WarSclerotic

Obama seeking Western legitimacy, but Arabs see him as weak – Diplomacy & Defense Israel News Broadcast | Haaretz.

Obama’s handling of the Syria issue does not inspire confidence regarding U.S. support of Israel in the event of a showdown with Iran.

President Barak Obama during his address to the nation on Saturday. Photo by AP

Legitimacy is more important than timing – that was U.S. President Barack Obama’s main message in his speech last night, when he apparently postponed the American punitive attack on Syria by a few weeks. In retrospect, it seems that the moment the international coalition he tried to create for taking military action became shaky, especially after the failure of British Prime Minister David Cameron to obtain his parliament’s approval, Obama sought an alternative. Now, as someone who objected to his predecessor George W. Bush embarking on the war in Iraq, he is trying to draft political support at home for a much smaller, focused strike in Syria.

Obama has not sounded very persuasive over the past few days. On Friday evening his secretary of state, John Kerry, came across as determined when he presented the reasons and abundant evidence that the Assad regime used chemical weapons in neighborhoods of eastern Damascus on August 21 (the evidence certainly seems much stronger than the dubious proof with which Bush launched the Iraq war in 2003). Obama, appearing a few hours later, seemed pale and hesitant. His better speech last night at the White House announced the change: the path to Syria passes through Congress.

Obama is now being taken to task by those who say that he is soft, and praised by American opponents of a strike. But it is no less important to see how his conduct is perceived in the Arab world, and this is not so hard to guess: Obama is seen as weak, hesitant and vacillating.

American hesitance, which was reflected in the lively debate in the U.S. media even before Obama’s speech last night, stems not only from other unfortunate precedents that began with good will. It also stems from the fear that this time the United States has embarked on a mission without clear strategy, except for the desire to settle accounts with the dictator Assad and get out of the region as quickly as possible. The administration explains at length that it does not want to oust the current regime in Syria. At best, an effective strike will persuade Assad that the use of chemical weapons puts his regime at risk (an understanding Assad did not assimilate after Obama’s previous statements about red lines).
The worst-case scenarios are many: Assad could be unimpressed and continue slaughtering his adversaries; chemical weapons could find their way into even less desirable hands following a strike, such as Hezbollah or offshoots of Al-Qaida; the regime could conclude that humiliation inflicted by the Americans requires a suitable response in the form of a missile strike against Turkey, Jordan or Israel.

From Israel’s perspective, Obama’s announcement means that alerts will probably be dialed back in the army’s Northern Command, the Intelligence Corps and the Israel Air Force, and hundreds of reservists called up by special order will be released.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration’s conduct gives us insight into the strategic challenge posed by Iran’s nuclear program. From an Israeli point of view, the conclusion is far from encouraging. The theory that the U.S. will come to Israel’s aid at the last minute, and attack Iran to lift the nuclear threat, seems less and less likely.

Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin, head of Tel Aviv University’s National Institute for Security Studies, yesterday mentioned the exchange of letters between U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey and U.S. senators. The Americans invest billions of dollars a year in their defense budget and they have the strongest air force in the world. And yet, Dempsey was explaining to the senators why the challenges of Syria’s air defenses are too much for America to handle.

American concern over the unknown consequences of boots on the ground are understandable. Their ground forces are exhausted after 12 years of missions in Afghanistan and Iraq. But the two forces that would attack in Syria, the air force and the navy, have not been as burned by the recent wars in the Mideast. With the U.S. administration’s year of hesitancy since Assad first deployed chemical weapons, American difficulty in building an international coalition for a strike in Syria, and Dempsey’s excuses, it’s no wonder that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is becoming increasingly persuaded that no one will come to his aid if Iran suddenly announces that it is beginning to enrich uranium to 90 percent.

In Israel, even the limited alert of the past few days, in the face of a threat considered unlikely to materialize, shows that the home front is not as prepared as it should be. The crowds at the gas mask distribution stations reminded us of an old fact, that only 60 percent of Israelis have masks, and that there are only enough masks in stock for a small part of the rest of the population.

The Home Front Defense Ministry should not be blamed for this, for the simple reason that it has not been given the necessary authority to act. But how will Israel look in the face of a massive missile and rocket attack? In the seven years since the Second Lebanon War, major efforts have been invested in improving home front readiness. We should hope that the developments of the past few days will not put that readiness to the test.

This entry was posted on September 1, 2013 at 6:38 AM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.