(01-05-2020 01:59 AM)mrbig Wrote: For what it is worth; I have heard quite a few Obama people talk about how they regret how they handled Syria, including the red line incident (including Rice alum Ben Rhodes). So it was a mistake and they own the mistake. If memory serves, isn’t the problem that Obama drew the red line, Assad crossed the red line (used chemical weapons on civilians), then Obama decided he needed to go to Congress to take the action he wanted, and then Congress did not authorize the action?
We may never know the truth, but I think a more reasonable explanation is that Obama labored under this false impression that all he had to do was say something in people would do it, probably brought on at least in part by the fawning, slobbering approval that his every word received from the US (and world) media. Oh, look, Obama just drew a red line in Syria, now Assad will behave.
When that didn't work, he really didn't have a plan. There have also bees suggestions that Iran threatened to pull out of the nuclear deal negotiations if he enforced it, although those suggestions have been denied (in diplomatic circles, usually an indicator that they are true). According to these suggestions, Obama took it to congress precisely because he knew congress wouldn't approve and therefore he could get off the hook. See:
https://www.businessinsider.com/obama-re...ran-2016-8
This is in contrast to the approach that I have proposed and you have misinterpreted. Obama's red line did not work because Assad didn't believe he meant it. I say make Iran believe we mean it. I am not saying nuke 9 million people, but make Iran work under the assumption that we would--two totally different things. If Iran continues to hassle shipping in the Straits of Hormuz, obliterate the Bandar Abbas base from which those efforts are launched. If that doesn't stop them (and it will at least severely handicap them) then step up the response. Letting them know that we are wiling to step up the response until they comply will at least put the seed of doubt into their mind as to how far we would be willing to go. We need to get rid of the idea of proportionate response. Proportionate response guarantees a tie or draw, otherwise known as a quagmire. We need to play to win, not to tie. Wars don't end in ties--you win or you surrender. Playing to tie means the war never ends.
I know that is a controversial position, and I expect some disagreement with it. While I'm on the controversial tack, I think we need to go a bit further. The only way to win an asymmetric war is to attack the head of the snake. We spent 10 years attacking the snake instead of the head in Vietnam, and we are working on 20 in Afghanistan and Iraq. We need to rethink our policy of not doing military assassinations, and we need to rethink our policy regarding collateral damage. The purpose of going into Afghanistan was not to become an army of occupation, but rather to kill Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar, and as many of their henchmen as we could. Kill from the top down, until they get tired of dying. Instead, we became an army of occupation, which the Brits couldn't make work and the Russians couldn't, so why would we expect to be able to do it? Pretty much the same in Iraq. Go in, kill Sadam, split the country into Kurdistan in the north, Shia Mesopotamia in the east, and Sunni Iraq in the west, the way it should have been done at San Remo, GTFO, and stay TFO. And when Sunni Iraq hooks up with Sunni eastern Syria in a civil war against Shia (Alawite) Assad, let them kill each other. And let Russia get tied down in that quagmire.
I think we need to extricate ourselves from the region. I actually think most of what Trump has done is pointing in that direction. But we can't just go straight from here to there. We shot our way in, sorta, and we probably have to shoot our way out. If we had shot harder going in, maybe the way out would be easier, but we didn't and it's not. Thanks to fracking, we no longer need their oil, so let the countries that do need it--India, China, Japan--figure it out. They can't screw it up worse than we have.
