"Let me be perfectly clear...make no mistake about it": Syria Edition

[kentonio]

No..look at the order of things. Establish the reality on the ground first and then the UN resolution will easily follow. Look to Iraq for the example.

Iraq wasn't a close Russian ally. Why would Russia allow a resolution to pass against one of it's allies?

As Dinner points out Iran have also dug in over it. Syria isn't just one little country you can walk in and ****kick, the wider consequences are potentially very dangerous. Which would explain why Obama has chosen to take the path he has.

[kentonio]

It's getting cut because the only way the MoD can avoid going broke is by cutting key programs. There is no other reason that you would be cutting an aircraft that is absolutely essential to ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Africa.

Don't be stupid, we're planning for a future defense strategy that hopefully doesn't involve adventures like Afghanistan and Libya. While both have their reasons, let's not forget the only reason the UK is in Afghanistan was acting as an ally to you guys. Your endless contempt and disrespect towards your allies has not however gone unnoticed, and next time you may find yourselves with a few less friends willing to help.

UAVs are a game-changer in aerial surveillance because they have very, very long loiter time.

Yep, and in time airforces will doubtless move more and more in that direction. Pointing at an airforce having 10 of them and going 'Ha! you can't do aerial surveillance!' is stupid though. The world managed pretty well for the nearly a century before they came along.

Russians have EW too, I'm talking about in NATO, where the capability gap between the aging Tornadoes and our aircraft is huge.

You mean until the F-35 variants come online?

[regexcellent]

Yes, he did but then Iran countered by saying it would go to war with anyone who attacked Syria so that kind of changed the math, didn't it?

Is it worth a two front war especially since no one even knows who set off the gas to begin with? It could have been the government or it could have been rebels with captured canisters. We don't know and short of proof positive as to who did it, well, it seems a bit premature to launch a multifront war, doesn't it?

Obama made an ultimatum, now he has to follow up on it or look weak. Maybe the ultimatum wasn't a smart idea.

[Dinner]

Okay, I'll bite.

1.) Identify pro U.S. Rebels
2.) Arm pro U.S. rebels with real weapons
3.) Designate "safe areas" for civilians in pro U.S. rebels area of control
4.) Establish a "no fly-no enter" zone around "safe areas". Agressively attack regime forces entering or flying in "Safe areas" using air power
5.) Airdrop tons of food and medicine wherever there is a need
6.) Introduce UN resolution calling for UN take over of "safe areas" once regime forces in area are neutralized.
7.) Do not put boots on the ground unless chemical weapons sites seem likely to be compromised. Organize international force (including Russian troops) to be on stand by to secure chemical weapons. Introduce UN resolution to authorize force for this purpose alone.

How's that?

1) There really aren't any pro-US rebels. The best we'll get is people who don't actively want to kill Americans and attack Israel vs ones which do want to do both of those things.
2) Terrible idea as they'll just eventually end up in the hands of people like the Taliban just like when Reagan flooded Afghanistan with weapons.
3) Do you not remember what happened in Bosnia? Assad already has proven he doesn't give a crap what anyone else says so what happens when he attacks a "safe area"? We'd either have to go full on invasion or ignore it like what happened in Bosnia neither of those are good options especially since neither Russia nor China would let the UN set up such safe areas so really it would only be based upon the US's unilateral demands which, naturally, many other nations would oppose simply as a matter of sovereignty. No one wants the US making unsanctioned declarations about other people's territory.
4) This might, I repeat, might be possible if either Turkey or Iraq agree to give us basing rights (I already know Iraq will not) but they'd have to worry about attacks, even terrorist attacks, from Iran and Syria so I doubt even our Turkish friends would be keen with the idea. Lebanon is Assad's butt buddy so they're out and that just leaves Cyprus where the UK does have a small base but it's not huge and certainly couldn't host a large force. Maybe Jordan might want to help but I some how doubt it; it's one thing to train rebels secretly and another to host the big bad evil foreign imperialists if you know what I mean.
5) Sure, why not. We're already a big relief aid supplier and we might get some limited good will out of this.
6) It wouldn't get past Russia or China.
7) The problem is you'll get sucked in just as soon as Assad fires artillery into your self declared "safe zone" so either you put boots on the ground (who will become magnets for terrorists just like the Lebanon bombing under Reagan) or you just steer clear.

Our best option is very limited air strikes to show our symbolic disapprove, drop some food and medical supplies, and then call it a day. No weapons for Muslim fundamentalists and no boots on the ground nor the creation of any unsanctioned "safe areas" which we'd have to defend.

[Docfeelgood]

As long as they keep that **** over there and keep killing only each other, I don't care what they do to each other.

[Aeson]

The use of chemical weapons by Syria would be a game changer. - Obama. No, wait, I didn't really mean that. - Obama after chemical weapons are used.

What would you call this?

A bluff that got called. Waffling. Something along those lines. And really, this is the most that POTUS should have done in this case. There was a chance that rhetoric or specific types of embargoes could help stop horrible things from happening so why not try?

In any case, it is quite different than "condoning".

[DinoDoc]

so why not try?

US Credibility? If POTUS had no intention of following through on his threat, he shouldn't have made it.

[Aeson]

US Credibility? If POTUS had no intention of following through on his threat, he shouldn't have made it.

Bluffing has risks and rewards. It's obviously sometimes worth doing. In this case we are dealing with a situation where there could have been some impact from rhetoric, and short of all-out genocide we aren't getting (and shouldn't get) involved. Syria can't go "Hitler" on anyone as they can't even take care of their own rebels yet, and if they tried to invade Isreal they would be ass-raped within days. So worrying about that possibility is just absurdly stupid.

The worst that can come of this is that other places we aren't going to invade look at it and say, "Hey, we could gas our own citizens on a small scale too!" Which of course they could do anyways. If this actually did happen, it would suggest bluffing did work for a while in those cases.

In any case, it's not clear to me he hasn't followed through on his threat (he didn't give a specific time-frame or action for response), or even that his line has been crossed. Obama had said the red line was when "a whole bunch" of chemical weapons were being used. (Perhaps at other times he said something else, I can't be assed to look into it further ... this was from back in August.)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443713704577601820343918852.html

"A red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moved around or being utilized," Mr. Obama said. "That would change my calculations significantly."

It's not as much a waffle as I was thinking it was initially. The difference between "a whole bunch" and "systematic" is entirely up to interpretation. Likely the choice of words was intentionally nebulous to allow Obama to keep initiative in the matter.

[Dinner]

Not to mention DD is complaining but we still don't know who actually used it or even if they were actually used or if artillery just hit a building which contained some canisters. The rebels say the government did it, the government says the rebels did it, some witnesses say it came from a damaged bunker... In short, if we're going to go to war over something we better be damn sure someone actually did something and know who it was. That hasn't happened yet.

It seems some people haven't learned the lesson from Iraq about going off half cocked.

[DinoDoc]

So worrying about that possibility is just absurdly stupid.

The vulnerable US ally here is Jordan, not Israel.

[Aeson]

The vulnerable US ally here is Jordan, not Israel.

Again, absurdly stupid. It doesn't matter who Syria invaded, they could only do it if we wanted to let them. (Assuming they even could take on whoever they invaded ... which is doubtful given that Syria can't even occupy it's own territory at this time.)

[DinoDoc]

Again, absurdly stupid. It doesn't matter who Syria invaded, they could only do it if we wanted to let them. (Assuming they even could take on whoever they invaded ... which is doubtful given that Syria can't even occupy it's own territory at this time.)

They don't need to invade for the war to threaten the Jordanian government. The refugees themselves present a crisis for the government given the problems they have already.

[Aeson]

They don't need to invade for the war to threaten the Jordanian government. The refugees themselves present a crisis for the government given the problems they have already.

Completely irrelevant to what you responded to, which was pointing out how absurd Zev's comparison to Hitler was.

[Zevico]

I'm not saying Syria will "go Hitler" as you put it.

I am saying that Hitler was led to believe that his reckless behaviour would pay dividends for him because of French and English unwillingness to act against him; to follow their own red lines.

That general observation about how nations (not just Hitler) behave is applicable here. When the Americans fail to follow through on their threats, dictators, not just in Syria but everywhere are more inclined to believe that they will not follow through on other threats, whether that assessment is correct in fact or not.

[DinoDoc]

Completely irrelevant to what you responded to,

I responded to a post responding to me. I'm not Zev and the word Hitler hasn't been posted by me in this thread until now of course.