Perhaps the most useful way to think of this brief comment
is as a postscript to what I wrote yesterday. The media reports on Syria today
are deeply disheartening––frustrating, really. The basic theme is the
realization that the Annan plan has failed, no internal negotiations in Syria
are likely to arise at this point, and that the country is tipping toward a
sectarian civil war that will ramify into neighboring countries. Well, all I
can say is that it sure took them long enough to figure this out.
An accompanying theme refers almost invariably to the lack
of palatable U.S. options in the face of this growing crisis. What none of the
commentary mentions is that we actually did have some options several months
ago, before the crisis reached its current level of potential malignancy. None of these options was foolproof or
risk-free, but there were some (see my suggestion dating from March 6 in this
space). The Obama Administration wasn’t interested, in my view more on the
basis of narrow domestic political considerations than strategic myopia or
cowardice. Once again the apparently unkillable idea that the use of force should
always be a last resort, after diplomacy and economic coercion have been tried (even
General Demsey is quoted to that effect in today’s New York Times, and he is much too smart not to know better) comes
home to roost: Wait long enough in passivity, and many an international
security problem will get worse, often to the point that both passivity and
relatively painless responses become impossible.
By far the most embarrassing remark quoted in today's papers
does not belong to Susan Rice. After all, she must say some of the strange
things she says because she is our representative in Turtle Bay, unquestionably
one of the strangest places on earth. No, the winner of today's most
embarrassing remark is Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough. He is
quoted in this morning's Washington Post
as follows: “It is our belief--and evidence of this is mounting--that putting
monitors into the country is simply not going to stop the violence.”
It is hard to beat that for an all-time super-duper award-winning
BFO (blinding flash of the obvious). It's too bad there's no such award. Maybe
somebody should invent one. Hey, maybe I just did.
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