syria: their war, not ours

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Chronicles: syria: their war, not ours

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By:Pat Buchanan | August 30, 2016

 

The debacle that is U.S. Syria policy is today on naked display.

 

NATO ally Turkey and U.S.-backed Arab rebels this weekend attacked our most effective allies against ISIS, the Syrian Kurds.

 

Earlier in August, U.S. planes threatened to shoot down Syrian planes over Hasakeh, and our Iraq-Syria war commander, Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, issued a warning to Syria and Russia against any further air strikes around the city.

 

Who authorized Gen. Townsend to threaten to shoot down Syrian or Russian planes—in Syria?

 

When did Congress authorize an American war in Syria? Is the Constitution now inoperative?

 

That we are sinking into a civil war where we sometimes seem to be fighting both sides is a tribute to the fecklessness of the Barack Obama-John Kerry foreign policy and the abdication of a Congress that refuses to either name our real enemy or authorize our deepening involvement.

 

Our Congress appears again to have abdicated its war powers.

 

Consider the forces that have turned Syria into a charnel house with 400,000 dead and millions injured, maimed and uprooted.

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Thucydides All Over Again

by Kori Schake

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

 

Image credit:

Poster Collection, GR 42, Hoover Institution Archives.

President Obama recently said the war in Syria “haunts me constantly.” It ought to. Because the killing of more than a half million of Syria’s people by their government, Iran, Russia, and ISIS will cast a long shadow over the legacy of the Obama administration.

 

Especially because this devastation results from the success of the Obama doctrine, not its failure.

 

The Obama doctrine—as outlined by the President and his amanuenses Ben Rhodes and Derek Chollet—emphasizes retrenchment:

disengage from the Middle East, shift greater responsibility for security outcomes to allies, “nation build here at home,” and “take the long view,” which means not over-committing to near-term problems. In their eyes, Libya is a success story because America limited its role and affixed responsibility for Libya’s failure onto Europeans. Syria, too, is a success story—the best decision of his administration in President Obama’s opinion—because the President did not get sucked into “owning” a problem that would demand long-term American involvement.

http://www.hoover.org/research/thucydides-all-over-again