make matters worse. He left Bashar al-Assad for another day, another way. Critics say he should have done more. What, exactly? I think he did exactly the right thing. As long as Russia and Iran want the fighting to continue, it will continue.
49
There is a lot of complex, muddled history concerning the Middle East. Of course we should try to understand what has happened to create this nightmare but we also need to figure out what we are going to do about some very real issues that will soon need hard decisions. Such as: What happens to the areas in Syria that the Kurds, other Syrian resistance groups, and the U.S. have expelled ISIS from? Are we going to hand Raqqa and all the other territory previously held by ISIS over to the Assad regime? If not, how are we going to stop Assad and his allies from taking it? Will the Syrian and Russian Air Forces be bombing these formerly ISIS areas all over again to kill and expel the anti-Assad fighters? Will this be another humanitarian crisis as the same civilians who were caught in the battle to liberate them from ISIS are bombed again to put them back under the control of Assad?
1
Ameica's ease with the use of miliary force, even when there is no coherent plan involved, is what has enabled "Trump's War".....That, and his pathological need for approval.
And the usual shift to blame President Obama for Iraq, and everything else -- is just part of the normalization process of this up-until-now inept administration.
Fifty-nine missiles that did little more than shatter a few Syrian aircraft shelters, is going to nothing by way of ending, or solving the situation with Assad, ISIS, or anything else.
And the usual shift to blame President Obama for Iraq, and everything else -- is just part of the normalization process of this up-until-now inept administration.
Fifty-nine missiles that did little more than shatter a few Syrian aircraft shelters, is going to nothing by way of ending, or solving the situation with Assad, ISIS, or anything else.
1
This era of war was, is and will always be the George Walker Bush War. Iraq had no WMD's nor any connection to the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01. Iraq is 60% Shia Muslim Arab, 15% Sunni Muslim Arab and 15% Sunni Muslim Kurd.
ISIS and al Qaeda along with their affiliates are Sunni Muslim Arab organizations. While Iran is a majority Shia Muslim Persian nation. The so-called war on terror is being waged primarily against Sunni Muslim extremist NGO's like al Qaeda, ISIS, the Taliban, Boko Haram and al Shabbab.
There is no military solution to the ethnic sectarian civil wars raging in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen. The myth that the American surge in Iraq was a meaningful conceals the reality of the Sunni Muslim Arab awakening paid for by American bullets and dollars that crippled the insurgency.
Moreover as long as only 0.75% are willing to go in harm's way in an American military uniform then the hearts and minds of the American people are not into this war. While neither Don Jr., nor Ivanka nor Eric nor Tiffany Trump are ever going to be bravely patriotic and honorable enough to ever volunteer to wear an American military uniform. Thus no Trump will ever make this any Trump war.
ISIS and al Qaeda along with their affiliates are Sunni Muslim Arab organizations. While Iran is a majority Shia Muslim Persian nation. The so-called war on terror is being waged primarily against Sunni Muslim extremist NGO's like al Qaeda, ISIS, the Taliban, Boko Haram and al Shabbab.
There is no military solution to the ethnic sectarian civil wars raging in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen. The myth that the American surge in Iraq was a meaningful conceals the reality of the Sunni Muslim Arab awakening paid for by American bullets and dollars that crippled the insurgency.
Moreover as long as only 0.75% are willing to go in harm's way in an American military uniform then the hearts and minds of the American people are not into this war. While neither Don Jr., nor Ivanka nor Eric nor Tiffany Trump are ever going to be bravely patriotic and honorable enough to ever volunteer to wear an American military uniform. Thus no Trump will ever make this any Trump war.
3
History is the study of writing and rewriting solutions to questions that have no black or white answers. Presidents Obama and Bush gave us answers to 9/11 which will be debated for many years. After George Bush, Obama and our country wanted out of the Middle East, but there were frustrating moral questions about leaving nations stranded in a problem we created. Obama leaned to "soft power" which given our power to militarily destroy ourselves had much to offer. Trump so far has offered us military answers all driven by his office as he has sought to reduce the power of the Secretary of State and that office. Trump himself appears to be orientated only to transactions as opposed to a policy. Trump will not answer press questions regarding his military plans, but calls the Russians and Syrians to tell them to leave the airbase he plans to attack. Because international questions are so complicated, I like to give a certain latitude to presidents; but Trump appears to be a man I will never be able to support.
1
Why would Obama wanted to force his way, against the US - Iraq agreement, to stay in Iraq? What happened in Mosul in 2014 is a perfect example against such thinking. More than 8,000 well trained and well armed Iraqi troops just walked away from the fight with 3,000 poorly equipted ISIS fighters on pickup trucks. This fact alone made many people realize that this is now Arab/Kurds war, and if they do not want to participate, then why would US troops fight for them? Locals have to realize that is them to start fighting. It may take a generation, maybe partition of Syria, but the peace will last only when they are in charge, not because of another "agreement" handed down by outsiders.
Well, you can blame the Republicans for Obama's reluctance. They placed him in a damned if you do, damned if you don't, bind. Their opposition during his presidency had nothing to do with governing and everything to do with taunting his every decision. Look where that has gotten them, and the country.
Blaming Obama is like blaming Gorbachev for Stalin's gulags. It's Bush, Bush, Bush and the warmonger incompetents he enabled. And if Trump, as is likely, worsens America's troubles in the Middle East, Obama will look still better.
Donald Trump fired Tomahawk missiles on a sovereign nation without authority from Congress and without authority from the UN. Why not just say his latest and lawless US action accomplishes nothing of benefit to the US or to the people of Syria and - more importantly - nothing to stem the disastrous and never-ending consequences of US intervention in the Middle East? Is anyone else concerned about that Russian warship heading to the Mediterranean Sea?
30
We've been had again folks. Once more the bluster, the fake tears and the manly poses. This was pure theatre, a detraction and a diversion.
Trump would probably be hard pressed to find Syria on a map without someone pointing it out to him.
He could care less about the Syrian people, either in Syria itself, or in allowing refugees to come to the United States.
"Trump has arrived." Don't believe a word of it. He's still the same old Donald Trump. A pompous hypocrite and a snake oil salesman.
Trump would probably be hard pressed to find Syria on a map without someone pointing it out to him.
He could care less about the Syrian people, either in Syria itself, or in allowing refugees to come to the United States.
"Trump has arrived." Don't believe a word of it. He's still the same old Donald Trump. A pompous hypocrite and a snake oil salesman.
65
W's war criminals gave us Iraq and they have gotten off scot-free. Obama only did good under ridiculous circumstances.
PROSECUTE RUSSIAGATE!
PROSECUTE RUSSIAGATE!
Self reflection. Who have you been talking too. The US did very little reflection. If it had it would not have been in Iraq. Obama should have done something to deal with Iraq, Syria and Yemen: sent Bush 2 and Cheney to The Hague where they belong. Then this foolishness of America under the Cheif clown would not be tolerated. Oh ya and maybe apologize for dropping Nuclear Bombs could change your karma. And oh ya Obama apologies for the raise missiles at your wedding!
These authors still operate from the world of rationality, but we are in Trumpworld now. He felt pity for the poor babies killed by gas and felt he had to do something. Woo-hoo! This doesn't make him Presidential. Simply still somewhat human.
It is perfectly in keeping with what he has always been: the guy who reads the audience. His action also gets the press off his case with respect to the Russia connection. It will do nothing for the on going destruction of functioning federal government or the loss of civil liberties by the AG and our newest Justice. Trump remains a walking disaster for anyone who "invests" with or in him, for anyone not family who is around him.
I predict that he will walk away with the people suffering from his party's policies continuing to think he's "fab," or "tremendous." No cure for willful ignorance.
It is perfectly in keeping with what he has always been: the guy who reads the audience. His action also gets the press off his case with respect to the Russia connection. It will do nothing for the on going destruction of functioning federal government or the loss of civil liberties by the AG and our newest Justice. Trump remains a walking disaster for anyone who "invests" with or in him, for anyone not family who is around him.
I predict that he will walk away with the people suffering from his party's policies continuing to think he's "fab," or "tremendous." No cure for willful ignorance.
Trump's antiwar stance had nothing to do with his electoral win. Racism was the winning card for him in the election. All the other issues including this one were insignificant except how they relate back to racism. Why are we fighting a war to help non-white people?
Neglecting the congressional politics at play from 2010 leads to
much oversimplification and overly thin analysis. Neglecting
the facts on the ground both in Syria and Iraq post 2011 when the
civil war in Syria commenced contributes further to this facile discussion.
Iraq was controlled by the Shi'a majority and therefore swooned to Iran's
sway. Iran was a strong ally of Syria post (and pre-)2011. How do
the authors propose Obama to have gotten around those two inconvenient strategic details when the principal issue of Iran's nuclear program took center
stage a bit later?
much oversimplification and overly thin analysis. Neglecting
the facts on the ground both in Syria and Iraq post 2011 when the
civil war in Syria commenced contributes further to this facile discussion.
Iraq was controlled by the Shi'a majority and therefore swooned to Iran's
sway. Iran was a strong ally of Syria post (and pre-)2011. How do
the authors propose Obama to have gotten around those two inconvenient strategic details when the principal issue of Iran's nuclear program took center
stage a bit later?
1
The Fascist Roader is almost at the his goal. The final step, once you control all parts of the government and start rounding people up, is a War. The 59 Tomahawks is the kInd of lie that starts big wars. Now the gunboats are coming. North Korea is next. Amazing in his first 100 days, the perfect operation of the plan with the connivance of a gushing press and people who believed beyond common sense or those who thought he'ed never do those things he screamed and those who thought there was no difference between them, so why bother voting. This whole saga is a like an Opera. All the pieces fit together. Moving beautifully from the opening scene to the tragic end; "The Night of the Tomahawks."
Vlad is pleased. That harsh spotlight has, again, momentarily panned away ...
1
New Rule:
If you start a war one of your own kids has to be on the front line.
If you start a war one of your own kids has to be on the front line.
2
I'm not sure that this essay has anything to say. The authors
seem to conflate the Bush and Obama administrations into a single flail, equating a full bootsontheground offensive shooting war followed by a costly
and disastrous occupation with a staged and deliberate withdrawal in the face of hostile force. It implies as fact that Obama wasn't man enough for the situation; he should have simply forced the Shiites and Sunnis to get along and
calm the waters. The only real course is to never disengage.
What would it take to disarm and pacify all of the local parties. How do you get
those with power and property to give it up. How do you get all of the rest of the world powers to subordinate their financial and political interests. As it is,
the Middle East supplies oil and consumes military aircraft.
Somehow, I don't think the answer lies in the Trump administration or with
the authors of this editorial.
Try Tom Friedman.
seem to conflate the Bush and Obama administrations into a single flail, equating a full bootsontheground offensive shooting war followed by a costly
and disastrous occupation with a staged and deliberate withdrawal in the face of hostile force. It implies as fact that Obama wasn't man enough for the situation; he should have simply forced the Shiites and Sunnis to get along and
calm the waters. The only real course is to never disengage.
What would it take to disarm and pacify all of the local parties. How do you get
those with power and property to give it up. How do you get all of the rest of the world powers to subordinate their financial and political interests. As it is,
the Middle East supplies oil and consumes military aircraft.
Somehow, I don't think the answer lies in the Trump administration or with
the authors of this editorial.
Try Tom Friedman.
By mixing “soaring speeches” with “cerebral” expedient calculations, President Obama smothered the anti-war, anti-banks, and, worst of all, the anti-nuclear grass-roots’ movements. In that sense, Obama was very much like Israel’s supposedly noble peace-fighter S. Peres, who always blew great hopes and produced celebrated diplomatic agreements but never made one painful move to stop the settlements’ project and start the separation from the Palestinians.
In both cases, the results can be seen on the historical ground: “Greater Israel” is flourishing and so flourish America’s defense budgets, Wall Street and “nuclear modernization”. Now that the “Muscovite Candidate” has turned into a run-of-the-mill “Washington Bomber”, those who look for peace and salvation in Trump’s administration will find themselves as contented as those who believed Netanyahu may have actually meant to execute the two-state solution (details with former Secretary of State J. Kerry).
In both cases, the results can be seen on the historical ground: “Greater Israel” is flourishing and so flourish America’s defense budgets, Wall Street and “nuclear modernization”. Now that the “Muscovite Candidate” has turned into a run-of-the-mill “Washington Bomber”, those who look for peace and salvation in Trump’s administration will find themselves as contented as those who believed Netanyahu may have actually meant to execute the two-state solution (details with former Secretary of State J. Kerry).
Wow- this Deplorable always thought liberals were vile, spineless creatures, but this left wing stampede to applaud Trump's illegal strike on a secular Middle Eastern regime which is fighting ISIS only makes me hate liberals even more.
Andrew, life-long liberal here. But on this we are aligned: what on earth is any liberal doing supporting this unsubstantiated nonsense, yet again in the mideast? HRC should have had the good sense to remain silent on this. I feel deep shame for all liberals if they willingly support an illegal, uncalled for invasion of a country just because they showed us some disturbing photos.
Trump used a demonstration of overwhelming force to anihilate a chemical weapons dump....only one person killed.
It seems to me that Trump has found an interesting, potentially successful action to guide the USA through the morass created by several previous Presidents!!
There is simply no win for the USA in the Middle East....there are NO national interests at stake....to the best of my knowledge, ISIS isnt attacking the USA....they're attacking US troops that are inexplicably in the middle east!!
We have no official declaration of war on anybody, not ISIS, not "terrorism", not Saddam Hussein, not even Osama BinLadin,...... not nobody. Everything that Dubya and OBama did in the Middle East was....well......ILLEGAL.
According to the War Powers Act..........Trump has 90 days to report to Congress on the result of his military action, at which time he can request an extension or request a declaration of war...but under NO circumstances can he continue without Congressional approval.
A further benefit of Trump's action is that North Korea now has some serious soul-searching to do.
It seems to me that Trump has found an interesting, potentially successful action to guide the USA through the morass created by several previous Presidents!!
There is simply no win for the USA in the Middle East....there are NO national interests at stake....to the best of my knowledge, ISIS isnt attacking the USA....they're attacking US troops that are inexplicably in the middle east!!
We have no official declaration of war on anybody, not ISIS, not "terrorism", not Saddam Hussein, not even Osama BinLadin,...... not nobody. Everything that Dubya and OBama did in the Middle East was....well......ILLEGAL.
According to the War Powers Act..........Trump has 90 days to report to Congress on the result of his military action, at which time he can request an extension or request a declaration of war...but under NO circumstances can he continue without Congressional approval.
A further benefit of Trump's action is that North Korea now has some serious soul-searching to do.
Here's something to think about. Assuming we have an administration, someday, willing to dis-engage our military from far-flung outposts of empire what will we do with them? Imagine the reactions on the part of the military hierarchy, the neocon politicians and the military contractors when it is announced we are bringing our troops home and closing out the 800+ bases we have around the world. Is it even possible anymore? We are on the tiger's back and can't get off. Why? Follow the money. The people with the most to gain are the ones making to most money out of the business of war. they are also the ones with the most political clout. Thanks to Citizens United they are even stronger today.
1
"Mr. Trump’s victory indicates that when we lived through our own disaster, we failed to reckon with the past and paved the way for an even more terrifying future."
Those who do not learn from history (study it) are bound to repeat it.
Electing a mentally sick conman as POTUS is a symptom of how shallow the thinking/knowledge is of many voters. Does shooting off 59 missiles make Trump a president after he had repeatedly tweeted to Obama not to do the same thing. The missiles were a kneejerk reaction by a jerk.
America when will you fix the disaster that you have in the WH & his enablers who are holding their noses to support him long enough to get the tax cuts for the 2%ers thru Congress ? Please do not say 2-4 yrs.
Those who do not learn from history (study it) are bound to repeat it.
Electing a mentally sick conman as POTUS is a symptom of how shallow the thinking/knowledge is of many voters. Does shooting off 59 missiles make Trump a president after he had repeatedly tweeted to Obama not to do the same thing. The missiles were a kneejerk reaction by a jerk.
America when will you fix the disaster that you have in the WH & his enablers who are holding their noses to support him long enough to get the tax cuts for the 2%ers thru Congress ? Please do not say 2-4 yrs.
1
It's all about the Benjamins......plain and simple.
I don't believe there was any strategic thinking behind Trump's attack on Syria. The horrific pictures he saw on TV gave him the excuse he was looking for to"do something "(his expression) right before his Secretary of State were to go to "take a hard line against Russia" , as your headline yesterday suggested.
The timing of the abrupt change in Trump's attitude toward Syria and Russia at the same time he is under investigation about his relationship with Putin is too convenient to ignore .
The timing of the abrupt change in Trump's attitude toward Syria and Russia at the same time he is under investigation about his relationship with Putin is too convenient to ignore .
1
Ron-- agree completely. Why is the MSM ignoring this "coincidence?"
If you believe that Trump the great TV watcher happened to miss all those other pictures of young war victims, then you are likely to believe his offered reason for a head-snapping 180 degree turn on Syria. On the other hand, if you think that he needed to boost his poll numbers and divert attention from his Russia problem, then you will have a stronger basis from which to understand why 59 Tomahawk missiles could not close an airfield for even one day.
1
I do not think it is a coincidence that our "beautiful" weapons strikes seem to always happen at night. Much better optics for mass consumption. When I was a kid we knew to have the patience to wait until dark to shoot off our fireworks.
2
It's so easy to look back and say, what if. While I was disappointed that Obama did not end the wars, I do know that his main goal was to bring back the country from brink of economic meltdown. He did that and DT actually got a country that perhaps wasn't full shuttle ahead, but was churning. And because the country was left in good shape, DT can afford to go abroad bombing everything to kingdom come to show he's got bluster. Well, wars cost money and he is hoping to use the money he takes away from the poor, the environment, public media, healthcare, education, and international aid programs to fund his bomb throwing. Obama tried to keep things steady, but you know, Americans want everything done yesterday.
1
Trump's decision to bomb the Syrian airfield was not on offensive strategy, but a politically motivated defensive cover. Days before the chemical assault, Trump and his foreign policy advisors enunciated a hands off Assad approach to the Syrian debacle. Shortly after Tillerson left Assad's fate in the hands of the "Syrian people", Assad committed war crimes against his "people." Trump had no choice other than a military strike in order to negate the appearance of complicity.
The Trump administration's failure to formulate and enunciate a coherent policy about Syria handed the advantage to Putin and Assad and they forced Trump's hand. He acted out of weakness, not strength and the airfield assault was really a slap on the wrist. Assad and Putin know now that unless Trump ratchets up his actions, they have won this skirmish.
The Trump administration's failure to formulate and enunciate a coherent policy about Syria handed the advantage to Putin and Assad and they forced Trump's hand. He acted out of weakness, not strength and the airfield assault was really a slap on the wrist. Assad and Putin know now that unless Trump ratchets up his actions, they have won this skirmish.
"No remotely comparable reckoning has followed the Iraq war" because it has not ended.
Obama took years to draw down our main force units on the schedule Bush set, and then left in place thousands of Special Forces, "contractors," and "State Dept employees" in a huge Embassy, with more forces all around and still bombing the place. Those numbers have steadily risen. That is not ending a war.
Obama showed us how to fight a war without America much noticing. Then he did it some more in yet more countries, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen. It became normal, "not war."
Our foreign policy "experts" all wanted more. Republicans wanted more, but so did Democrats, Team Hillary the most warlike, even bringing inside Bush Admin neocons who'd been in the wilderness.
Trump had no "experts" because there were none acknowledged in the DC Bubble who were against all these wars. Being warlike was the basic credential for civilian expertise in DC.
How did Trump finally please them? By attacking someone.
It was not the 59 missiles, it was the "hope" that there was a lot more to come. It is not just "likely to push us further into the fighting," that likelihood is the basis of the newfound acceptance by "experts." They are panting for all the war that Hillary had promised.
If Trump will give them all The Hillary Wars they feared they would not get, they'll forgive him everything else. Killing abroad is enough to cover any amount of abuse at home for our DC "experts."
Obama took years to draw down our main force units on the schedule Bush set, and then left in place thousands of Special Forces, "contractors," and "State Dept employees" in a huge Embassy, with more forces all around and still bombing the place. Those numbers have steadily risen. That is not ending a war.
Obama showed us how to fight a war without America much noticing. Then he did it some more in yet more countries, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen. It became normal, "not war."
Our foreign policy "experts" all wanted more. Republicans wanted more, but so did Democrats, Team Hillary the most warlike, even bringing inside Bush Admin neocons who'd been in the wilderness.
Trump had no "experts" because there were none acknowledged in the DC Bubble who were against all these wars. Being warlike was the basic credential for civilian expertise in DC.
How did Trump finally please them? By attacking someone.
It was not the 59 missiles, it was the "hope" that there was a lot more to come. It is not just "likely to push us further into the fighting," that likelihood is the basis of the newfound acceptance by "experts." They are panting for all the war that Hillary had promised.
If Trump will give them all The Hillary Wars they feared they would not get, they'll forgive him everything else. Killing abroad is enough to cover any amount of abuse at home for our DC "experts."
11
To the Writers,
Funny how you two managed to draw a straight line from Vietnam to Iraq without even a mention of the attack on New York City in 2001.
As far as i can tell, 9/11 was not a "manufactured" incident like the Tomkin Bay "battle" which WAS rigged by the White House to help drag us into the Vietnam War. We all WATCHED the towers collapse and I, like many others, wanted some measure of payback.
Unfortunately, we ended up overstaying our welcome. The area is a mess, "infidels', such as us OR the Russians, will have no sway in the decision making concerning DAESH/Syria/Iran/Iraq and, in my eyes, the United States best bet is to become less dependent on anything from that region and withdraw completely until one group or the other finally emerges victorious.
Saving American lives is more important than saving "prestige".
Funny how you two managed to draw a straight line from Vietnam to Iraq without even a mention of the attack on New York City in 2001.
As far as i can tell, 9/11 was not a "manufactured" incident like the Tomkin Bay "battle" which WAS rigged by the White House to help drag us into the Vietnam War. We all WATCHED the towers collapse and I, like many others, wanted some measure of payback.
Unfortunately, we ended up overstaying our welcome. The area is a mess, "infidels', such as us OR the Russians, will have no sway in the decision making concerning DAESH/Syria/Iran/Iraq and, in my eyes, the United States best bet is to become less dependent on anything from that region and withdraw completely until one group or the other finally emerges victorious.
Saving American lives is more important than saving "prestige".
5
> We all WATCHED the towers collapse and I, like many others, wanted some measure of payback.
"Payback" is it, isn't it? Nineteen of the twenty hijackers were from Saudi. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Why hit Iraq? Because dealing with the Saudi connection would have been awkward - and would not have lent itself to a military response - whereas Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator of a target-rich country? Lots of stuff for us to blow up in Iraq and who'd feel bad for Saddam? No doubt "payback" felt good to a lot of people but it had nothing to do with striking at the root cause of 9/11 - not to mention it turning out to be an unmitigated disaster.
"Payback" is it, isn't it? Nineteen of the twenty hijackers were from Saudi. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Why hit Iraq? Because dealing with the Saudi connection would have been awkward - and would not have lent itself to a military response - whereas Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator of a target-rich country? Lots of stuff for us to blow up in Iraq and who'd feel bad for Saddam? No doubt "payback" felt good to a lot of people but it had nothing to do with striking at the root cause of 9/11 - not to mention it turning out to be an unmitigated disaster.
20
Paying back the living for the works of the dead is a bad habit in the US.
1
What did 9/11 had to do with Iraq?
Blaming Obama for Iraq???!! George W. Bush signed the withdrawal agreement with Iraq. Iraq is a sovereign nation. We can't just hang around there forever. If any blame should be placed it should be placed on the George W. Bush administration. His stupid asinine decision to invade Iraq caused all of this.
Never before have a read an article that was pure click and bati in the NYT.
The subtitle online is that Obama's 'unwillingness to deal with Iraq' opened the door for more mistakes to come.
Where in that not very lengthy article do these learned men from Harvard and Yale even come close to arguing that this supposed unwillingness of President Obama led to the empty action of Trump, our homegrown little dump tin-pot dictator, by sending some shiny, tremendously beautiful and costly objects that make boooom to foreign shores?
Maybe the NYT should raise the pay for those that write the subtitles here on these pages.
The subtitle online is that Obama's 'unwillingness to deal with Iraq' opened the door for more mistakes to come.
Where in that not very lengthy article do these learned men from Harvard and Yale even come close to arguing that this supposed unwillingness of President Obama led to the empty action of Trump, our homegrown little dump tin-pot dictator, by sending some shiny, tremendously beautiful and costly objects that make boooom to foreign shores?
Maybe the NYT should raise the pay for those that write the subtitles here on these pages.
33
History has a bad habit of repeating itself. In 1964 the U.S.S. Maddox was in the Gulf of Tonkin and got into a skirmish with some North Vietnamese torpedo boats. The Gulf of Tonkin resolution resulted giving President Johnson full reign for military action against North Vietnam. And we all know how that ended.
April 9th, 2017. "The U.S. Navy's Carl Vinson carrier strike group has been ordered to.....the Western Pacific, just four days after the rogue state of North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile from its eastern coast."
"The Long Road to Trump's War" may not be that far off!
April 9th, 2017. "The U.S. Navy's Carl Vinson carrier strike group has been ordered to.....the Western Pacific, just four days after the rogue state of North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile from its eastern coast."
"The Long Road to Trump's War" may not be that far off!
2
Lots of questions but few answers. If we do get rid of Assad what happens next? We always have this belief that there are moderate pro-American forces capable of running the country. Do these people exist in Syria? If Assad does go and the Sunnis take charge what happens to Assad's people? Probably there will be a power vacuum. In order to prevent genocide, American troops will be needed on the ground. We have few friends in this region. Who is the enemy? Lindsey Graham seems to believe it is the Iranians. It also seems to be Russia and ISIS. It does not seem like we have an exit strategy. We could be in Syria for a generation.
7
Your digital frontpage subhead reads: Obama’s unwillingness to deal with Iraq opened the door to more mistakes to come. I don't this is at all a fair representation of the content of the article.
10
I feel like I am trapped in a movie theater watching a bad sequel and can't get out. Are we really starting a new Middle Eastern War based on unproven and unsubstantiated allegations of weapons of mass destruction? Are the media and Congress really so shallow as to fall for this again? My reading is that they are, and I can't believe it. The Bolivian ambassador to the U.N., at the Security Council Meeting on the Syria strike, help up a picture of Colin Powell giving his infamous speech about WMDs in Iraq. In a few years hence, a similar picture will be held up of Nicky Haley doing the same now with Syria. Will we ever learn?
8
Bombing the airstrips would have stopped further attacks from that base. This accomplished nothing but more grief from that village that assadgassed. We must stop killing people in the Middle East and Afghanistan. That is the moral thing to do.!! Enough!
2
Everyone should read Scott Ritter's "Wag the Dog" in yesterday's Huff Post. He presents clear reasons to suspect that the gas did not in fact come from a bomb, but rather from the building that was bombed, and was being made by Al Nuestra. He points out poignantly that the videos were released by Assad foes, including the "White Hats" and that there has been no critical evaluation or fact checking by the media.
We are in grave danger of wandering off to a deeper war, and more than ever we need critical media and critical readers!
We are in grave danger of wandering off to a deeper war, and more than ever we need critical media and critical readers!
7
If the talking heads on TV point fingers at Assad and
Nikki Haley type makes noise at UN, truth be damned.
Assad agreed to get rid of chemical weapons and
international agency inspected and removed the those weapons. where these weapons come from? Was that
agency incompetent? Tillerson is blaming Russians
for incompetence. Russians are the ones who persuaded
or coerced Assad to give up the weapons. Ideally the
inquiry should have been conducted to find out the
truth rather than let a few talking heads determine it
with no evidence. Anyway the bigger question is the
carnage going on by conventional weapons mostly
by Assad but also by the rebels supported by Saudis
and USA.
Nikki Haley type makes noise at UN, truth be damned.
Assad agreed to get rid of chemical weapons and
international agency inspected and removed the those weapons. where these weapons come from? Was that
agency incompetent? Tillerson is blaming Russians
for incompetence. Russians are the ones who persuaded
or coerced Assad to give up the weapons. Ideally the
inquiry should have been conducted to find out the
truth rather than let a few talking heads determine it
with no evidence. Anyway the bigger question is the
carnage going on by conventional weapons mostly
by Assad but also by the rebels supported by Saudis
and USA.
We don't learn from history. When you remove a dictator like Saddam Hussein we forgot to ask, "and then what?'. The result was a civil war still ongoing. Then we bribed the Sunni Muslims which was sold as "the surge" and promised them a stake in the Iraqi government which has never happened to this day. The 300.000 Sunni militaries we through out from Iraq became the cornerstone of ISIS. We removed Kaddafi from power and the result is a still ongoing civil war. Now we want to remove another dictator, Assad in Syria. Then what?
4
Did the U.S. lose the War in Vietnam? Not sure. If Richard Nixon had not been impeached South Vietnam may have survived, becoming a Southeast version of South Korea. Certainly, the lessons learned from Vietnam depend on your point of view. Millions of Vietnamese, truth be told, think the U.S. betrayed them in the end. Then again, why did we fight in Vietnam?
I would say the same thing applies to Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan et al. It is ugly and tragic but if one examines the history of war in recorded history, most wars don't seem to make sense. For those who condemn George Bush from invading Iraq, what would the Middle East look like with Saddam Hussein and his genocidal Baathists in power in 2017? Do Moyn and Wertheim have a solution or solutions to the current series of conflicts in the Middle East? They didn't mention any solutions.
I would say the same thing applies to Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan et al. It is ugly and tragic but if one examines the history of war in recorded history, most wars don't seem to make sense. For those who condemn George Bush from invading Iraq, what would the Middle East look like with Saddam Hussein and his genocidal Baathists in power in 2017? Do Moyn and Wertheim have a solution or solutions to the current series of conflicts in the Middle East? They didn't mention any solutions.
2
Obama's most tragically consequential error was his decision not to investigate and prosecute the perpetrators of the utterly illegal and unjustified aerial bombardment, invasion and devastation of Iraq.
He decided to let sleeping dogs lie rather than take on the GOP. He avoided furious domestic partisan battle but at the expense of the real credibility of the US.
Our credibility as honest cop on the beat may have been just recovering from the Vietnam debacle when Bush/Cheney/Rice/Powell/Rumsfeld etc. manifestly lied us into the actions that resulted in the deaths of thousands of our military personnel, tens of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans, the destruction of two nations, the destabilization of the middle east and the waste of trillions of dollars.
Unless we hold our own war criminals to account we will have no moral high ground from which to condemn others. We know who they are and what they did. There's still time to do the right thing and bring them to trial.
He decided to let sleeping dogs lie rather than take on the GOP. He avoided furious domestic partisan battle but at the expense of the real credibility of the US.
Our credibility as honest cop on the beat may have been just recovering from the Vietnam debacle when Bush/Cheney/Rice/Powell/Rumsfeld etc. manifestly lied us into the actions that resulted in the deaths of thousands of our military personnel, tens of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans, the destruction of two nations, the destabilization of the middle east and the waste of trillions of dollars.
Unless we hold our own war criminals to account we will have no moral high ground from which to condemn others. We know who they are and what they did. There's still time to do the right thing and bring them to trial.
8
A second of Trumps wars may be beginning. Can anyone tell us if the USS Ronald Reagan Group, based in Yokosuka Naval Base Japan has sailed as well?
Are we sending two nuclear carrier groups at the Korean Peninsula?
Are we sending two nuclear carrier groups at the Korean Peninsula?
The media pundits praising the missile strikes into a sad part of the world was cringe inducing and left a feeling of here we go again. I'm not sure why you think Obama had a magic wand to put this broken mess back together again, but I believe he did all he could to minimize our involvement.
4
If It Works it is Right. That is the pragmatism as practiced today to put out the endless fires of special interests and to divide a shrinking world of resources and interests. This pragmatism has a symbiotic relationship with the demands of secularism which in the soul of America rebels and resists the dividing up of everything leaving those that do reflect and care astonished at how much we give up.
Hillary practiced pragmatism for things like KeystoneXL and the corruption at State using a forged EIS and her years of quiet support only to finally see the political gain in coming out against it. Flying around the globe promoting fracking and fossil fuels the policy of All Of the Above soon looked more like Burn Baby Burn and that pragmatic policy today for Tillerson and Trump and Pruit is the very first step down the ladder of dividing up more and selling our country out to fossil fuel interests.
War and oil and gas pipes and now tar sands, the dirtiest of all, are the focus of endless pragmatic policies here and abroad as the multinationals moving Trump like his Raytheon stocks keep desperate people divided and disheartened as they keep taking more and more. Reflection and debate? Hillary new it would bump Trump's support and advised him to bomb the airfield, the military industrial complex having massive fire power was to Donald like he said something of no use if not used. Do anything even if wrong keeps getting more wrong with pragmatism and is evil.
Hillary practiced pragmatism for things like KeystoneXL and the corruption at State using a forged EIS and her years of quiet support only to finally see the political gain in coming out against it. Flying around the globe promoting fracking and fossil fuels the policy of All Of the Above soon looked more like Burn Baby Burn and that pragmatic policy today for Tillerson and Trump and Pruit is the very first step down the ladder of dividing up more and selling our country out to fossil fuel interests.
War and oil and gas pipes and now tar sands, the dirtiest of all, are the focus of endless pragmatic policies here and abroad as the multinationals moving Trump like his Raytheon stocks keep desperate people divided and disheartened as they keep taking more and more. Reflection and debate? Hillary new it would bump Trump's support and advised him to bomb the airfield, the military industrial complex having massive fire power was to Donald like he said something of no use if not used. Do anything even if wrong keeps getting more wrong with pragmatism and is evil.
1
"America’s great mistake was to confuse his political calculation with wisdom." Sounds like something to engrave on the nation's tombstone.
4
Their is little solace in my smug satisfaction as I say "I told you so." Many of us tried to speak out against the insanity of the Neocon's case against Saddam Hussein but they would not be stayed and blundered into a quagmire that even they recognized for what it was.
That President Obama was unable to "fix it" is beside the point. Just as Colin Powell warned, the "Pottery Barn" invoice is still open.
That President Obama was unable to "fix it" is beside the point. Just as Colin Powell warned, the "Pottery Barn" invoice is still open.
2
I do not believe for a second there was any strategic thinking behind Trump's attack on Syria.The pictures of gassed children gave him the excuse he was looking for todo something "( his expression) two days before his Secretary of State went to Russia to supposedly "take a hard line against Russia"(a Times headline from yesterday.)
The abrupt change in the president's foreign policy regarding both Syria and Russia while he is under investigation about his relationship with Putin is too convenient to ignore.
The abrupt change in the president's foreign policy regarding both Syria and Russia while he is under investigation about his relationship with Putin is too convenient to ignore.
3
The authors make crucial points here. There has been NO collective historical reckoning with the post 9/11 wars. The United States changed radically during this period, but we have no historical sense of what has happened, how these wars have evolved. Obama's rapid pullouts of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan look irresponsible now (I say this as someone who deeply opposed both wars from the beginning, and did not see conventional war to be a wise response to 9/11). He wanted to fulfill a campaign promise, but he did not act wisely in simply leaving those countries' to implode, creating fertile territory for ISIS.
We also have to take into account the United States' ambivalent position during the Arab Spring: cheering on the democratic uprisings on the one hand, but supplying weapons to the oppressors on the other (tear gas used on protesters in Egypt was made in the USA). We cheered on democracy with the rhetoric, but when the Syrian people needed our real help against an unusually tenacious tyrant, Obama sat back and did very little, other than arm rebel groups who for practical reasons had to work with ISIS and al Qaeda against Assad.
I don't want to blame Obama. This is a tough situation. But isn't there enough brainpower in Washington to do something to bring some of these conflicts to a close? Obama's strange passivity did not help, for sure. We have to admit that. And the writers are right: Trump played on the frustration that passivity generated to get elected.
We also have to take into account the United States' ambivalent position during the Arab Spring: cheering on the democratic uprisings on the one hand, but supplying weapons to the oppressors on the other (tear gas used on protesters in Egypt was made in the USA). We cheered on democracy with the rhetoric, but when the Syrian people needed our real help against an unusually tenacious tyrant, Obama sat back and did very little, other than arm rebel groups who for practical reasons had to work with ISIS and al Qaeda against Assad.
I don't want to blame Obama. This is a tough situation. But isn't there enough brainpower in Washington to do something to bring some of these conflicts to a close? Obama's strange passivity did not help, for sure. We have to admit that. And the writers are right: Trump played on the frustration that passivity generated to get elected.
1
Selective amnesia from Moyn and Wertheim?
1. Trump said, on air with Howard Stern in Sep 2002, that he was in favor of going to war against Iraq.
2. President Obama brought an Authorization for Use of Military Force against ISIL in Syria in Feb 2015. Congress, which was controlled by Republicans, did not authorize it.
These are the facts. Not "alternative facts," but the actual truth.
1. Trump said, on air with Howard Stern in Sep 2002, that he was in favor of going to war against Iraq.
2. President Obama brought an Authorization for Use of Military Force against ISIL in Syria in Feb 2015. Congress, which was controlled by Republicans, did not authorize it.
These are the facts. Not "alternative facts," but the actual truth.
6
Fared Zacharia has lost all of my respect along with every other pundit gusher over this debacle.
It has been money over lives for as long as history reveals. I asked people in V. Nam during the war what they thought and how the war could end. On both sides the people at the bottom said it was a corrupt war and it would end when the contracts ended. Contracts over lives today is more real and the first option because Donald is all abut deals and contracts and nothing about the common good or honoring things mostly left out of the contracts.
During WW2 the industrialists of the world lined up and were given front row seats to the coming war in Germany, Japan, and Italy. Oven makers and fossil fuels seemed equally of worth as bread makers and peaceful people unconnected from the corporations.
Today the supreme pragmatist seeing Hillary's success with it and Pres. Obama bowing to it's power has given us Donald. Donald knows how to please the industrialists with the key interest being fossil fuels as evidenced by his oil filled cabinet. And yes, the oven makers are back. This time they the whole world is asked to stay seated as our one atmosphere is heated up and the contracts and pipe schemes and military serves each new carbon bomb delivery system like Keystone or DAPL. The moral compass of Bernie in this pragmatic world can't stop the spinning just as Donald's casino spinning wheels look for a cut of each stop on the road to decadence, decay, and even Judges on the S. Court who we now have that pride themselves on not worrying about the implications.
During WW2 the industrialists of the world lined up and were given front row seats to the coming war in Germany, Japan, and Italy. Oven makers and fossil fuels seemed equally of worth as bread makers and peaceful people unconnected from the corporations.
Today the supreme pragmatist seeing Hillary's success with it and Pres. Obama bowing to it's power has given us Donald. Donald knows how to please the industrialists with the key interest being fossil fuels as evidenced by his oil filled cabinet. And yes, the oven makers are back. This time they the whole world is asked to stay seated as our one atmosphere is heated up and the contracts and pipe schemes and military serves each new carbon bomb delivery system like Keystone or DAPL. The moral compass of Bernie in this pragmatic world can't stop the spinning just as Donald's casino spinning wheels look for a cut of each stop on the road to decadence, decay, and even Judges on the S. Court who we now have that pride themselves on not worrying about the implications.
2
What a shallow, empty column. First, this is not "Trump's War". The $60 billion fireworks event last Thursday was a diversion hiding behind the bodies of children gassed by another monster with power. Trump does not have a strategy, nor even a clue, about the world politic. Tillerson may be trying, but it is a whole different ballgame keeping nations from exploding than making billion dollar deals for personal gain. As to the other performers in this flea circus, enough has been said about them. We had governing by a well-read, thoughtful and decisive leader under Obama...and a GOP Congress who shirked their responsibilities by denying him support. In addition, we had, and have, a battle-weary nation after Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The simplistic analysis this essay presents is one of the reasons we have this inept administration in the driver's seat. The situation is much more complicated and nuanced than trying to put the burden on any one person or event.
The simplistic analysis this essay presents is one of the reasons we have this inept administration in the driver's seat. The situation is much more complicated and nuanced than trying to put the burden on any one person or event.
2
The Syria attack is another Trump misdirection play. That is obvious because there is no follow up in the aftermath (Shoot first, ask questions later.). Trump struck impulsively and opportunistically, but not in defense of children or international morality. This "attack" was staged to make Trump appear to oppose the Russian proxy. This is another pathetic attempt to deflect from his Russia election connection problems.
The Syrian civil war is a multidimensional quagmire. It is best resolved via United Nations resolutions mandating peace keeping forces. Obama was largely uninterested in head long unilateral, intervention in Syria. Trump and Putin see chances to exploit human suffering to advance their agenda. 59 missiles do not a statesman make. Expect military posturing to pseudo-antagonize the Chinese next.
The Syrian civil war is a multidimensional quagmire. It is best resolved via United Nations resolutions mandating peace keeping forces. Obama was largely uninterested in head long unilateral, intervention in Syria. Trump and Putin see chances to exploit human suffering to advance their agenda. 59 missiles do not a statesman make. Expect military posturing to pseudo-antagonize the Chinese next.
Imagine if we addressed climate change with the same patriotism and urgency as we address war. On a side note, the Trump administration just rejected an Obama era regulation that forbade hunters from using lead bullets. Why? Eagles eat the carcasses the hunters so lazily and wastefully leave behind, the lead poisons them, and they die a slow and painful death. So we can't even find the will power to stop poisoning our own national symbol (not to mention that eagles are majestic), but we can drop bombs that do nothing but destroy all day long, all year long. If you care about the eagles, write your representative...
1
So why then is H.R. McMaster doing media rounds asserting that the missile strike was absolutely necessary to send Assad and V.Putin a "message" about not messing with the U.S. Of A.?
McMaster, many will recall, rose to fame within the military for his searing indictment of military and national security advisors around LBJ who failed to give the President serious, measured and courageous advice about Vietnam. As the replacement for the disgraced Michael Flynn, McMaster has been portrayed in the media as the grownup in the room of Trump's inner circle. Yet here he is, praising his boss for taking bold action against an outlaw Syrian regime.
Poppycock and balderdash. The missile strike was a made for media marketing event intended to show Trump as the equal of Patton, Ike, Grant and Lee, and the polar opposite of that snowflake Barack Obama.
So much for national security. So much for serious news media coverage of, let's be clear, a madman.
McMaster, many will recall, rose to fame within the military for his searing indictment of military and national security advisors around LBJ who failed to give the President serious, measured and courageous advice about Vietnam. As the replacement for the disgraced Michael Flynn, McMaster has been portrayed in the media as the grownup in the room of Trump's inner circle. Yet here he is, praising his boss for taking bold action against an outlaw Syrian regime.
Poppycock and balderdash. The missile strike was a made for media marketing event intended to show Trump as the equal of Patton, Ike, Grant and Lee, and the polar opposite of that snowflake Barack Obama.
So much for national security. So much for serious news media coverage of, let's be clear, a madman.
1
I am amused by the US sport of bucketing the President, Mr Trump.
Only just over half of Americans bothered to vote in the Presidential election according to CNN., hardly an endorsement for the worlds greatest democracy and the hard fought freedoms.
America seems to be moving to a fractious nation devolving federal government for the good times of the 1950's which will not come again and actually never existed.
Mr Trump seems to have tapped the most gross loneliness of the Great Gatsby.
America is his plaything.
Your remarks are welcome.
An Australian
Only just over half of Americans bothered to vote in the Presidential election according to CNN., hardly an endorsement for the worlds greatest democracy and the hard fought freedoms.
America seems to be moving to a fractious nation devolving federal government for the good times of the 1950's which will not come again and actually never existed.
Mr Trump seems to have tapped the most gross loneliness of the Great Gatsby.
America is his plaything.
Your remarks are welcome.
An Australian
I love Barack Obama, but have always regarded his "red line" statement as a serious mistake. If he was not prepared to back the statement up with action, he shouldn't have made it.
As for the missile strike, I wish Obama had done it - not because it's good policy, but because his "red line" statement required it. Most importantly, I would trust Obama to make such a strike in a limited way, sending a message that if we deliver an ultimatum, we're prepared to act on it as a part of a coherent, well-thought-out policy.
I'm frankly scared at Trump's action. He's touted his being unpredictable as an asset. In reality, it's obvious that Trump has no policy but acts reflexively, giving us and other nations nothing that can be trusted and depended upon. His "policy" seems to be randomness.
Assad, ISIS, N. Korea, etc. will be pushing and testing Trump. He'll make mistakes out of vengefulness, pride, impetuousness, ignorance and laziness.
I'm not seeing a good outcome, and I don't think Trump has bothered to try to envision one, much less formulate a rational policy.
As for the missile strike, I wish Obama had done it - not because it's good policy, but because his "red line" statement required it. Most importantly, I would trust Obama to make such a strike in a limited way, sending a message that if we deliver an ultimatum, we're prepared to act on it as a part of a coherent, well-thought-out policy.
I'm frankly scared at Trump's action. He's touted his being unpredictable as an asset. In reality, it's obvious that Trump has no policy but acts reflexively, giving us and other nations nothing that can be trusted and depended upon. His "policy" seems to be randomness.
Assad, ISIS, N. Korea, etc. will be pushing and testing Trump. He'll make mistakes out of vengefulness, pride, impetuousness, ignorance and laziness.
I'm not seeing a good outcome, and I don't think Trump has bothered to try to envision one, much less formulate a rational policy.
1
The authors of this piece repeatedly refer to a long period of self-reflection and evaluation after the Vietnam War as though that had been a meaningful and positive thing. I don't think it was, because the wrong lessons were learned.
For President George Herbert Walker Bush, the lesson was that wars had to be decisive, short, and winnable, at least on the front pages of newspapers. "And by God, we've kicked the Vietnam Syndrome once and for all", he crowed after the first Gulf War. Well, at least he didn't depose Saddam and occupy Iraq, unlike his dimwit son.
For the military, the lesson was that press coverage of the troops and the action had to be completely monitored and censored, and had to be relentlessly positive. No more gruesome images, a la Vietnam. Instead, whenever possible our own military actions had to look heroic and videogame-ish. For a great image, there's nothing like a cruise missile being launched from a warship in the dark of night. Shock, awe, and great television.
For much of the American public, there was no lesson learned at all. We have no shortage of jingoistic simpletons who love to wave the flag and chant "USA, USA, USA."
I'm a bit encouraged, however, by the noises coming out of Congress, for once from both sides of the aisle. Perhaps some kind of alliance can be formed just to keep the Donald from unrestricted access to his war toys.
For President George Herbert Walker Bush, the lesson was that wars had to be decisive, short, and winnable, at least on the front pages of newspapers. "And by God, we've kicked the Vietnam Syndrome once and for all", he crowed after the first Gulf War. Well, at least he didn't depose Saddam and occupy Iraq, unlike his dimwit son.
For the military, the lesson was that press coverage of the troops and the action had to be completely monitored and censored, and had to be relentlessly positive. No more gruesome images, a la Vietnam. Instead, whenever possible our own military actions had to look heroic and videogame-ish. For a great image, there's nothing like a cruise missile being launched from a warship in the dark of night. Shock, awe, and great television.
For much of the American public, there was no lesson learned at all. We have no shortage of jingoistic simpletons who love to wave the flag and chant "USA, USA, USA."
I'm a bit encouraged, however, by the noises coming out of Congress, for once from both sides of the aisle. Perhaps some kind of alliance can be formed just to keep the Donald from unrestricted access to his war toys.
2
I tried- for just a few days- to turn away from facing the on-going tsunami of misery that is the Trump Administration. I tried to convince myself that no one really listens to what I read or write anyway- and instead simply use my worlds to confirm their own prejudices- or selectively prune out what they don't want to hear.
But I am struck by the fierce urgency of now. And by now- I don't mean a generation- a decade- even a year. I mean right this very moment. I suppose the great advance of technology in the early 21st century has contributed to this- coupled with the 20th century's adoration of weapons of mass destruction. We are so good at compressing time and distance- we are running out of both- rapidly- as the physical world rears its ugly head. Well that's how we treat it. All the beauty we pretend doesn't exist or take for granted. Instead we live within mental spaces that are insane asylums- delusional realities, bolstered by drugs and stimulants so we don't have to fulfill our primary responsibility- to be human.
But I am struck by the fierce urgency of now. And by now- I don't mean a generation- a decade- even a year. I mean right this very moment. I suppose the great advance of technology in the early 21st century has contributed to this- coupled with the 20th century's adoration of weapons of mass destruction. We are so good at compressing time and distance- we are running out of both- rapidly- as the physical world rears its ugly head. Well that's how we treat it. All the beauty we pretend doesn't exist or take for granted. Instead we live within mental spaces that are insane asylums- delusional realities, bolstered by drugs and stimulants so we don't have to fulfill our primary responsibility- to be human.
1
"After Vietnam, the American people recognized an American catastrophe. They embarked on a sustained period of self-reflection and policy evolution. Despite the tumult and excesses of that era, vocal disagreement at least reflected a determination to put things right."
After returning from Vietnam in January of 1969, I began waiting for this period of self-reflection. I am still waiting.
After returning from Vietnam in January of 1969, I began waiting for this period of self-reflection. I am still waiting.
3
The take away of this short piece is obtuse. It seems to be: keep to a realistic foreign policy. Do a better job of discerning what America's "vital interests" are and don't try to make the world safe for democracy.
By these criteria, President Obama performed well. It was courageous, not cowardly of him, to back away from his "red line" in Syria. He realized that political order could not be restored by deposing Assad. He avoided the chief vice of a leader and did not let his ego come between him and his job.
After three failed wars (Viet-Nam included) Americans have tired of wars, especially the working-class parents of sons who had to fight them. The country has turned inwards. If Trump allows the country to be drawn into another misadventure, the failure of his presidency will be over-determined.
By these criteria, President Obama performed well. It was courageous, not cowardly of him, to back away from his "red line" in Syria. He realized that political order could not be restored by deposing Assad. He avoided the chief vice of a leader and did not let his ego come between him and his job.
After three failed wars (Viet-Nam included) Americans have tired of wars, especially the working-class parents of sons who had to fight them. The country has turned inwards. If Trump allows the country to be drawn into another misadventure, the failure of his presidency will be over-determined.
3
Reading Republican revisionist "history" (ie, fairy tales) gets very tiring as you have to parse through all the false assertions, invalid extrapolations, omission of inconvenient facts, and flat-out falsehoods that ALWAYS brings them to the same conclusion:
Every problem created is the Democrats' fault. Even when it demonstrably isn't.
Every Democrat (in their universe) is weak, and error-prone and Republican blunders, disasters and catastrophes are "irrelevant".
As I said, it gets tiresome.
Every problem created is the Democrats' fault. Even when it demonstrably isn't.
Every Democrat (in their universe) is weak, and error-prone and Republican blunders, disasters and catastrophes are "irrelevant".
As I said, it gets tiresome.
1
Nope. Trump does not get off the hook because Obama chose to ignore Iraq. All presidents have to deal with the leftovers of their predecessor. Each president has to deal the hand they are given. So far, there's no evidence that the Trump administration has developed any coherent policy regarding the Middle East. Actually, there is no evidence that Trump is capable of formulating any policy whatsoever regarding anything at all. Trump's ignorance and incompetence cannot be blamed on Obama, and Trump cannot escape responsibility for the choices of his administration.
1
I'm not so sure we gained deep insight or evolved much from Viet Nam. The legislation by Congress did not significantly impede our country from engaging in military interventionism - obviously. Viet Nam's take home message to the public, which is likely more important, was that we should not engage in any more foreign conflicts with our military's hands tied behind their backs. Rather than more questioning of whether we should do war in the first place, we focused on doing war "right" or "all the way". It seems we had a brief moment of introspection, reflected in a couple movies, like The Deer Hunter - and then came Rambo and all the rest. The so-powerful war memorial in Washington would be 20-40 times the size if it included all the names of the Vietnamese we killed, many of them civilians - and for what? The Domino Theory proved correct, but it is Capitalism pushing one nation over after the other.
While Trump seemed to do the right thing last week, it is disconcerting how easy it was to flip the rhetoric from his most vehement, partisan critics.
While Trump seemed to do the right thing last week, it is disconcerting how easy it was to flip the rhetoric from his most vehement, partisan critics.
This is but another article discussing the Middle Eastern Dilemma with no indication of a solution. Long term two MAJOR factors will continue to contribute to conflict around the globe; climate change and overpopulation which leads to diminishing resources. Trump's solution is to increase the military budget and slash programs addressing climate change and family planning. Planned Parenthood and other such organizations will accomplish much more than all the cruise missiles in our arsenal. Addressing Climate change will help guarantee our survival and enhance the future of all life on the planet.
4
As has been pointed out by many, the hypocrisy of the great missile attack is breath taking.
There have been pictures coming out of the Syria mess for years. People living in squalor because their houses have been bombed to bits. People and children gassed. Dead bodies from bombs, bullets or the other reasons people die in a war zone. Little children washing up on the shores of Mediterranean islands like garbage. The response has been hand wringing, and on the part of Mr. Trump a ban to keep them out of the U.S.
What is scary is that somehow a few pictures of children in a gas attack, maybe coupled with a need to bump those popularity ratings, led to an attack which cost the American people $70 million dollars and, in reality, did nothing. A neck wrenching turn around for which praise was heaped on him like a conquering hero. Positive reinforcement, just what he likes.
What would a more serious event trigger? An actual attack on American soil? A terrorist attack on one of his jet setting children? An attack at one of his many properties around the world? Frightening to consider.
There have been pictures coming out of the Syria mess for years. People living in squalor because their houses have been bombed to bits. People and children gassed. Dead bodies from bombs, bullets or the other reasons people die in a war zone. Little children washing up on the shores of Mediterranean islands like garbage. The response has been hand wringing, and on the part of Mr. Trump a ban to keep them out of the U.S.
What is scary is that somehow a few pictures of children in a gas attack, maybe coupled with a need to bump those popularity ratings, led to an attack which cost the American people $70 million dollars and, in reality, did nothing. A neck wrenching turn around for which praise was heaped on him like a conquering hero. Positive reinforcement, just what he likes.
What would a more serious event trigger? An actual attack on American soil? A terrorist attack on one of his jet setting children? An attack at one of his many properties around the world? Frightening to consider.
5
This is a very well-written, poignant-sounding piece rich in analysis and historical reference, not unlike a George Will column. Problem is... I still don't know what the authors are advocating. Missing in most discussions of foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East, is the reality that any policy will give mixed results - easily described as failures. We need to debate among ourselves the level of commitment we have to humanitarian operations, our willingness to disentangle from dependence on oil from that region, and accept that a good solution does not exist. The last point frees us to debate the first 2 points, and act accordingly.
Here's a thought exercise, imagine Al Gore won the presidency and his reaction to 9/11 was to invade Afghanistan, and simultaneously put forth a policy of aggressively removing ourselves from dependence on Middle East oil, and promoting renewable energy. (Notice I didn't mention invading Iraq). A lesson that attacking the US is a fool's errand might have been generally accepted. Also, in all likelihood we would be significantly further down the road to true energy independence. Options with respect to the Middle East and how to deal with Russia would be opened up. Not to repeat the lack of message - that is what I'm advocating. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago... the second best is today.
Here's a thought exercise, imagine Al Gore won the presidency and his reaction to 9/11 was to invade Afghanistan, and simultaneously put forth a policy of aggressively removing ourselves from dependence on Middle East oil, and promoting renewable energy. (Notice I didn't mention invading Iraq). A lesson that attacking the US is a fool's errand might have been generally accepted. Also, in all likelihood we would be significantly further down the road to true energy independence. Options with respect to the Middle East and how to deal with Russia would be opened up. Not to repeat the lack of message - that is what I'm advocating. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago... the second best is today.
71
An excellent point. The Syrian civil war has been called the "first climate war" for a good reason.
"This is a very well-written, poignant-sounding piece rich in analysis and historical reference, not unlike a George Will column. Problem is... I still don't know what the authors are advocating. "
The last sentence above is indeed not unlike a George Will column.
The last sentence above is indeed not unlike a George Will column.
The Obama doctrine in the Middle East is quite straightforward, "what happens the day after".
The W Bush war was led by the US and allies out front, taking the losses. The result was that there was no solidarity among the Iraqi people to unify the country "the day after" and much of the country and US supplied military equipment was lost quickly to ISIS, without much of a fight.
The current war against ISIS is being waged by Iraqis; Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, with intentionally limited support from the US. The cooperation and sacrifice among the sectarian groups fighting a common enemy instead of each other is far more likely to result in greater political stability "the day after".
But don't count on the scrambled brain of Trump to comprehend this, especially if the Harvard guys who wrote this lightweight piece can't get it.
All Trump knows is that the flash of Tomahawks from US warships makes his approval ratings go up.
The W Bush war was led by the US and allies out front, taking the losses. The result was that there was no solidarity among the Iraqi people to unify the country "the day after" and much of the country and US supplied military equipment was lost quickly to ISIS, without much of a fight.
The current war against ISIS is being waged by Iraqis; Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, with intentionally limited support from the US. The cooperation and sacrifice among the sectarian groups fighting a common enemy instead of each other is far more likely to result in greater political stability "the day after".
But don't count on the scrambled brain of Trump to comprehend this, especially if the Harvard guys who wrote this lightweight piece can't get it.
All Trump knows is that the flash of Tomahawks from US warships makes his approval ratings go up.
9
By 2008 the American public couldn't wait to get to get out of the Iraq fiasco. Bush signed the status of force agreement that required US to quit the country by the end of 2011 and Obama implemented it with the encouragement of the Maliki government in Iraq. A small residual force remained and was increased slightly by Obama at the request of subsequent Iraqi governments to try and maintain stability in the country that the Bush administration de-stabilized. It was effectively off the US domestic radar and largely remains so replaced by harrowing images of the civil war in neighboring Syria.
9
Anerica's history of destabilization, whether called that or regime change or coup, is responsible for a few things: enriching American oil companies and their owners, and allowing the will and desire of hundreds of millions of people to be thwarted and crushed. The British and French created the modern map and ther Council on Foreign Relations, along with their people in government and business, made certain that America profitted at the expense of the citizens there. As bad as it was, Bush's War made it 10 times worse. Obama recognized this quagmire for what it is, focused on the radical leadership and allowed the Arab Spring to happen. It is just the beginning of a long and difficult change that requires time more than American intervention.
13
Paul Krugman presciently stated many times that the Obama administration would be blamed for, well, just about everything. Mr. Krugman's forecast has been confirmed many times in three months, and as evidenced most recently here, in this fatuous op-ed that conveniently omits the entire picture.
Distraction away from Russia, corruption, Trump's taxes and business dealings, collusion and dysfunction can be made to disappear with tweets, lies, a bombing and blaming Obama.
Distraction away from Russia, corruption, Trump's taxes and business dealings, collusion and dysfunction can be made to disappear with tweets, lies, a bombing and blaming Obama.
38
And Obama blamed Bush for lots and lots of stuff, so what's your point? The shoe has merely changed feet.
Every administration blames the prior one for whatever is messy, costs taxpayer dollars to mitigate or requires American lives.
Every administration blames the prior one for whatever is messy, costs taxpayer dollars to mitigate or requires American lives.
1
All Obama ever got from Republicans after he knocked Hillary out of the 2008 campaign was their undiluted bad faith.
1
Dear Sara G.
Of course Mr. Obama will be blamed for many things he did and for many things he did not do. This is normal. Mr. Obama blamed Mr. Bush for many things and quite rightly. Why would anyone would think Mr. Obama will not be called to account for the horror of Libya. In fact he owns that mess 100%, at least for now.
In like manner Mr. Trump will make some real messes and his successor will campaign that he alone can clean them up and then will proceed to blame Mr. Trump, Mr. Obama, Mr. Bush and George Washington when he finds out how hard it is to clean up messes.
Of course Mr. Obama will be blamed for many things he did and for many things he did not do. This is normal. Mr. Obama blamed Mr. Bush for many things and quite rightly. Why would anyone would think Mr. Obama will not be called to account for the horror of Libya. In fact he owns that mess 100%, at least for now.
In like manner Mr. Trump will make some real messes and his successor will campaign that he alone can clean them up and then will proceed to blame Mr. Trump, Mr. Obama, Mr. Bush and George Washington when he finds out how hard it is to clean up messes.
1
Many have portrayed Trump's bombing of Syria as going against Putin. Others claim this will lead Trump into an unwinnable war in Syria. But will it really?
Trump notified Putin ahead of time. Russia clearly notified Syria which moved its equipment and much of its personnel out of harm's way. The bombed air base is operational and the area targeted by the gas attacks has been attacked again (with conventional weapons).
If the missile strike was an effective message, there would have been a change in Assad's behavior. This missile attack is looking more and more like theatrics.
Trump gets to beat his chest and portray himself as decisive and "presidential-looking" while Russia gets to act outraged and aggrieved (without losing face that comes with being defeated or harmed militarily).
The strike accomplished what is was intended to do...
This is Day 4 of talk of an airstrike that did nothing but put a few potholes in an airbase.
Day 4 of worrying about an impending war that is not coming.
Day 4 of not talking about Russian interference and Day 4 of a once critical media fawning over Trump.
There will be no war. But as long as we can be fooled into worrying about one, it becomes easier to forget about the real threat to the US. The real threat is the full scale undermining of our political system by Russian hackers, Russian backed American political operatives and the GOP's attempt to cover up the possible collusion.
Trump notified Putin ahead of time. Russia clearly notified Syria which moved its equipment and much of its personnel out of harm's way. The bombed air base is operational and the area targeted by the gas attacks has been attacked again (with conventional weapons).
If the missile strike was an effective message, there would have been a change in Assad's behavior. This missile attack is looking more and more like theatrics.
Trump gets to beat his chest and portray himself as decisive and "presidential-looking" while Russia gets to act outraged and aggrieved (without losing face that comes with being defeated or harmed militarily).
The strike accomplished what is was intended to do...
This is Day 4 of talk of an airstrike that did nothing but put a few potholes in an airbase.
Day 4 of worrying about an impending war that is not coming.
Day 4 of not talking about Russian interference and Day 4 of a once critical media fawning over Trump.
There will be no war. But as long as we can be fooled into worrying about one, it becomes easier to forget about the real threat to the US. The real threat is the full scale undermining of our political system by Russian hackers, Russian backed American political operatives and the GOP's attempt to cover up the possible collusion.
24
Right on! Perfectly expressed. I'm confused and amazed that Trump's simple-minded magician's trick or redirection bamboozles sophisticated media professionals trained to recognize such things. And the subhead on this story is egregious. CNN hosts can gush and pander. NYT must not. Please. You're all we have left.
What if it's not war, but rather managing a region, a spill in aisle 5?
Unfortunately for the fine Professor at Harvard, you live in a county that possesses 40% of the world's military hardware. And sometimes you are compelled to use it.
Were there are regrets bombing Libya? Where is the backlash. That country went backward, not forwad.
Unfortunately for the fine Professor at Harvard, you live in a county that possesses 40% of the world's military hardware. And sometimes you are compelled to use it.
Were there are regrets bombing Libya? Where is the backlash. That country went backward, not forwad.
1
This whole episode is nothing but an attempt to change the narrative. It is amazing to me how we can sit there since the 20th of January, watch Trump dissemble in front of the whole world, and all of a sudden what he did was the greatest thing since sliced bread.
We accomplished nothing. The Russians continue to run the military in Syria and will, for the forseeable future. They want a warm water base and bases in the Middle East, along with another Crimea. They either knew where that gas was, or should have.
Nothing changed. We need to quit pretending that something is different, because it is not. And Congress needs to step up here. Quit cheerleading; start managing. Push this guy to develop a policy; is that too much to ask? Yeah, probably.
We accomplished nothing. The Russians continue to run the military in Syria and will, for the forseeable future. They want a warm water base and bases in the Middle East, along with another Crimea. They either knew where that gas was, or should have.
Nothing changed. We need to quit pretending that something is different, because it is not. And Congress needs to step up here. Quit cheerleading; start managing. Push this guy to develop a policy; is that too much to ask? Yeah, probably.
13
The goal remans the same:
Tillerson will go to Moscow.
The Russians will back off Syria in some way.
Tillerson will promise to lift the sanctions.
Exxon Mobil can then drill in Russia.
Tillerson will go back to Exxon Mobil because being Secretary of State was never his purpose.
Trump, Putin, Exxon Mobil, and Tillerson will make out like bandits - in that order.
What we may never know: How much of the chemical weapon attack on innocent people was all part of Trump's and Putin's plan to achieve the drilling goal.
Tillerson will go to Moscow.
The Russians will back off Syria in some way.
Tillerson will promise to lift the sanctions.
Exxon Mobil can then drill in Russia.
Tillerson will go back to Exxon Mobil because being Secretary of State was never his purpose.
Trump, Putin, Exxon Mobil, and Tillerson will make out like bandits - in that order.
What we may never know: How much of the chemical weapon attack on innocent people was all part of Trump's and Putin's plan to achieve the drilling goal.
10
I think your prediction is correct, but the Trump Administation's and the GOP's ability to manipulate it is not. They are opportunists. Assad is an evil dictator, facilitated by the world's other cruel government Russia. All they have to do is wait for the next Assad cruelty on his people, that I find equal to taking away American's health care, and fire more missiles, and employ the trajectory you suggest. The American citizenry is of no interest to the Trump Administration and the GOP, and yes including those that voted for them. Profit is the only motive, so taking advantage of an opportunity provided by another corrupt government is par for the course, so to speak.
1
Imagine if Obama had gone down the road you are suggesting and attempted to hold Bush accountable for the war crime of Iraq? I have little doubt that the politicians would fail to defend him, the media would malign him, and the people would continue to suffer. Where was your voice in 2006, when we elected a Democratic majority in the House and Senate? Were you or anyone else of equal stature calling for Bush's impeachment, conviction and imprisonment, which is what the whole cabal richly deserve? There was and is no political will in this country to hold wealthy, white men accountable for crimes against everyone else. Even the international tribunals focus mostly on Africa. Bush is safely ensconced here and no one says a word about the fact we are harboring criminals and we always have.
Why should Obama, the first black President, have risked his neck and his credibility to pursue criminal charges against Bush administration officials?Americans were losing 700,000/month from end of 2008 into 2009? The bleeding didn't stop until 2010, the year we got out of Iraq and passed the ACA. Obama focused like a laser on recovery, and I think he made the right decision.
You and your fellows in academia, media, government service, private enterprise are the ones who should be holding the President accountable. Obama didn't have the power, time, or inclination. So what? We are all responsible, but only your class has the ability to hold yourselves accountable.
Why should Obama, the first black President, have risked his neck and his credibility to pursue criminal charges against Bush administration officials?Americans were losing 700,000/month from end of 2008 into 2009? The bleeding didn't stop until 2010, the year we got out of Iraq and passed the ACA. Obama focused like a laser on recovery, and I think he made the right decision.
You and your fellows in academia, media, government service, private enterprise are the ones who should be holding the President accountable. Obama didn't have the power, time, or inclination. So what? We are all responsible, but only your class has the ability to hold yourselves accountable.
10
Why did "Trump become president of the United States" when he bombed an airbase in a third world country? Why doesn't a president become president when he/she brokers peace? Wouldn't that be refreshing. This country has been on a war footing since I was born and I'm sure will be on one when I die. I guess this is the price we have to pay for having leaders who feel the US can not exist unless we control everything. They've realized to do this they must have the strongest military and the stupidest population convinced that to sacrifice their children for an oil company is a good thing.
11
Mike , its not just one oil company's profits, its ALL multinational corporations that welcome military involvement ( cover) for their schemes. One more reason to get big $$$$ from corporations out of politics and raise the corporate tax rate to a minimum 45% ! Corporations are not people !!
1
I understand that but our more recent military adventures seem to be the procuring of oil for our gas guzzling company. Trump has recently allowed the auto companies to forgo fuel efficiency standards which, if they take him up this liberation from regulation, may just produce still another war. He also was the clown that said we should have just taken the oil from Iraq while we were occupiers. How does anyone deal with stupidity and arrogance on this scale?
what "victory"??
2
Regarding Syria and Obama's red line - first and foremost - following Syria's 2013 chemical weapons attack, Sen. McCain promised Obama he would be impeached if he went into Syria:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2013/09/06/mccain-o...
in the days following Britain's refusal to back the U.S. in such an effort.
Since those days, the House has steadfastly refused to even take a vote on using military force in Syria.
Primarily, this has been a GOP'er tactic to make Obama look less presidential, no matter the human cost, or destabilizing effects on Europe/the rest of the world, since Obama could be made to look weak, and GOP'ers could gain political advantage.
It's the same tactic employed to turn Scalia's seat at SCOTUS into the McConnell chair, by utterly ignoring SCOTUS nominee Merrick Garland - after all, everyone knows that only a GOP'er POTUS can nominate SCOTUS Justices or intervene in Syria :(
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2013/09/06/mccain-o...
in the days following Britain's refusal to back the U.S. in such an effort.
Since those days, the House has steadfastly refused to even take a vote on using military force in Syria.
Primarily, this has been a GOP'er tactic to make Obama look less presidential, no matter the human cost, or destabilizing effects on Europe/the rest of the world, since Obama could be made to look weak, and GOP'ers could gain political advantage.
It's the same tactic employed to turn Scalia's seat at SCOTUS into the McConnell chair, by utterly ignoring SCOTUS nominee Merrick Garland - after all, everyone knows that only a GOP'er POTUS can nominate SCOTUS Justices or intervene in Syria :(
10
It is historically inaccurate to say that "after Vietnam, the American people recognized an American catastrophe." Vietnam was viewed as a catastrophe way before the war ended and there were a multitude of protests against the war. It was also viewed as a catastrophe (in the rest of the world) from the point of view of the Vietnamese, 1.1 million died during the war. Obama was smart enough to realize that Iraq was a colossal mistake by the previous Bush administration and that the only way out was slowly disentangling the US from Iraq. ISIS existed way before the Bush administration invasion of Iraq, as an al-Quaeda branch and it grew only because of the chaotic forces of the region, an area governed by dictators, group chiefs and serious religious and ethnic dissent. Americans do not clearly grasp the reality of the region and the nuances of the different positions. People seem to forget that Iraq's modern borders only exist since 1920 (created by Britain) and only gained independence from Britain since 1932. Obama did not produce any paradox. Obama saw it for what it was. Trump, on the other hand, is just an opportunist who saw how gullible Americans are (he softened their hearts by mentioning the babies) and how well it would serve him to get people distracted from Russia and to "appear" to oppose Russia, just as his secretary of state is doing right now, him, a very well known friend of the Russians.
15
If opposition to the Iraq war "broadened" without deepening, part of the blame must lie with our journalists and media. While much of the fourth estate has regretted its complicity with the Bush administration's false case for invading Iraq, none have seriously addressed the question of why we did it and who was duping whom. It was clear at the time of the invasion that the Bush administration's ever-shifting rationales for the unprovoked invasion, all of them either demonstrably false or theoretical, were propaganda, not explanation. 14 years later, we still have no serious explanation, and so no way to avoiding similar catastrophes in the future.
11
How can historians from Harvard and Cambridge combine their efforts to write an editorial about America's failed Mideast political policies, without pointing to the elephant hiding in the corner of the room: CRUDE OIL!?
Strip away all of the heart wrenching narrative about Syrian refugees, and you're left with the fact that the U.S. and Russia are positioned for fight for competing pipelines that are proposed to cross Syria...the Iran/Iraq/Syria pipeline is supported by Russia, while the Saudi/Qatar/Turkey pipeline is supported by the U.S. It's all about petrodollars and power.
Strip away all of the heart wrenching narrative about Syrian refugees, and you're left with the fact that the U.S. and Russia are positioned for fight for competing pipelines that are proposed to cross Syria...the Iran/Iraq/Syria pipeline is supported by Russia, while the Saudi/Qatar/Turkey pipeline is supported by the U.S. It's all about petrodollars and power.
14
One more reason for the government to cultivate alternative power strategies.
American corporatist governments suffer from the same failing as do actual American corporations--a time horizon of insufficient length. It's not the next quarter or the next annual meeting. It's the next election. And, for the record, does it not seem there is always an election campaign going on? The drumbeats for Presidential candidates for 2020 has started. Suggestions have even be made floating Ivanka or Jared for President!
Such as it is, our policies and especially our foreign policies have become reactions to events first and political calculations second ("How will it play in Peoria?"). Our legitimate interests would be served best if our putative leadership would start by deciding first the END STATES they would wish to achieve in each of world's many trouble spots. Then, the next step is to ask what actions would increase the chance of reaching these goals. Wash, rinse and repeat. While not sexy and free of chest thumping jingoism, this approach might have one value--it might just be effective.
Such as it is, our policies and especially our foreign policies have become reactions to events first and political calculations second ("How will it play in Peoria?"). Our legitimate interests would be served best if our putative leadership would start by deciding first the END STATES they would wish to achieve in each of world's many trouble spots. Then, the next step is to ask what actions would increase the chance of reaching these goals. Wash, rinse and repeat. While not sexy and free of chest thumping jingoism, this approach might have one value--it might just be effective.
6
The left's indifference to the injustices outside our borders bothers me a thousand times more than the right's justification of said injustices.
Believe it or not, Obama was not the cunning master of diplomacy and peace making that so many on the left still make him out to be; he was indifferent and passive and that ultimately led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands in Syria at the hands of the Assad regime, as well as the expulsion of millions from their homes. I understand it, compared to the administrations that preceded and followed Obama, he seems like a saint, and rightfully so. But history will judge his administration as one that always tried to take the middle ground - and only made things worse than they are.
Now, don't get me wrong, the missile strike that the Trump administration foresaw was little more than a bone thrown to the public to show that they "cared" about what happens in the world, but nonetheless the principle stands. Assad is a brutal tyrant that needs to be dethroned at any cost, as well as those close to him. His regime alone has caused one of the greatest influx of refugees since the end of the second world war. And no, going after the regime for the atrocities they've committed will not "start WWIII with Russia"; stop playing into the Kremlin's propaganda.
So to those on the left, whom I would normally call my allies, you must choose- retaliate and save the lives of potential thousands, or ignore them. There is no middle ground.
Believe it or not, Obama was not the cunning master of diplomacy and peace making that so many on the left still make him out to be; he was indifferent and passive and that ultimately led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands in Syria at the hands of the Assad regime, as well as the expulsion of millions from their homes. I understand it, compared to the administrations that preceded and followed Obama, he seems like a saint, and rightfully so. But history will judge his administration as one that always tried to take the middle ground - and only made things worse than they are.
Now, don't get me wrong, the missile strike that the Trump administration foresaw was little more than a bone thrown to the public to show that they "cared" about what happens in the world, but nonetheless the principle stands. Assad is a brutal tyrant that needs to be dethroned at any cost, as well as those close to him. His regime alone has caused one of the greatest influx of refugees since the end of the second world war. And no, going after the regime for the atrocities they've committed will not "start WWIII with Russia"; stop playing into the Kremlin's propaganda.
So to those on the left, whom I would normally call my allies, you must choose- retaliate and save the lives of potential thousands, or ignore them. There is no middle ground.
1
Going into Syria would have required Congress to weigh in on sending ground troops. I would argue that bombing the Assad regime's air base with 59 missiles should have required the consent of Congress. The Republican Congress that existed when Assad first used chemical weapons on civilians in 2013 refused to give Obama more room to act in Syria. But anyway...
Retaliation never solves anything and it certainly doesn't "save lives". Retaliation means someone is going to die, most likely lots of someones. And, it is true that deposing the Assad regime probably won't start World War III. But, shooting down a couple of Russian jets and/or Russia sinking one of our ships might. The smart-bomb mindset that we can do anything we want because our weapons and our personnel are professional and uber-accruate really needs to die. Both the Russians and the Assad regime have weapons that can exact a military cost for going up against them, much more so that Iraq or ISIS or the Yemen rebels, etc. The saddest part about this mindset is that there is a middle ground: diplomacy and humanitarian action, i.e. talking and taking in refugees. Of course, we all know where the right stands on the humanity of refugees.
Retaliation never solves anything and it certainly doesn't "save lives". Retaliation means someone is going to die, most likely lots of someones. And, it is true that deposing the Assad regime probably won't start World War III. But, shooting down a couple of Russian jets and/or Russia sinking one of our ships might. The smart-bomb mindset that we can do anything we want because our weapons and our personnel are professional and uber-accruate really needs to die. Both the Russians and the Assad regime have weapons that can exact a military cost for going up against them, much more so that Iraq or ISIS or the Yemen rebels, etc. The saddest part about this mindset is that there is a middle ground: diplomacy and humanitarian action, i.e. talking and taking in refugees. Of course, we all know where the right stands on the humanity of refugees.
Moyn and Wertheim focus on Trump's tactics and completely misunderstand his strategy about the Iraq War and now Syria.
Trump used the issue of the Iraq War in the 2016 primary campaign to weaken his main opponent, Jeb Bush. Now he is using the Sarin attack by Syria to deflect attention from the ties of his presidential campaign to Putin's Russia. He was as usual lying about his his history of early support for the Iraq War but as usual he did not pay a big price for lying. And his pinprick attack on the Syrian airbase is being trumpeted as presidential, as he calculated it would be.
All of us need to focus on Russia's act of war on our democracy in its intervention in the 2016 Presidential campaign. That is the historic event that Trump wants us to forget.
Trump used the issue of the Iraq War in the 2016 primary campaign to weaken his main opponent, Jeb Bush. Now he is using the Sarin attack by Syria to deflect attention from the ties of his presidential campaign to Putin's Russia. He was as usual lying about his his history of early support for the Iraq War but as usual he did not pay a big price for lying. And his pinprick attack on the Syrian airbase is being trumpeted as presidential, as he calculated it would be.
All of us need to focus on Russia's act of war on our democracy in its intervention in the 2016 Presidential campaign. That is the historic event that Trump wants us to forget.
35
After Vietnam, the US did not engage in any real period of self-examination. Remember, Reagan launched wars and genocides in Latin America, all under the noses of the American public, which simply did not care. The lesson of Vietnam was "Americans have no problems with wars, so long as Americans are not dying in them." Ultimately, of course, a state cannot be a real superpower if it is not willing to put its own people on the ground, but that lesson stuck until the end of the Cold War. After that, American arrogance took hold. Suddenly, American military power was usable again. But the enemies were always too weak to fight back, meaning that risks were (supposedly) low. Bush Jr. went to war with the cheerleading of an American foreign policy establishment that believed that the only restraints the US faced were self-imposed - if the US wanted to use military force in the world, no outside force could stop it. Iraq, of course, proved that the US had learned nothing from Vietnam. The US repeated most of the same mistakes and lost another war, just as it is losing in Afghanistan. That is the lesson that the US foreign policy establishment refuses to learn: military power is almost totally useless. It will never achieve the results Americans want. Trump has gained the praise of a corrupt and stupid foreign policy establishment because he has danced to their tune. But the American FP establishment doesn't know what it is doing. The proof: when did the US last win a war?
9
Seems like a thinly veiled Republican mantra "Blame it on Obama". It is tiring to hear this over and over.
However these two sentences here help, "America’s great mistake was to confuse his [Trump's] political calculation with wisdom." And: "Mr. Trump’s victory indicates that when we lived through our own disaster, we failed to reckon with the past and paved the way for an even more terrifying future."
The bombing, bottom line, the bombing was for ratings only in this extended 'Reality Show' of horrors. Pundits and Trumpets fell for it big time. A cheap trick that will be repeated I suspect.
However these two sentences here help, "America’s great mistake was to confuse his [Trump's] political calculation with wisdom." And: "Mr. Trump’s victory indicates that when we lived through our own disaster, we failed to reckon with the past and paved the way for an even more terrifying future."
The bombing, bottom line, the bombing was for ratings only in this extended 'Reality Show' of horrors. Pundits and Trumpets fell for it big time. A cheap trick that will be repeated I suspect.
5
could have been a half full airbase guys...or, at least, a place for storage and deployment of chemical weapons.
the same for the foreign policy note, the matter is that we were pushed into the iraq war by a pack of lies (the liars, bush2, cheney and their organ grinder shill powell are still smiling) and that we're well into the second decade of a non-policy enforced, if you will, by letting it be what it is...and no sooner than you say that, you jump to the "good money" wager that trump "though plan or happenstance" (either way he's a loser!?) "is LIKELY (my caps) to push us into further fighting..."
to reiterate and continue, the air strike, so far is the only clean ACTION, its tactical purpose stated and validated (check the BDA intell), TAKEN BY A PRESIDENT since the present era of "a lack of foreign policy acumen," inherited by trump, began.
one does not have to be a donald trump fan, (the case here), but the drumbeat beatdown (known as krugman's disease in some quarters) serve nothing, certainly not trust in the press.
the same for the foreign policy note, the matter is that we were pushed into the iraq war by a pack of lies (the liars, bush2, cheney and their organ grinder shill powell are still smiling) and that we're well into the second decade of a non-policy enforced, if you will, by letting it be what it is...and no sooner than you say that, you jump to the "good money" wager that trump "though plan or happenstance" (either way he's a loser!?) "is LIKELY (my caps) to push us into further fighting..."
to reiterate and continue, the air strike, so far is the only clean ACTION, its tactical purpose stated and validated (check the BDA intell), TAKEN BY A PRESIDENT since the present era of "a lack of foreign policy acumen," inherited by trump, began.
one does not have to be a donald trump fan, (the case here), but the drumbeat beatdown (known as krugman's disease in some quarters) serve nothing, certainly not trust in the press.
The authors might have mentioned that Obama's feckless policies made ISIS possible.
1
Given the mess that your GOP created I have to give Obama high marks: Especially with the brick wall the GOP congress built in front of any initiatives he attempted. Still, he managed to lick them with one hand tied behind his back.
1
Dear Harold,
As far as I can see no one has "licked" ISIS or any of their affiliates yet. Mr. Obama did his best, but the mess in the Middle East is bigger than anyone president.
As far as I can see no one has "licked" ISIS or any of their affiliates yet. Mr. Obama did his best, but the mess in the Middle East is bigger than anyone president.
We now know the meaning in the message of the 59 cruise missiles: It's not OK to poison-gas your citizens, but it's OK to barrel bomb them.
Tillerson declared as much.
Live with that, Republicans.
Tillerson declared as much.
Live with that, Republicans.
10
Barrel bomb "even beautiful babies" ???...... Say it isn`t so Mr. so called president.
The authors might have done well to further plumb our domestic dynamics. The GOP believes that they alone have the answers to every domestic issue. It's not a stretch to conclude that they believe they also have the answer to every international issue. Dissenters will be punished. Their unchecked, arrogant, and blindered groupthink is the antithesis to wisdom.
6
I wouldn't be so fast to give President Obama a pass on the Middle East. He never developed over eight years a coherent policy either in Iraq and especially Syria. At the heart of his Middle East policy was an inability to extricate the U.S. from taking the side of Sunni Saudi Arabia against Shiite Iran. This led the Obama administration into a reckless endorsement and involvement in expanding the regional religious war into Yemen and creating a failed state and terrorist base there. Until we extricate ourselves from the religious civil war, as we finalky did after 60,000 American casualties in the Vietnam civil war. and recognize the legitimacy of both branches of Islam, we'll never be able to broker peace in the region. Certainly, the Trump cry of "radical Islamic terrorism" is a recipe for becoming further mired in the quagmire.
3
I believe our nation is now at profound risk from the military adventurism of the Trump Administration. The potential for widening conflict in Syria, and the Middle East- as well as the increasing chances of war with North Korea, have led me to believe that the chances of nuclear war are greater now than at any time in human history.
The Congress has a responsibility under the war powers clause to prevent a unilateral declaration of war by the Executive. While it has been either timid or slavish in executing this role historically- it must now stand firm. There has been a profound transformation of our government in the less than 100 days- and the old rules of Presidential deference- if having some very slight justification in the past- are now dangerous.
Indeed, the potential for miscalculation is now greater than in any time in American history. The Congress is needed as an institution of restraint and a vehicle for reassurance that US foreign policy is not run amok. They may be our last best hope to avert self-destruction.
The Congress has a responsibility under the war powers clause to prevent a unilateral declaration of war by the Executive. While it has been either timid or slavish in executing this role historically- it must now stand firm. There has been a profound transformation of our government in the less than 100 days- and the old rules of Presidential deference- if having some very slight justification in the past- are now dangerous.
Indeed, the potential for miscalculation is now greater than in any time in American history. The Congress is needed as an institution of restraint and a vehicle for reassurance that US foreign policy is not run amok. They may be our last best hope to avert self-destruction.
5
During the Vietnam conflict there was a draft. The human costs of that war affected so many families, and drove protest, leading many of us to believe that war truly was not healthy for children and other living things. Without conscription, this pain and sacrifice has not been shared across our population during the conflicts since then. Added to this, is the belief that war has become a clean and efficient event, if only we use our smartest weapons. Devoid of widespread grief and sacrifice, war becomes an abstraction, something that happens to others. Consequently, the full force of emotion and the power of reflection are left out of public discussion.
6
I didn't catch the recommendation in this op-ed piece per what policy in the region should actually be.
3
It is impossible for the USA to undergo the type of soul searching that occurred after Vietnam. Political victory is largely due to gerrymandered districts and internet based social manipulation. Yes, Trump cynically lambasted past Middle East military policy and was helped more by Russian and FBI interference than was necessary. Post election there is no will on the part of either party to go on record for or against military intervention in the middle east, North Korea or anywhere. The risk of being on record is well illustrated by Hillary Clinton. It is a nice fantasy that we can go back to a time that political debates amongst our leaders were more than sound bites designed to capture a demographic.
1
When Bush invaded Iraq the destabilization of the Middle East began. It will continue and Academics will write about mistakes made after the first castastrophic for many years!!
5
Had Mr. obama created a safe zone and a no-fly policy, things might have turned out better. but maybe not so much, because there were still Putin, Iran, and a dictator capable of nearly anything as well as the various anti-Assad groups. Mr. Obama's error, it seems, was to be rational and reflective in an irrational and impulsive age. Mr. trump's policy as it happens will probably mean more lost treasure and lives and a continuing terrorist problem. there really needs to be a thoughtful discussion across party line to define a long term foreign policy for the United States. I am not sure we have the horses to pull such a heavy wagon.
Some folks have a hard time dealing with the fact that President Trump actually did the right thing, it has them flummoxed.
I admit to being pleasantly surprised as well...
This measured, proportional response to Assad's atrocity is worthy of all our support regardless of our opinion of the President.
I admit to being pleasantly surprised as well...
This measured, proportional response to Assad's atrocity is worthy of all our support regardless of our opinion of the President.
2
The morning after Trump's "measured, proportional response", Syrian warplanes took off and landed from the Shayrat Air Base that Trump targeted. No jets were hit. No runways were hit. One warehouse was hit. Russia was apparently told ahead of time so they could move their people and equipment out of harm's way. This was a distraction, $89 million in red meat for the rubes, and a way to divert media attention away from the Trump/Russia collusion story. It's likely to negatively impact ongoing operations against ISIS. What did the missile strikes accomplish, aside from making Trump look "strong"? Did it make America more secure? Now Trump has an armada steaming toward North Korea for more theater, meant to make him look "strong".
1
Obama might have been opposed to "dumb " wars but that didn't stop him from bombing and regime change in Libya. He also seemed particularly fond of drones. Trump apparently couldn't resist the pressure to bomb Syria and now has flip-flopped to support regime change. The question is: How is this war in the Middle East, going on now for over 10 years, helping this country?
3
Why is it the USA's responsibility to respond to any of these countries? It's certainly not because of any moral superiority! The rest of the world is watching too. We have enough problems without trying to fix other countries' problem with our military might.
3
Some differences between Vietnam & Iraq which squelch post-war introspection - 52,000 Americans killed in Vietnam & No Draft putting young men & women out of harm's way if they didn't volunteer willingly in Iraq war.
4
A sustained period of self-reflection requires us to put our smartphones down and think for a while.
3
No politician who expects to be taken seriously by the press and the Washington establishment dares confront and condemn American war-mongering -- doing so is tantamount to renouncing American empire, and adults who seek to prosper in the beltway know better than to do that.
Some may recall Bernie Sanders didn't repudiate this history either. Trump, of course, freed himself of the burden of establishment approval -- indeed, succeeded by scorning the lot of them -- but unfortunately has no actual convictions in the matter.
Some may recall Bernie Sanders didn't repudiate this history either. Trump, of course, freed himself of the burden of establishment approval -- indeed, succeeded by scorning the lot of them -- but unfortunately has no actual convictions in the matter.
This piece makes things up about the past, and doesn't really say anything about the future.
2
History doesn't repeat itself. Its always one mistake, miscalculation, misreading of current realities and/or history after another that leads to the next inevitable disaster.
2
Could not agree more, except on one thing: did we really go through a period of serious self-reflection after Vietnam? As I recall it, five years after the fall of Saigon Ronald Reagan was elected president in a landslide, and after saying that Vietnam was a "noble cause."
There are very deep forces at work that make us an imperial power, and more and more it seems clear to me that only a massive defeat or economic collapse will actually deter us from continuing to meddle all over the world.
There are very deep forces at work that make us an imperial power, and more and more it seems clear to me that only a massive defeat or economic collapse will actually deter us from continuing to meddle all over the world.
7
I have yet to hear a Hawk, including these authors, describe to me what the end -game is. Remember our last venture with a President with no end game---we are still fighting two wars---yes two wars---with no end in sight---we can't even see a light at the end of the tunnel.
9
"the end" was one of those "unknown unkowns"
A strange essay which relevantly points to the Vietnam War as a point of comparison, but then says something about how Obama should have stopped the current wars, but with no sense how difficult that would have been to actually do that. There's plenty to complain about with Obama -- like keeping the war prisons open and running -- but he stopped the water torture and one never had a sense he was a warmonger. Which Hillary Clinton was and is.
First -- Let's establish the fact that Trump is a bizarre nonsensical president, which this essay avoids altogether.
Second -- Lets establish that fact that the USA war machine employs literally tens of thousands of Americans and stopping our wars would put many military Americans out of work. No USA president of any political stripe will actually say that out load to a camera. But it is the underlying reason why the USA chooses military action, fancy drones, and expensive missiles and lobs them half way around the globe. "A forever war" fuels the economy at almost every level.
First -- Let's establish the fact that Trump is a bizarre nonsensical president, which this essay avoids altogether.
Second -- Lets establish that fact that the USA war machine employs literally tens of thousands of Americans and stopping our wars would put many military Americans out of work. No USA president of any political stripe will actually say that out load to a camera. But it is the underlying reason why the USA chooses military action, fancy drones, and expensive missiles and lobs them half way around the globe. "A forever war" fuels the economy at almost every level.
13
Before we became the #1 producer of oil and gas the favored canard of the Left was "no war for oil".
I don't think "no War to keep the unemployment rate under 5%" has the same panache, even if it is just as big a lie as it's predecessor.
It's never as simple as all that pasta lover...
I don't think "no War to keep the unemployment rate under 5%" has the same panache, even if it is just as big a lie as it's predecessor.
It's never as simple as all that pasta lover...
3
And the 'real truth' for you is?
Trump's bold initiative came at an opportune time in history. He needed to divert public attention from his Russia woes and media figures like Fareed Zakaria and Brian Williams helped facilitate that goal.
6
A key difference between the Vietnam and Iraq Wars is that Vietnam was fought with the draft, while Iraq was fought with an all volunteer military. A much wider portion of society, far more individuals and families were impacted by the war - more soldiers, more deaths and wounded, more MIA, dreading the draft were part of Vietnam. The defeat and futility of Vietnam was much more broadly felt than by the 1% that fight and bear the burden of all our wars now. The military (along with politicians) was blamed for Vietnam loss. Now, we don't blame the military - in large part because of guilt from most of us not making any sacrifices for the war. We now see our Generals as the only trustworthy leaders, which is worrisome. Also, Iraq, even though it was started under false information and premise, became part of the unending War on Terror, where the carnage never stops, the war never ends. Vietnam was part of the Cold War, but the deaths were rarely of American soil. Finally, now we are constantly distracted by Twitter, Facebook, cable news, talk radio, reality TV, Fox/Breitbart/Alex Jones conspiracy theories, the flood of fake news and fake outrage du jour - we don't reflect on anything as a society.
12
Indeed, the single reason why the draft will never be re-introduced in the USA is because the political backlash by citizens against their own elected politicians would endanger their re-elections. This is why there wasnt a single hint of a draft mentioned during the Bush administration and the declaration of 2 new wars.
4
The US had about 4,000 killed in Iraq, 70,000 killed in Viet Nam, with proportional serious injuries.
If there is a point in this article would someone please tell me? Is there a critique here? If so what is it?
The authors criticize Obama for "anti-Iraq-war campaigning and perpetual-war governing."
This is an exaggeration. What happened in fact is that a terrorist nation, ISIS, emerged out of the Iraq War and its aftermath.
The question then was how to deal with it. OBAMA DID NOT DEAL WITH IT BY PERPETUAL WAR. He continued military force, primarily air power against the new terrorist state, but he left the disposition of the new state to Iraq. The new state we formed, Iraq, fought the new terrorist state that metastasized from the old state, and the terrorist state is on the run, though not entirely defeated yet. The impact of the chaotic, inconsistent decisions of the Trump situation on the rout of ISIS is unclear. Will nutty old Trump put humpty dumpty back together again? Maybe. But to equate Obama's lead from behind strategy with Trump's do not lead but react policy is quite a big error that one would hope a professor at Harvard and a professor at Cambridge would not fall into. Basically this article is a bunch of supercilious nonsense.
The authors criticize Obama for "anti-Iraq-war campaigning and perpetual-war governing."
This is an exaggeration. What happened in fact is that a terrorist nation, ISIS, emerged out of the Iraq War and its aftermath.
The question then was how to deal with it. OBAMA DID NOT DEAL WITH IT BY PERPETUAL WAR. He continued military force, primarily air power against the new terrorist state, but he left the disposition of the new state to Iraq. The new state we formed, Iraq, fought the new terrorist state that metastasized from the old state, and the terrorist state is on the run, though not entirely defeated yet. The impact of the chaotic, inconsistent decisions of the Trump situation on the rout of ISIS is unclear. Will nutty old Trump put humpty dumpty back together again? Maybe. But to equate Obama's lead from behind strategy with Trump's do not lead but react policy is quite a big error that one would hope a professor at Harvard and a professor at Cambridge would not fall into. Basically this article is a bunch of supercilious nonsense.
71
Same head-scratching response. This op ed's targets are many and varied, yet all we are left with is as a take-away: golly, we can't seem to extricate ourselves from perpetual war, can we? Perhaps half of the original text must've been left on an editorial room floor, parts that stitched together disparate evidence. We're otherwise left with maddening irresolution. A central thesis -- Obama's egregious inaction left Trump with few options -- is abandoned to merely entreat us to "reckon with the past." a generic warning without prescriptive solutions. In some ways, the perfect editorial for an act of abject militarism that was craven for being so policy- or ideology free. Barely noted. By a Harvard professor of law and history, yet. Now I'm truly frightened.
Exactly. I'm with you. So easy to throw out generalizations and strong statements with no context or evidential support. Perpetual war governing?
These writers hail from and teach at Harvard and Cambridge? Not only oddly structured and disconnected but poorly written. Scary. I thought only junior college students struggled with writing meaningful, factual writing. If it's this bad at two of the most highly revered institutions, I'm afraid we are in more trouble than I realized!
Excuse me but I recall Iraq asked the military to leave the country. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Why does the NYT publish this kind of editorial?
These writers hail from and teach at Harvard and Cambridge? Not only oddly structured and disconnected but poorly written. Scary. I thought only junior college students struggled with writing meaningful, factual writing. If it's this bad at two of the most highly revered institutions, I'm afraid we are in more trouble than I realized!
Excuse me but I recall Iraq asked the military to leave the country. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Why does the NYT publish this kind of editorial?
What exactly is the geopolitical error he cites? I'm sure a lot of people have asked what it takes to stop conflict in the mid east Noone seems to have an answer. Including these writers
15
Trump positioned himself to be the ISIS beater during his campaign; the man with a secret plan, but now he assaults Assad over the horrible death of a few civilians in Syria. "The enemy of the enemy is my friend" is a policy worth considering. If we crush Assad, will we not also embolden ISIS and make it more strong?
These are not easy choices, but should not be made for political gain. I suspect that Trump and his White House cronies will look at the poll numbers, see a dramatic up swing, and push forward with our military, angering Russia and trying to defeat Assad. We are about to fight another war, lose more of our young warriors, for the sake of an unpopular President. And what about ISIS?
These are not easy choices, but should not be made for political gain. I suspect that Trump and his White House cronies will look at the poll numbers, see a dramatic up swing, and push forward with our military, angering Russia and trying to defeat Assad. We are about to fight another war, lose more of our young warriors, for the sake of an unpopular President. And what about ISIS?
5
According to The Guardian and other news outlets, the US dropped over 26,000, nearly three bombs every hour, 24 hours a day in 2016. Mostly in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq. The end result?
7
The barbaric inhuman murderers of ISIS are losing, slowly but inexorably.
Something that wouldn't have happened without the expenditure of military force. That this is being accomplished mostly thru American air support and not with sizable American ground forces is another reason to be of good cheer.
Something that wouldn't have happened without the expenditure of military force. That this is being accomplished mostly thru American air support and not with sizable American ground forces is another reason to be of good cheer.
1
"largely because President Barack Obama found a way to avoid it."
President Barak Obama, for his first term, ran on a platform of getting us, the USA, out of a part of the world we had no business making more of a mess of.
Then, keeping his promise to all of us who voted for him, he did precisely that. So, I am proud of my President Obama for recognizing that the United States of America was an occupying force in a country that formerly, before the "decider" "w" invaded that country, girls going to school, hospitals, roads, infrastructure, towns....etc. USA destroyed ALL of that.
Obama got the USA out of Iraq, for the most part, where it never belonged in the first place.
Your comment fails to recognize that the American people voted for Obama precisely to get us out of the mess in the middle east and start focusing on doing something here.
We could have provided free support of 12 million degrees in the United States on the backs of the "temporary" war funding for the last 15 years.
Out of Iraq. That was we say.
And, we will vote again.
President Barak Obama, for his first term, ran on a platform of getting us, the USA, out of a part of the world we had no business making more of a mess of.
Then, keeping his promise to all of us who voted for him, he did precisely that. So, I am proud of my President Obama for recognizing that the United States of America was an occupying force in a country that formerly, before the "decider" "w" invaded that country, girls going to school, hospitals, roads, infrastructure, towns....etc. USA destroyed ALL of that.
Obama got the USA out of Iraq, for the most part, where it never belonged in the first place.
Your comment fails to recognize that the American people voted for Obama precisely to get us out of the mess in the middle east and start focusing on doing something here.
We could have provided free support of 12 million degrees in the United States on the backs of the "temporary" war funding for the last 15 years.
Out of Iraq. That was we say.
And, we will vote again.
8
"Obama got the USA out of Iraq, for the most part"
I am no fan of Trump, but that is a crazy spin of the facts. Obama was still bombing with drones and more -- to the very end of his 2nd term. The war(s) never ended, they were still bloody and pointless and ongoing -- even if total troop numbers reduced.
I am no fan of Trump, but that is a crazy spin of the facts. Obama was still bombing with drones and more -- to the very end of his 2nd term. The war(s) never ended, they were still bloody and pointless and ongoing -- even if total troop numbers reduced.
2
It’s true that “firing missiles at half-empty air bases does not make up for a lack of foreign policy acumen, let alone a strategy for dealing with a Middle East …”
But what if we’re missing the real point? Our Middle East policy is presumed to focus on imposing a stability that, given the religious and other tensions there, may never be achievable. Look at it differently.
These are largely failed societies. Many don’t even seek to minister to the well-being of their members, and some are truly ancient, failing dismally for ages. What is the likelihood if they haven’t been able to save themselves for all these centuries, or even put themselves on a path of eventual wholesomeness, broad-based economic viability and relative peace, that WE will be able to do it FOR them? Our “long road” is basically the consequence of an unwillingness to make the investment required to transform Yemenis or Afghans into Americans … or Brits, or Germans, or French; yet a sense that we can’t just abandon what could amount to the majority of humanity to fates they crafted themselves.
At some point the sheer cost in blood and fortune of this pyrrhic struggle may cause us to give earned value to Joe Biden’s suggestion (that Obama rejected): place a cordon sanitaire around the whole mess and let them sort life out for themselves. At any hint that cahooting is occurring inside the circle that endangers anything outside, we send in Special Forces or missiles. Eventually, Darwin reigns supreme.
But what if we’re missing the real point? Our Middle East policy is presumed to focus on imposing a stability that, given the religious and other tensions there, may never be achievable. Look at it differently.
These are largely failed societies. Many don’t even seek to minister to the well-being of their members, and some are truly ancient, failing dismally for ages. What is the likelihood if they haven’t been able to save themselves for all these centuries, or even put themselves on a path of eventual wholesomeness, broad-based economic viability and relative peace, that WE will be able to do it FOR them? Our “long road” is basically the consequence of an unwillingness to make the investment required to transform Yemenis or Afghans into Americans … or Brits, or Germans, or French; yet a sense that we can’t just abandon what could amount to the majority of humanity to fates they crafted themselves.
At some point the sheer cost in blood and fortune of this pyrrhic struggle may cause us to give earned value to Joe Biden’s suggestion (that Obama rejected): place a cordon sanitaire around the whole mess and let them sort life out for themselves. At any hint that cahooting is occurring inside the circle that endangers anything outside, we send in Special Forces or missiles. Eventually, Darwin reigns supreme.
7
Just one word: petrol. We are still inside any cordon whatever borders it defines.
1
We aren't going to confront Russia and Iran to impose that "cordon."
Syria s a proxy war -- the Spanish Civil war is increasingly a good analogy. Neither we nor Britain, France, anybody were willing to confront Germany over supporting Franco.
Syria s a proxy war -- the Spanish Civil war is increasingly a good analogy. Neither we nor Britain, France, anybody were willing to confront Germany over supporting Franco.
2
Richard,
your criticism of the middle eastern nations ignore the most obvious reason for the the failure of these societies.....Colonialism
These nations are artificial and their borders were drawn by Europeans who did not take into consideration ethnic, cultural and religious differences of the population that were encumbered into these "false borders". These nations were created to benefit the colonial powers.
And to maintain power, Colonial powers stoked sectarian resentment and violence in classic divide and conquer tactics. Western powers supported brutal dictators (often from ethnic or religious minorities within the country) and supported coup when the "elected" official was not viewed as sympathetic to the desires of the given western power
Making blanket condemnations of societal failings without providing historical perspectives only serve to create an air superiority and further denigrate the victims
your criticism of the middle eastern nations ignore the most obvious reason for the the failure of these societies.....Colonialism
These nations are artificial and their borders were drawn by Europeans who did not take into consideration ethnic, cultural and religious differences of the population that were encumbered into these "false borders". These nations were created to benefit the colonial powers.
And to maintain power, Colonial powers stoked sectarian resentment and violence in classic divide and conquer tactics. Western powers supported brutal dictators (often from ethnic or religious minorities within the country) and supported coup when the "elected" official was not viewed as sympathetic to the desires of the given western power
Making blanket condemnations of societal failings without providing historical perspectives only serve to create an air superiority and further denigrate the victims
1
"America’s great mistake was to confuse his political calculation with wisdom."
Correction: "The Electoral College's great mistake ...".
Hillary Clinton won the election among Americans. Mr. Trump won only among members of the ultra-elite Electoral College.
Correction: "The Electoral College's great mistake ...".
Hillary Clinton won the election among Americans. Mr. Trump won only among members of the ultra-elite Electoral College.
41
So many fools thought that Trump was under Putin's thumb.
4
How has this been refuted? With a bombing so devastating planes were using the attacked runways again within hours?
4
You think any of this proves he's not?
2
Putin will be happy to see the US undone. Which is why he undermined HRC.
3
It's a cruelly ironic retrospective on the greater cruelty of the Iraq War that Donald Trump could tap into the "reservoir of confusion, anger, and grief over the war in Iraq" in "Bush-friendly, pro-military South Carolina" by blasting that war as an awful decision.
At the time, literally as soon as Americans started being killed, it became taboo to call the war a mistake. If you went so far as to use the word "waste" in speaking of the throwing-away of American lives in Iraq (Iraqi lives being a subject for another day), those same "pro-military" people would come down on you like a ton of bricks. People who had opposed the war before it started and had worried about the coming waste of the lives of Americans in uniform were told, once it started, to shut up and support the troops -- by pretending that the war was worth their lives. And so it went.
When, exactly, did those pro-military people in South Carolina and elsewhere come around to their new view, which Donald Trump was able to exploit? Or did they just buy Trump himself and then come around to anything he said?
http://thefamilyproperty.blogspot.jp/
At the time, literally as soon as Americans started being killed, it became taboo to call the war a mistake. If you went so far as to use the word "waste" in speaking of the throwing-away of American lives in Iraq (Iraqi lives being a subject for another day), those same "pro-military" people would come down on you like a ton of bricks. People who had opposed the war before it started and had worried about the coming waste of the lives of Americans in uniform were told, once it started, to shut up and support the troops -- by pretending that the war was worth their lives. And so it went.
When, exactly, did those pro-military people in South Carolina and elsewhere come around to their new view, which Donald Trump was able to exploit? Or did they just buy Trump himself and then come around to anything he said?
http://thefamilyproperty.blogspot.jp/
6
The authors attribute our long war in Iraq to a failure by Mr. Obama to probe the reasons for the original invasion. They oversimplify their critique, though, through an omission of the link between the Iraqi conflict and the invasion of Afghanistan, which preceded it. Although Mr. Bush initially blamed both wars on the 9/11 terrorist attack, he later associated the two invasions with his dream of democratizing the Middle East. Any comprehensive autopsy of the origins of these two wars would surely have to focus partially on the peculiarly American confidence that we have the power to reshape the world in our own image.
Mr. Obama, for his part, had to confront the reality that starting a war is easier than ending one. In this case, the reason stemmed from the fact that Mr. Bush's crusade for democracy (and oil) had morphed into a desperate struggle to prevent the spread of terrorism.
A war to make the Middle East safe for democracy had thus actually made the region a haven for terrorists. Mr. Obama could not resolve the dilemma of whether withdrawal would worsen or curb this problem. In short, the core of the fiasco in the Middle East remained the same as the tragedy in Vietnam, an arrogance that America has the power and the wisdom to serve as the engine of world progress. Perhaps we didn't learn so much from our intervention in Southeast Asia, after all.
Mr. Obama, for his part, had to confront the reality that starting a war is easier than ending one. In this case, the reason stemmed from the fact that Mr. Bush's crusade for democracy (and oil) had morphed into a desperate struggle to prevent the spread of terrorism.
A war to make the Middle East safe for democracy had thus actually made the region a haven for terrorists. Mr. Obama could not resolve the dilemma of whether withdrawal would worsen or curb this problem. In short, the core of the fiasco in the Middle East remained the same as the tragedy in Vietnam, an arrogance that America has the power and the wisdom to serve as the engine of world progress. Perhaps we didn't learn so much from our intervention in Southeast Asia, after all.
215
Maybe that peculiar American confidence to reshape the world in its own image comes from the fact that America is a nation of immigrants. Immigrants by and large see America (at least the USA) as offering something better than where they came from, and assume everyone else thinks the same... that's only human. It's not necessarily American arrogance I think.
3
Those without solutions are always the first (and loudest) to criticize.
24
Wow, glad to see in today's paper the recognition, intuitive for all who pulled a lever against Mr. Trump, that no matter his assurances of being against all things Bush, he has absolutely no disinclination to push various war buttons pronto. Look how well last week's missile strikes played for him. The day before the nerve gas attack, all the press was contra-Gorsich. Friday's blanket headlines on the Syria bombing distracted the average consumer of news a moment and revved up the flag-wavers to a cause.
Reminded me of the time President Clinton bombed Al Quaida in the midst of the Monica Lewinsky mess. How cynical a move Mr. Trump just pulled. From saying Assad had to stay to saying he had to go, in the space of one short week. Does Mr. Trump have any inner axis of vision and direction other than his own intuition?
Happens to be that he was right and that a price had to be paid for Assad crossing that red line.
Reminded me of the time President Clinton bombed Al Quaida in the midst of the Monica Lewinsky mess. How cynical a move Mr. Trump just pulled. From saying Assad had to stay to saying he had to go, in the space of one short week. Does Mr. Trump have any inner axis of vision and direction other than his own intuition?
Happens to be that he was right and that a price had to be paid for Assad crossing that red line.
6
How about we start with something radical like cutting our over-sized defense spending by 50%? Once on an austerity budget, we will have to think twice about starting splendid little wars. We will also have to prioritize which of our foreign entanglements are truly worth their price in American blood and treasure.
19
Bush, at the behest of the war-criminals Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, started this awful mess that led to the rise of ISIS. The Iraq blunder cost us any progress in Afghanistan, where our real enemies had found safe haven.
Obama did the right thing, tactically, in getting us largely out of Iraq, but it only delayed the day of reckoning in a disintegrating region full of angry young men fueled by a toxic ideology. Then he made the worst strategic mistake of his Presidency: promising a red line on chemical weapons use and then not attacking Assad. Every thuggish regime on earth noticed.
Trump, in his impulsive and unread way, may wade us back in, deeper than Cheney's darkest dreams.
We broke the region. It's ours. While Trump's missile attack is defensible, I fear that his next actions will only make the breaking worse and the price for us higher.
Obama did the right thing, tactically, in getting us largely out of Iraq, but it only delayed the day of reckoning in a disintegrating region full of angry young men fueled by a toxic ideology. Then he made the worst strategic mistake of his Presidency: promising a red line on chemical weapons use and then not attacking Assad. Every thuggish regime on earth noticed.
Trump, in his impulsive and unread way, may wade us back in, deeper than Cheney's darkest dreams.
We broke the region. It's ours. While Trump's missile attack is defensible, I fear that his next actions will only make the breaking worse and the price for us higher.
10
"After Vietnam, the American people recognized an American catastrophe. They embarked on a sustained period of self-reflection and policy evolution."
The professors are kidding, right? After Vietnam we engaged in self-pity. In the decade after we left Vietnam and in the 1990s Americans engaged in rah rah patriotism every time some president sent troops, airplanes, cruise missiles, or drones anywhere. Grenada and Libya under Reagan. Panama, Kuwait, and Iraq under the first Bush. Afghanistan and Iraq under the second Bush. Yemen and Africa under Obama. Policy evolution? We haven't learned a thing. The only way it could have been worse is if we'd elected John McCain.
Oh, we always get tired of a war after a while, but after a breather we're ready to go again. Yah, Freedom Fries! Patriotic country music! Thanks for your service. Why pick on poor Trump. He is just more of the same we've had under many other presidents since WWII. War seems to give us something to think about besides the truth about ourselves. Please stop publishing stuff from professors.
The professors are kidding, right? After Vietnam we engaged in self-pity. In the decade after we left Vietnam and in the 1990s Americans engaged in rah rah patriotism every time some president sent troops, airplanes, cruise missiles, or drones anywhere. Grenada and Libya under Reagan. Panama, Kuwait, and Iraq under the first Bush. Afghanistan and Iraq under the second Bush. Yemen and Africa under Obama. Policy evolution? We haven't learned a thing. The only way it could have been worse is if we'd elected John McCain.
Oh, we always get tired of a war after a while, but after a breather we're ready to go again. Yah, Freedom Fries! Patriotic country music! Thanks for your service. Why pick on poor Trump. He is just more of the same we've had under many other presidents since WWII. War seems to give us something to think about besides the truth about ourselves. Please stop publishing stuff from professors.
28
I agree and I'm a professor. Stop it.
Disagree -- I think there was some real soul searching after Vietnam, represented by President Carter's peace policy. 8 years went by before we launched any military operation larger than a special forces raid. It is impossible to imagine an 8-year period of peace today.
Opposition broadened, but did not deepen is a true observation. The one key element between our current wars and Vietnam is the simple fact that there is no draft. While you may oppose the wars, it is fairly abstract. Sons and daughters are not at risk of getting that fateful letter notifying you that it was now your time. That lack of broadly shared risk has a real impact on how deep opposition will be.
12
Vietnam was a classic case of a war dragging on forever lest the dead shall have died in vain. There was absolutely nothing to gain by it.
4
AnObserver: I think you have put your finger on a very important point that is too frequently glossed over. Speaking as someone who was drafted to serve in Vietnam, I can attest to the fact that my unit was made up of young men from all parts of the country and many walks of life, about half draftees like me and half enlistees. Some of us were college graduates, others, high school dropouts. Every one of us, though, had family and friends back home who were aware of our situation and were concerned about our welfare and hoping (at least in most cases) that we would return. Some people back home chose to support the war, while others chose to protest it, but in either case, a large number of them had a connection to someone who was serving.
Compare that to today's all-volunteer army, to which only a tiny fraction of the American populace has any direct connection. To me, for all the lip service paid to supporting our troops ("Thank you for your service!"), they are in fact treated far more like mercenaries who, having signed a contract, can be sent back on multiple deployments, with no one affected except themselves and their immediate families.
I suggest that if the authors—or the government—wish to accurately ascertain the level of support for expanded direct involvement in the Middle East (or anywhere else), they should press Congress to reinstitute the draft. I believe the answer from the majority of Americans would be a loud and unequivocal 'No!"
Compare that to today's all-volunteer army, to which only a tiny fraction of the American populace has any direct connection. To me, for all the lip service paid to supporting our troops ("Thank you for your service!"), they are in fact treated far more like mercenaries who, having signed a contract, can be sent back on multiple deployments, with no one affected except themselves and their immediate families.
I suggest that if the authors—or the government—wish to accurately ascertain the level of support for expanded direct involvement in the Middle East (or anywhere else), they should press Congress to reinstitute the draft. I believe the answer from the majority of Americans would be a loud and unequivocal 'No!"
Couldn't agree more. It was a sham from start to finish. I spent 12 months there too. The point though is that the depth and passion of the anti-war movement was fueled in no small measure by the shared risk that the draft brought with it. Our current all volunteer force comes without that kind of constraint. In fact the all volunteer nature of it may make putting them in harm's way even easier. Since a politician can rationalize the use of force by claiming (to themselves anyway) that it was what the signed up for in the first place.
Well, what *did* the Obama years teach us? Other than the fact that G. W. Bush's policy of regime change (and Obama's own foray into it) was folly and that there is seemingly no way to extricate ourselves from military involvement in conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, etc., that doesn't render everything we've done over the last 15 years useless, and terrorism as much a threat as ever?
No one has any good things to say about Obama's policies, but I have yet to see anyone proposing alternatives that aren't just as bad or worse.
Trump's airstrike was not a policy, it was a reaction to an atrocity. Whether he gets sucked into trying to resolve these conflicts for the better or ignores them, perhaps limiting our involvement to preventing atrocities and helping refugees is a better policy than any other we know of right now.
No one has any good things to say about Obama's policies, but I have yet to see anyone proposing alternatives that aren't just as bad or worse.
Trump's airstrike was not a policy, it was a reaction to an atrocity. Whether he gets sucked into trying to resolve these conflicts for the better or ignores them, perhaps limiting our involvement to preventing atrocities and helping refugees is a better policy than any other we know of right now.
4
False equivalence, shame on you Moyn and Wertheim: Sending in a drone to kill is NOT done instead of torture, it's done instead of sending a sniper or "precision" bombing. It is, actually, a form of precision bombing. Torture is done to gather information and the more humanitarian equivalence is sending in spies, or infiltration.
11
The truth of the matter is nothing has changed in Syria except trumps stance. When Aleppo was under attack trump could care less. There was all sorts of pictures of children etc hurt and killed and trumps response was to bar them from coming to the US. While this was going on with the help of Russia trump was having a love affair with Putin, in fact during his campaign he said that he, Putin and Bashar al-Assad would make a great team fighting ISIS, all that after Bashar al-Assad had already used chemical weapons on his people. What changed during the last week except trump was desperate for a win and to halt the investigation of him and Russia?
358
What changed is that images of the chemical bombing's victims appeared extensively on the television.
Our president likes to watch T.V.
Our president is very interested in how events and public figures are being represented in "mainstream" visual media. Other than considering ways to acquire money, this is how he spends his time, how he gets his information and the forum in which he makes his decisions.
Our president likes to watch T.V.
Our president is very interested in how events and public figures are being represented in "mainstream" visual media. Other than considering ways to acquire money, this is how he spends his time, how he gets his information and the forum in which he makes his decisions.
And now the media is giving him cover. It's a rather disgusting picture.
The long process of reckoning over the consequences of the Vietnam War put a spotlight on our human rights failures and the necessity of congressional oversight. But we didn't really learn anything about illegal invasions, interfering in revolutions, or the self-defeating nature of armed intervention. Our "reckoning" got us into Iraq and Afghanistan for going on 20 years. Very few American people recognized an American catastrophe beyond the shame of defeat. Trump is tapping into that.
You are completely wrong if you think no reckoning on the part of the Obama administration followed the Iraq invasion. Plenty of anti-war activism and politics ensued. Plus, the changes at the top put parts of the problem to rest--Osama bin Laden dead, fewer American casualties, the encouragement of a real regional and international alliance to oppose Daesh for starters. Suppression of terrorism with international goals is not always the same as intervention.
You are completely wrong if you think no reckoning on the part of the Obama administration followed the Iraq invasion. Plenty of anti-war activism and politics ensued. Plus, the changes at the top put parts of the problem to rest--Osama bin Laden dead, fewer American casualties, the encouragement of a real regional and international alliance to oppose Daesh for starters. Suppression of terrorism with international goals is not always the same as intervention.
6
American Presidents Rite of Passage: Missiles will do!
Now you can watch the media treatment of Trump not so slowly polish the man up as a national leader of substance. Some historian (Schlesinger ?) once comment that the only presidents that will be remembered are those who went to war.
Who are we?
Now you can watch the media treatment of Trump not so slowly polish the man up as a national leader of substance. Some historian (Schlesinger ?) once comment that the only presidents that will be remembered are those who went to war.
Who are we?
12
Finally someone points out what should have been obvious for years - the lack of accountability for any of the acts of the Bush Administration - the lies about the war, the torture, etc. - has led us directly to Trump and a new round of adventurism.
Imagine if you will how different the world would be had Obama thoroughly investigated and prosecuted the Bush torturers and those who enabled them, the bankers who crashed the economy and the lying liars that brought us Iraq and ISIS. There would be no Trump. There would likely be no McConnell. And there would likely not be much left of the Republican Party.
And the country would be much netter off.
Imagine if you will how different the world would be had Obama thoroughly investigated and prosecuted the Bush torturers and those who enabled them, the bankers who crashed the economy and the lying liars that brought us Iraq and ISIS. There would be no Trump. There would likely be no McConnell. And there would likely not be much left of the Republican Party.
And the country would be much netter off.
46
Obama reacted to Syrian abuse with red lining and reducing our military. Obama's legacy is of course, never was in America's interest.
How Donald Trump and Rex Tillerson take action is their choice. Thank God they are taking action in Syria and with our Navy in Asia Pacific area. President Trump has current conditions to correct with foreign relatiojns and poor-choice Obama actions to correct.
President Trump you have our complete support.
How Donald Trump and Rex Tillerson take action is their choice. Thank God they are taking action in Syria and with our Navy in Asia Pacific area. President Trump has current conditions to correct with foreign relatiojns and poor-choice Obama actions to correct.
President Trump you have our complete support.
Whose complete support? Speak for yourself! Trump is like a broken clock, right twice a day, but still broken. And he broke his promise not to go to war in the Middle East... cost him a lot of supporters already.
10
No, he doesn't. And won't. And Mr. Obama always tried to act in the nation's interest, in the midst of great complexity around the issues. Americans don't want to send more American troops into war—and after Iraq and Afghanistan, they were especially averse to that strategy. What is Trump's overall strategy? I doubt there is one. He'll try to wing it, the way he wings everything because his attention span is fleeting at best. He's impulsive, highly reactive, and emotionally unstable. Not the guy I'll follow into battle.
5
Support with evidence--more than half of those who voted do not. I suggest not using the word "our" when it should be "my." Speak for yourself as Anna suggests.
5
This is a rather sloppy op-ed. Vague statements about "the Iraq war", torture, and "lessons" of history.
Real analysis would begin with at least some general understanding of the US foreign policy since WWII, from occupation of the defeated, to anti-communism, cold war, and certainly including foreign wars from Korea to Vietnam, and all the "interventions" all over the place. It would discuss the history of post-WWII Middle East, including geopolitics (what to do with the defeated there and how to approach the rise of Israel) and oil. Then we can try to understand our complex and contradictory relations with Iran and Iraq leading up to the hostage crisis in Iran, the rise of al Qaeda, and our invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. What a mess! -- and this set up our options.
Only at this point would it be reasonable to bring in Obama's choices and his approach -- no expectation of some blow to an enemy leading to surrender, but a long-term policy of attrition and actually dealing with the underlying issues.
Surrounding all of this is a chorus of cheerleaders and opponents yelling loudly and offering no alternative, except perhaps wishful thinking.
Trump's decision can lead to many possible outcomes. But so far it is not significant, except to show the futility of bombing our way to solutions.
Yes, Trump needs a foreign policy, and maybe indeed getting back on the tracks Obama laid out is a good one, or at least the best given where we are and what the options are.
Real analysis would begin with at least some general understanding of the US foreign policy since WWII, from occupation of the defeated, to anti-communism, cold war, and certainly including foreign wars from Korea to Vietnam, and all the "interventions" all over the place. It would discuss the history of post-WWII Middle East, including geopolitics (what to do with the defeated there and how to approach the rise of Israel) and oil. Then we can try to understand our complex and contradictory relations with Iran and Iraq leading up to the hostage crisis in Iran, the rise of al Qaeda, and our invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. What a mess! -- and this set up our options.
Only at this point would it be reasonable to bring in Obama's choices and his approach -- no expectation of some blow to an enemy leading to surrender, but a long-term policy of attrition and actually dealing with the underlying issues.
Surrounding all of this is a chorus of cheerleaders and opponents yelling loudly and offering no alternative, except perhaps wishful thinking.
Trump's decision can lead to many possible outcomes. But so far it is not significant, except to show the futility of bombing our way to solutions.
Yes, Trump needs a foreign policy, and maybe indeed getting back on the tracks Obama laid out is a good one, or at least the best given where we are and what the options are.
6
Short term memory loss. Americans wanted out of Iraq and Iraq wanted the US and Blackeater out! Congress refused to engage in the Syrian conflict. So what was Obama's fault? He delivered! Trump has no policy but bomb them. And the generals though they were sending a message? No wonder Obama kept them on a short leash. What a waste! No damage justvdrop 59 missiles in the desert! Pathetic! And what is Tillerson doing? Another Exxon deal. Talk tough with the press - schmooze in Russia?
28
This is fun. I'm going to take the blame game some steps farther and add the fact that W Bush, Clinton, and HW Bush also were unwilling (and/or unable) to deal with Iraq. And Reagan's solution (lest we forget) was to build up Saddam's WMD capabilities. For that matter, let's not forget to blame the Brits who decided to call it a country in the first place almost a century ago.
9
"Politicians and intellectuals neglected to ask what would keep the United States from starting a war of aggression in the future"
I'm confused. The writer seems to be using this sentence as the premise of the piece and fails to spend a single sentence towards suggesting exactly how politicians and intellectuals were supposed to accomplish this.
I am a Quaker and my religion has been opposed to all wars for 300 years (I don't share this belief entirely). I was eleven years old when I marched with my family against the Vietnam war in 1963. By the time I was 20 I was looking into registering as a conscientious objector, although it wasn't just my conscience that was objecting.
The American Friend's Service Committee, a Quaker activist peace group, would truly appreciate any serious ideas about how we can avoid wars of aggression in the future. I didn't find a single such suggestion here. Get back to work.
I'm confused. The writer seems to be using this sentence as the premise of the piece and fails to spend a single sentence towards suggesting exactly how politicians and intellectuals were supposed to accomplish this.
I am a Quaker and my religion has been opposed to all wars for 300 years (I don't share this belief entirely). I was eleven years old when I marched with my family against the Vietnam war in 1963. By the time I was 20 I was looking into registering as a conscientious objector, although it wasn't just my conscience that was objecting.
The American Friend's Service Committee, a Quaker activist peace group, would truly appreciate any serious ideas about how we can avoid wars of aggression in the future. I didn't find a single such suggestion here. Get back to work.
8
The American public, during the Obama years, had no stomach left for military adventures. That is understandable; the first decade of this century brought one of the worst foreign policy miscalculations in our history.
But that is no excuse for the attendant desire -- by both the public and our politicians -- to not even think about what we had done. Oh no, we were told, we were not to play a "blame game," we should not become absorbed in "looking at the rearview mirror." We all could pretend it was all over, and sink into what is increasingly becoming the preferred American attitude -- the slumber of thoughtlessness.
Trump's denunciation of the Iraq War allowed everyone to feel good without having to think hard. We could pretend we had learned a lesson even though we had actually done very little difficult self-examination of how out of control we could so easily become.
America seems to just want to go to sleep, and hope nothing is really wrong with us. But the coming decades will produce many global instabilities, from civil wars to famines. But as long as we can Netflix and chill, we seem to be ok with staying as oblivious as possible to what's going on.
But that is no excuse for the attendant desire -- by both the public and our politicians -- to not even think about what we had done. Oh no, we were told, we were not to play a "blame game," we should not become absorbed in "looking at the rearview mirror." We all could pretend it was all over, and sink into what is increasingly becoming the preferred American attitude -- the slumber of thoughtlessness.
Trump's denunciation of the Iraq War allowed everyone to feel good without having to think hard. We could pretend we had learned a lesson even though we had actually done very little difficult self-examination of how out of control we could so easily become.
America seems to just want to go to sleep, and hope nothing is really wrong with us. But the coming decades will produce many global instabilities, from civil wars to famines. But as long as we can Netflix and chill, we seem to be ok with staying as oblivious as possible to what's going on.
7
Trump with no regard to practicality with respect to the past or present said exactly what was needed to get elected. it is pretty obvious by now that he never had nor has any coherent foreign policy in place. What makes it terrifying is the lack of anchors that at least define most people in his position. Simply winging it and acting on instinct are not acceptable parameters in a job that requires careful educated and knowledgable deliberation on a daily basis.
6
Syria or not, Trump isn't even really calling the shots. Inexperienced, non governmental, rich kid, son-in-law is.
Actually, this country is in the hands of Jared Kushner, the opposite of what we visualize as an American soldier. He reminds me of the type that got "deferments" in the Vietnam War while his peers, who were poor and couldn't afford college or braces on their teeth, got sent off to war.
How scary is that?
I can easily picture Kushner putting on his bullet proof vest while trouncing around with the big shots in Iraq, saying to himself, "Man, this is the closest I'm ever going to get to one of these contraptions (thank God)." While at the same time a peer Kushner's age, who Kushner would never know or associate with, would be donning the vest as part of his military deployment.
Those of us who lived the Vietnam era and who had loved ones there look at this whole situation carefully.
I still wonder, why won't Trump take in these gassed Syrian "God's babies" as he calls them? Guess maybe we need to get Jared to the podium one of these days to explain.
Actually, this country is in the hands of Jared Kushner, the opposite of what we visualize as an American soldier. He reminds me of the type that got "deferments" in the Vietnam War while his peers, who were poor and couldn't afford college or braces on their teeth, got sent off to war.
How scary is that?
I can easily picture Kushner putting on his bullet proof vest while trouncing around with the big shots in Iraq, saying to himself, "Man, this is the closest I'm ever going to get to one of these contraptions (thank God)." While at the same time a peer Kushner's age, who Kushner would never know or associate with, would be donning the vest as part of his military deployment.
Those of us who lived the Vietnam era and who had loved ones there look at this whole situation carefully.
I still wonder, why won't Trump take in these gassed Syrian "God's babies" as he calls them? Guess maybe we need to get Jared to the podium one of these days to explain.
46
“I think Donald Trump became president of the United States," said CNN's Fareed Zakaria.
Wow. Takes you all the way back to a few weeks ago: “He became President of the United States in that moment, period,” said CNN's Van Jones. Some people are easily impressed.
Trump giving Assad a slap on the wrist does not amount to a coherent foreign policy. Trump rushing to do what he exhorted Obama to _not_ do does not amount to a coherent anything.
Now, recalling Paul Krugman's column last month, we might wonder, 'Could this be the start?'
When the Fire Comes - Paul Krugman FEB. 10, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/10/opinion/when-the-fire-comes.html
Wow. Takes you all the way back to a few weeks ago: “He became President of the United States in that moment, period,” said CNN's Van Jones. Some people are easily impressed.
Trump giving Assad a slap on the wrist does not amount to a coherent foreign policy. Trump rushing to do what he exhorted Obama to _not_ do does not amount to a coherent anything.
Now, recalling Paul Krugman's column last month, we might wonder, 'Could this be the start?'
When the Fire Comes - Paul Krugman FEB. 10, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/10/opinion/when-the-fire-comes.html
20
This column is deeply flawed. Trump is following President Obama's strategy in the middle east. Our involvement had escalated under President Obama, who was trying to fight ISIS without a major presence on the ground. Therefore, the strategy was to beef up local capabilities rather than invade and occupy. We won't know if the missile strike was effective unless there are no more Sarin attacks, and who knows how long the Syrian conflict will draft on. There really is no path that is a good one here.
6
And it began with Bush. How was Obsna supposed to "fix" his actions? That's like blaming my husband for something I did. And expecting him to make it right.
Ridiculous.
If Obama made any missteps it was not doing more to do something about the previous administration. By investigating it. But let's don't leave out all the other things he had to address like the economy, etc. Obama is an easy target. We are short on memories and long on blaming.
Ridiculous.
If Obama made any missteps it was not doing more to do something about the previous administration. By investigating it. But let's don't leave out all the other things he had to address like the economy, etc. Obama is an easy target. We are short on memories and long on blaming.
1
Yes it is unfortunate that this president will get a bump in his other wise lackluster approval rating over an incident like this one. Yes it is emotionally satisfying to take a poke at Butcher Assad for using poison gas. But lets hope that Il Trumpolini does not develop a taste for actions like this. The missile strike last week may actually help to reinforce the notion that poison gas is a weapon not acceptable for use. At least for awhile. But the caution here is to realize that constant use of it cheapens its value and effect. And with this administration the danger of quickly getting in over our heads is very real.
6
This is a rather shallow view. The was a lot of stuff happening when President Obama took office. The real estate bubble had burst and the country was in the throes of financial crisis. There was this great economic catastrophe aka The Great Recession with companies like General Motors going into bankruptcy. The Iraq war was winding down and President Obama promised to bring it to a close. Egyptians were demonstrating in Cairo and the Mubarak regime was falling. Public attention justifiably focused on the economy.
In my view, truth was the first casualty of the Obama administration. With a Democratic Congress, President Obama should have called for investigations into both the Iraq war and the financial crisis. Instead President Obama chose to chase the chimera of bipartisanship with his Simpson=Bowles Commission. The Republicans, seeing that they would never be publicly chastised for starting the Iraq war and crony capitalism that created The Great Recession, seized the moment and attacked President Obama. Their strategy proved successful. Republicans are now in power and the Democrats have been sidelined.
In my view, truth was the first casualty of the Obama administration. With a Democratic Congress, President Obama should have called for investigations into both the Iraq war and the financial crisis. Instead President Obama chose to chase the chimera of bipartisanship with his Simpson=Bowles Commission. The Republicans, seeing that they would never be publicly chastised for starting the Iraq war and crony capitalism that created The Great Recession, seized the moment and attacked President Obama. Their strategy proved successful. Republicans are now in power and the Democrats have been sidelined.
13
We have destabilized the Middle East, as you quote Trump saying. However, we can lay the blame for that at Bush's feet. President Obama was handed the equivalent of a bomb that could go off in any number of ways. He did as good a job as anyone could in trying to defuse and contain it. This is particularly true given the GOP's disdain for our first black President and its determination to block any success, no matter the cost to the American people, which should go down as one of the most contemptible episodes in our history. Every day I miss President Obama's intelligence and decency.
109
OK, Professors, what, then, is the proper response to the mess that is the Middle East?
97
In the current WH it appears to be better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.
Though '45' hasn't asked for either, I have a hard time seeing Obama being praised had he done similarly in 2013 when 1400 died. Had he, I'm confident that such an act would have been met with impeachment proceedings for him rather than the "praise" being heaped upon his successor.
It's a sorry state when one's understanding and respect for the Constitution, the Office of President and the rules of law makes one weak while complete disregard for all the above makes one strong.
Though '45' hasn't asked for either, I have a hard time seeing Obama being praised had he done similarly in 2013 when 1400 died. Had he, I'm confident that such an act would have been met with impeachment proceedings for him rather than the "praise" being heaped upon his successor.
It's a sorry state when one's understanding and respect for the Constitution, the Office of President and the rules of law makes one weak while complete disregard for all the above makes one strong.
133
Remember that he asked Congress for permission and the rats ran.
11
What terrifies me is that I believe Trump's response to this horrific act by Syria was more of a "knee jerk reaction". I have yet to hear any decisions he has made as well thought out, the beginning, middle and the end.
In today's world the balance of world power is a very fragile and;
"On January 26, 2017 - The Doomsday Clock struck two and a half minutes to annihilation today, the closest it has ever been since 1953 ".
Yes,I am terrified for I have no faith in his leadership for I see his motto as being ..."Might is Right".
In today's world the balance of world power is a very fragile and;
"On January 26, 2017 - The Doomsday Clock struck two and a half minutes to annihilation today, the closest it has ever been since 1953 ".
Yes,I am terrified for I have no faith in his leadership for I see his motto as being ..."Might is Right".
14
I wonder how many of the president's faithful will feel if their sons and daughters are deployed to Syria to fight in a civil war of which they know little and have no stake in. This isn't mere schoolyard posturing or bullying, it's a commitment to meddling in foreign affairs, the consequences of which are yet unknown but yet quite ominous.
Syria has the backing of Vladimir Putin which puts America on a collision course with Russia. Repealing and replacing the ACA is one thing but a military face-off against a super power to influence the outcome of a never-ending civil war endangers the safety and well-being of all Americans.
Syria has the backing of Vladimir Putin which puts America on a collision course with Russia. Repealing and replacing the ACA is one thing but a military face-off against a super power to influence the outcome of a never-ending civil war endangers the safety and well-being of all Americans.
73
The "president's" faithful would let him shoot their children on 5th Ave. and still vote for him.
5
Alas, too few will actually have a son or daughter in the fight, thanks to the successful post-Vietnam political ploy that is the all-volunteer military.
Americans despise the idea of conscription, with good reason. But at least under conscription enough of them were personally affected by the war in Vietnam to generate mass public protest against the war.
The all-volunteer military very neatly severs that connection, leaving politicians and generals free to pursue war wherever, whenever, and however they wish. The only "responsibility" left to (literally) the 99 percent of Americans who do not serve in the military is to cheer every missile fired, place a yellow-ribbon magnet on the SUV, and reflexively refer to all who serve in the military as "heroes" (which those who serve in the military know to be utter horse manure).
Americans despise the idea of conscription, with good reason. But at least under conscription enough of them were personally affected by the war in Vietnam to generate mass public protest against the war.
The all-volunteer military very neatly severs that connection, leaving politicians and generals free to pursue war wherever, whenever, and however they wish. The only "responsibility" left to (literally) the 99 percent of Americans who do not serve in the military is to cheer every missile fired, place a yellow-ribbon magnet on the SUV, and reflexively refer to all who serve in the military as "heroes" (which those who serve in the military know to be utter horse manure).
4
To use one of President Trump's favorite introductory phrases, "I've heard reports that":
This missile strike was of virtually no military significance, and its symbolism is open to a wide variety of interpretations by friends and foes alike. It is by no means a policy statement.
The strike, at a minimum, cost the U.S. taxpayers something like $70,000,000. This may be chump change to the Pentagon, but it would cover the basic travel and security costs for about 23 of President Trump's Mar-a-Lago getaways. (Does anyone no the total costs--including expenses for accompanying staff, for communications set ups, etc.?)
The policy of having no consistent policy is itself a policy, and frequently the worst of all.
President Trump as a business man, as a candidate and now as president has a history, of using misinformation and misdirection to further his own primarily self-serving ends. He has shredded his credibility. Is it any wonder that many suspect that the missile strike was chiefly motivated by Trump's desire to deflect attention from his other numerous problems?
The American citizenry is now saddled with "A Little President Who Cries 'Wolf!'" whenever it serves his deflective purposes.
As Lt. Commander Queeg was to the U.S.S. Caine, so is President Trump to the U.S.A.
I've heard these reports. They're out their. Honest.
This missile strike was of virtually no military significance, and its symbolism is open to a wide variety of interpretations by friends and foes alike. It is by no means a policy statement.
The strike, at a minimum, cost the U.S. taxpayers something like $70,000,000. This may be chump change to the Pentagon, but it would cover the basic travel and security costs for about 23 of President Trump's Mar-a-Lago getaways. (Does anyone no the total costs--including expenses for accompanying staff, for communications set ups, etc.?)
The policy of having no consistent policy is itself a policy, and frequently the worst of all.
President Trump as a business man, as a candidate and now as president has a history, of using misinformation and misdirection to further his own primarily self-serving ends. He has shredded his credibility. Is it any wonder that many suspect that the missile strike was chiefly motivated by Trump's desire to deflect attention from his other numerous problems?
The American citizenry is now saddled with "A Little President Who Cries 'Wolf!'" whenever it serves his deflective purposes.
As Lt. Commander Queeg was to the U.S.S. Caine, so is President Trump to the U.S.A.
I've heard these reports. They're out their. Honest.
8
What about the strawberry ice cream?
It is far too early to evaluate the effectiveness of Trump's
strikes against Assad. Tillerson will go to Russia and
see what he can do gain cooperation. AS Noam Chomsky
said in a recent interview trying to improve relations with
Russia was one of Trumps strong points. Thanks to the Democrats that possibility got squashed with their
emphasis on using a Trump / Russian connection as an excuse
for losing the election. Trump's goal to move towards serious efforts to reduce growing and dangerous tensions on the Russian border, where they could blow up. was one of his
strong points. That now seems lost.
strikes against Assad. Tillerson will go to Russia and
see what he can do gain cooperation. AS Noam Chomsky
said in a recent interview trying to improve relations with
Russia was one of Trumps strong points. Thanks to the Democrats that possibility got squashed with their
emphasis on using a Trump / Russian connection as an excuse
for losing the election. Trump's goal to move towards serious efforts to reduce growing and dangerous tensions on the Russian border, where they could blow up. was one of his
strong points. That now seems lost.
5
Even the crazy Boris Johnson cancelled his trip to Russia. But being the good Exxon man, Tillerson will go. One problem: Putin won't meet with him. And just 2 years ago he gave Tillerson a medal. Insanse or insane?
6
When Professor's Moyn and Wertheim compare the rather frequent use of torture by hundreds of individuals in the military and civilian agencies under Bush, to Obama's personal approval of drone assassinations, it is an egregious false equivalency. Obama personally officiated at the adversarially structured vetting of any intended drone target he approved, like Anwar al Awlaki. The professors overstate the Iraq war as a dispositive campaign issue, and their assertion that we have failred to "reckon with" the Iraq debacle, ignores the elephant in the mind of every American military strategist. Donald Trump's decision to hit the Shayrat airbase with Tomahawk missiles, was not part of any overall strategy shift, it was Trump's visceral response to what he saw on T.V., He and the dissembling Sean Spicer will never admit it, but we all know it's the absolute truth. Sui generis decisions can not become the paradigm of American foreign policy.
40
The US never reflected on the lessons of the Vietnam War--all we did was adopt two immoral policies:
1. No war unless the opponent is a pushover and we can be guaranteed a parade at the end.
2. No rich kids need to participate.
Our entire foreign policy is bankrupt and driven by the Pentagon. No bipartisan agreement on anything, and there hasn't been since Vietnam. So we will continue to blunder our way along. Hopefully that's all that Trump will do, and will leave his finger off the nuclear button when Nort Korea continues to thumb its nose at him and China.
1. No war unless the opponent is a pushover and we can be guaranteed a parade at the end.
2. No rich kids need to participate.
Our entire foreign policy is bankrupt and driven by the Pentagon. No bipartisan agreement on anything, and there hasn't been since Vietnam. So we will continue to blunder our way along. Hopefully that's all that Trump will do, and will leave his finger off the nuclear button when Nort Korea continues to thumb its nose at him and China.
21
By his lies and deflective manipulations, President Trump has shredded whatever credibility he may have once had.
A policy of having no policy is itself a policy--and frequently the worst of all.
Or is Trump's foreign policy actually: "Let's make foreign leaders--both allies and foes--as impulsive, unbalanced and unhinged as I am."
We have never elected a president like Trump. Many persons--his ghostwriter, numerous psychologists and psychiatrists who have observed his public behavior, liberal and conservative columnists, and persons such as myself who have had years of experience dealing with malignant narcissists within our own families--view Trump as extremely self-centered, erratic and flawed.
The man is not morally, intellectually or psychologically fit to serve as president. The thought of such an amoral and disturbed individual having any say in the launching of nuclear weapons should fill us all with dread. Unfortunately Trump possesses full presidential authority to do so.
We are now aboard the U.S./U.S.S. Caine, with President Trump/Lt. Commander Queeg at the helm.
Perhaps our congressional representatives, especially the few remaining "moderate" Republicans, should take a cue from the crew of the U.S.S. Caine.
What good is the Twenty-Fifth Amendment if nobody is willing to use it?
A policy of having no policy is itself a policy--and frequently the worst of all.
Or is Trump's foreign policy actually: "Let's make foreign leaders--both allies and foes--as impulsive, unbalanced and unhinged as I am."
We have never elected a president like Trump. Many persons--his ghostwriter, numerous psychologists and psychiatrists who have observed his public behavior, liberal and conservative columnists, and persons such as myself who have had years of experience dealing with malignant narcissists within our own families--view Trump as extremely self-centered, erratic and flawed.
The man is not morally, intellectually or psychologically fit to serve as president. The thought of such an amoral and disturbed individual having any say in the launching of nuclear weapons should fill us all with dread. Unfortunately Trump possesses full presidential authority to do so.
We are now aboard the U.S./U.S.S. Caine, with President Trump/Lt. Commander Queeg at the helm.
Perhaps our congressional representatives, especially the few remaining "moderate" Republicans, should take a cue from the crew of the U.S.S. Caine.
What good is the Twenty-Fifth Amendment if nobody is willing to use it?
58
Andrew, Trump never did have credibility.
1
I said "whatever credibility he MAY have once had." Surely we must grant some credibility to his crying for food and perhaps even cuddling when he was an actual, and not just metaphorical, infant?
Maybe Obama thought the US should not be the self-designated policeman of the world. Maybe Obama realized our glass house was built from our greed, as we have dropped more bombs than any other country in the world and we have used more resources than any other people in the world. And we have elected as President, the most dangerous man in the world.
107
The Iraq War was strange on a number of fronts: does anyone know how many Iraqi's died as a result of our invasion? Do you remember any footage of them dying? Because the answer to the question 'why do they hate us?' may be buried in that un-viewed footage, which I imagine is rather prominent on ISIS propaganda websites. Other than that, I have little to add to the authors point, except to note the profound lack of any kind of expertise in the Trump administration. You can claim Obama papered-over our lack of protocol in foreign engagement, but you can't claim he didn't have expert advice and often took it. Trump seems unwilling even to hire such experts: his State Dept remains a hollow shell. Sooner or later, flying blind will come back to bite. One cautionary lesson of the Iraq invasion is that when you staff up with worldly incuriousness, your foreign policy ends up 'led' by the same foreigners you dismiss as inscrutable and beneath your understanding.
13
As a leader, you cannot just think of the decisions you make, you also have to think about the consequences of them.
People have the dumb belief that Obama was a coward because he didn't strike Syria, me I don't think so. Obama just thought it true, he wasn't reckless.
To start a war a Syria was dangerous, because that's exactly what got the United States in the Afghanistan and Iraq messes in the first place: Wars executed with next to no planning.
People have the dumb belief that Obama was a coward because he didn't strike Syria, me I don't think so. Obama just thought it true, he wasn't reckless.
To start a war a Syria was dangerous, because that's exactly what got the United States in the Afghanistan and Iraq messes in the first place: Wars executed with next to no planning.
8
Professors Moyn and Wertheim,
What is your thesis in this short article? This reader isn't clear.
After Vietnam the US learned nothing I could discern. One drove across the country and found nothing changed: mindless nationalism, exceptionalism, denial. No maturity: one had the sense of having paid high tuition and learnt nothing. Thus the absurd, murderous, military response to the murders of 911, which has indeed upset the Middle East. As to recent Syrian horror: Obama responds to '13 sarin attack & it stops, gormless Trump arrives & signals he won't act, three days later Assad uses sarin again, Trump immediately reverses to cover his blunder.
What is your thesis in this short article? This reader isn't clear.
After Vietnam the US learned nothing I could discern. One drove across the country and found nothing changed: mindless nationalism, exceptionalism, denial. No maturity: one had the sense of having paid high tuition and learnt nothing. Thus the absurd, murderous, military response to the murders of 911, which has indeed upset the Middle East. As to recent Syrian horror: Obama responds to '13 sarin attack & it stops, gormless Trump arrives & signals he won't act, three days later Assad uses sarin again, Trump immediately reverses to cover his blunder.
172
No one is clear what this article is about, I would venture to say not even the writers.,
6
PS: And the 'policy' for the Vietnam disaster was provided by Ike's 'domino effect principle', proved by history to be fantasy.
2
I think Moyn and Wertheim are on to something. Between the fall of Saigon and the invasion of Grenada, 8 years went by because the US was so reluctant to use its military. It is impossible to imagine 8 years of peace today.
It's the frightening normalcy of this event that's truly scary. A first shot across the bow. No one knows where it will lead.
$100,000,000. was spent blowing up an airfield which is back in service three days later. And it looks like it was worth every penny to those who understand warfare: The legitimization of madmen. Meanwhile, there’s clear eyed, resolute, colloquy, from otherwise sane people who love their children, over the merits of an act that may yet lead to WWIII
As Einstein said. “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
$100,000,000. was spent blowing up an airfield which is back in service three days later. And it looks like it was worth every penny to those who understand warfare: The legitimization of madmen. Meanwhile, there’s clear eyed, resolute, colloquy, from otherwise sane people who love their children, over the merits of an act that may yet lead to WWIII
As Einstein said. “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
206
"It fell to Mr. Trump to recognize the war as a disaster that warranted meaningful change. America’s great mistake was to confuse his political calculation with wisdom."
Professor Moyn and Mr. Wertheim, what are you writing? Your column is some kind of faint praise for Donald Trump as a statesman, a diplomat, a seer of vast intellect and probity? It seems like your column is the flip-side of "it's Obama's fault."
Gentlemen, President Obama saw Syria for what it was. The same cannot be said for his successor. He bombed the Syrian airfield because he needed a win for his base. It was a statement strike; Bashar al-Assad's gassing of his own citizens was a lifeline tossed to the struggling president who now, on the Right, it seen as some kind of hero, the 59 missiles deployed having redeemed him of grievous failures in his first 2 1/2 months in office.
Vietnam taught Americans well; it's a thousand pities that Trump avoided it. If he had signed up to fight the useless war, perhaps he'd have a broader, more mature perspective on the horrors of war. And speaking of the Middle East, no friend to America, Israel's (military and material) dominance there notwithstanding, President Obama was wise enough to see the region as a trap, an endless house of horrors with smoke and distorted mirrors obscuring the way and confusing thought.
Vietnam's valuable lesson was this: America is not invincible, and never was. Trump will deepen our engagement to paper over his failures. Book that.
Professor Moyn and Mr. Wertheim, what are you writing? Your column is some kind of faint praise for Donald Trump as a statesman, a diplomat, a seer of vast intellect and probity? It seems like your column is the flip-side of "it's Obama's fault."
Gentlemen, President Obama saw Syria for what it was. The same cannot be said for his successor. He bombed the Syrian airfield because he needed a win for his base. It was a statement strike; Bashar al-Assad's gassing of his own citizens was a lifeline tossed to the struggling president who now, on the Right, it seen as some kind of hero, the 59 missiles deployed having redeemed him of grievous failures in his first 2 1/2 months in office.
Vietnam taught Americans well; it's a thousand pities that Trump avoided it. If he had signed up to fight the useless war, perhaps he'd have a broader, more mature perspective on the horrors of war. And speaking of the Middle East, no friend to America, Israel's (military and material) dominance there notwithstanding, President Obama was wise enough to see the region as a trap, an endless house of horrors with smoke and distorted mirrors obscuring the way and confusing thought.
Vietnam's valuable lesson was this: America is not invincible, and never was. Trump will deepen our engagement to paper over his failures. Book that.
265
I agree, in some quarters of MSM and of the public there is this silly notion that Syria could be fixed right now if only "the right strategy was adopted". Demand for "fix it now" are popping up here and there. The 'red line' is to blame because it it is much easier to latch on something concrete rather than to understand the vast complexity of the ME.
Obama realized that this is a project for a generation, at least, and acted accordingly. Can one call it a strategy? I don't think American public can comprehend perspective that is that long.
Obama realized that this is a project for a generation, at least, and acted accordingly. Can one call it a strategy? I don't think American public can comprehend perspective that is that long.
1
The missile attack was closely related to the Syrian chemical attack. What it shows is that the US will not tolerate similar attacks. It also may be a planned way to remove attention from the many scandals and failures that besiege Trump and his administration. Nothing more. As it turns out, Syria returned to bombing the same place with conventional arms, with no further reaction from Trump.
At best, the warning is don't use chemical weapons and we will stay out. It's something, but it doesn't solve anything. The killing goes on. We have to wait to see what are the consequences, if any, of the US action. The situation is very complex, the players are many, the interests are varied, the relationships prickly. There is nothing in either Trump or his inexperienced and truncated State Department to indicate a minimal capacity to deal with it.
At best, the warning is don't use chemical weapons and we will stay out. It's something, but it doesn't solve anything. The killing goes on. We have to wait to see what are the consequences, if any, of the US action. The situation is very complex, the players are many, the interests are varied, the relationships prickly. There is nothing in either Trump or his inexperienced and truncated State Department to indicate a minimal capacity to deal with it.
44
This article is dishonest.
"By JESSE J. HOLLAND Associated Press
My feed
WASHINGTON
Former Obama administration officials are pushing back against criticism of the former president, saying they proposed similar airstrikes in Syria to the ones President Donald Trump ordered this week, but were stymied by a Republican-controlled Congress reluctant to go along with the Democratic president's plan.
This comes after Trump ordered the missile strikes against Syria without getting congressional approval, determined to punish the Syrian government for the use of chemical weapons against civilians.
Trump laid part of the blame for the chemical attack on former President Barack Obama, saying the deaths were a "consequence of the past administration's weakness and irresolution."
ADVERTISING
Republicans, however, who controlled Congress then as they do now, were adamant that Obama should not act without their approval, Obama aides said. Trump also had called for Obama to get congressional approval before any attack on Syria.
"Once you put it in Congress's hand, it became clear at that time that they were not ready to assume responsibility," said Dennis Ross, a former Obama administration adviser on the Middle East. "But the problem wasn't that Congress wasn't seen as lacking in responsibility, it was that the president was seen as having drawn a 'red line' and when it came time to act on it, he didn't and that had an impact on the way the U.S. was seen in the aftermath."
"By JESSE J. HOLLAND Associated Press
My feed
WASHINGTON
Former Obama administration officials are pushing back against criticism of the former president, saying they proposed similar airstrikes in Syria to the ones President Donald Trump ordered this week, but were stymied by a Republican-controlled Congress reluctant to go along with the Democratic president's plan.
This comes after Trump ordered the missile strikes against Syria without getting congressional approval, determined to punish the Syrian government for the use of chemical weapons against civilians.
Trump laid part of the blame for the chemical attack on former President Barack Obama, saying the deaths were a "consequence of the past administration's weakness and irresolution."
ADVERTISING
Republicans, however, who controlled Congress then as they do now, were adamant that Obama should not act without their approval, Obama aides said. Trump also had called for Obama to get congressional approval before any attack on Syria.
"Once you put it in Congress's hand, it became clear at that time that they were not ready to assume responsibility," said Dennis Ross, a former Obama administration adviser on the Middle East. "But the problem wasn't that Congress wasn't seen as lacking in responsibility, it was that the president was seen as having drawn a 'red line' and when it came time to act on it, he didn't and that had an impact on the way the U.S. was seen in the aftermath."
17
The extreme partisanship is crippling US foreign policies now. American public is unable to make a determination on what is right and what is wrong, and reacts mostly along emotional rather than rational lines. Now is really the low point of US foreign policy.
Given complexity and volatility of the Middle East it is foolish to expect that the single strike would change anything. Overall 'fix it now' strategy was missing all along not because it has been impossible to come up with one, but because it is the locals who should take charge, it requires patience, and could take a generation to fix. Demands to fix Syria now, and with American military, is the most dangerous thing to do right now.
Given complexity and volatility of the Middle East it is foolish to expect that the single strike would change anything. Overall 'fix it now' strategy was missing all along not because it has been impossible to come up with one, but because it is the locals who should take charge, it requires patience, and could take a generation to fix. Demands to fix Syria now, and with American military, is the most dangerous thing to do right now.
1
Between Iraq and a hard place
War in Syria we now face,
Once Dove turned Hawk
Hear the Trumped up fierce talk,
Amazing but devoid of Grace.
War in Syria we now face,
Once Dove turned Hawk
Hear the Trumped up fierce talk,
Amazing but devoid of Grace.
33
In your "more terrifying future" you fail to mention the very disconcerting reality of Kim Jong Un, Assad and Putin - all thugs, murderers, and/or madmen - about to collide with our very own mental midget, who used zero restraint in dropping bombs on Syria. While you're looking in the rear view mirror, the looming disaster is ahead. The magnitude of which may very likely make Vietnam pale in comparison.