WarSclerotic

Like many Israelis, I watched with bated breath on Saturday night as U.S. President Barack Obama approached the lectern in the Rose Garden at the White House. The past week in Israel had the tense feeling of a prewar waiting period, with everyone wondering when the U.S. sword would fall on Syria and if there would be retaliatory missile fire at Israel.

The sense that war in the region was imminent grew on Friday night after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry delivered an impassioned and convincing argument that explained why America had the duty to hold the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad accountable for the use of chemical weapons. It seemed clear that the U.S. had crossed the point of no return and cruise missiles would start raining down on military targets in Syria within 24 to 48 hours.

But apparently Obama had a change of heart at some point between Kerry’s address and his own speech in the Rose Garden a day later. As soon as Obama said that he had decided the U.S. “should” take military action against the Assad regime, I knew I could put my gas mask away for at least a week or two. “Should?” That’s not the Churchillian language of a resolute leader about to unleash a powerful military blow against a despicable despot. Rather, it’s the indecisive cop-out of a hesitant politician unwilling to bear responsibility for a risky, but justifiable, decision.

From my couch in Tel Aviv, I swear I could hear Assad laughing from his Damascus palace. Even if the U.S. still ends up striking Syria in a few weeks, the message of deterrence will resonate less than if it had been delivered now (or a week ago).

If the new standard is going to be that Congress has to give prior approval to limited airstrikes that involve no troops on the ground, then tyrants around the world have reason to celebrate. With Congress already barely functional in the U.S. domestic sphere, I cannot imagine it will be able to effectively handle an increase in foreign affairs duties. And what will the criteria for congressional involvement in military decisions be? Will drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen also have to be approved by the Senate and House of Representatives?

National security issues cannot become poker chips in the rancid partisan bickering that defines Washington these days. If the president (who is also the commander-in-chief of the armed forces) determines military action is in the national security interests of the U.S., he must be able to launch an operation in a timely fashion, without being subject to recalcitrant obstructionism of members of the opposing political party who might be seeking retribution against the president over unrelated issues.

Whether one supports a U.S. military strike on Syria or not, it is undeniable that Obama’s decision to pass the buck to Congress exuded weakness. And if no U.S. military action in Syria is ultimately taken, then Obama will have been irrevocably exposed as an emperor with no clothes. Perhaps it was not wise for Obama to set the use of chemical weapons as an unequivocal red line in Syria, but he must live up to his word if he hopes to retain any credibility on the world stage, including in Israel (which has to decide whether to take Obama’s pledge to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons seriously. If Obama cannot be trusted to act militarily against Iran if necessary, then Israel might have to do the job on its own).

It’s almost certain that Obama would not have sought congressional approval for military action had the British House of Commons not rejected U.K. involvement. But U.S. policy should not be guided by the House of Commons vote, which seemed more about exorcising the ghosts of Iraq than anything to do with the current situation in Syria. And by giving Congress a say, Obama has given domestic and international opposition to a U.S. military strike a window of opportunity to coalesce even further.

If Obama takes advantage of the time he bought on Saturday to formulate a comprehensive military and diplomatic plan that both weakens the Assad regime and bolsters moderate elements within the Syrian opposition, then the delay will have been worth it. But if all that transpires is a two-week debate over an eventual two-day cruise missile campaign, then this whole episode will go down in history books as a giant farce. Based on Obama’s foreign policy track record, I fear the latter is the most likely scenario.

For the past four and a half years, I’ve wanted to give Obama the benefit of the doubt, despite his numerous missteps in the international arena. But he lost me on Saturday. America is still the world’s leading superpower and it must act decisively to defend its interests and enforce international norms. If Obama does not want such responsibility on his shoulders, then he’s in the wrong job.

The writer is an Israel Hayom English Edition editor.

via Israel Hayom | The buck stops elsewhere.

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President Barack Obama’s presidency will be forever marred by the events of Saturday. Precisely at the moment when public opinion polls began to shift in favor of a limited and well-defined punitive strike on Syria (50% said they supported such a move), he got cold feet and made an embarrassing U-turn. He made this decision despite the red lines he had drawn, with no caveats, on the use of chemical weapons and despite him having made no prior mention of pre-authorization from Congress.

After a week in which “all the president’s men” aired combative rhetoric and made clear-cut statements (Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech on Friday was particularly laden with clichés), the brandishing of weapons gave way to a waiting period.

President Bashar Assad’s regime may have brazenly breached the red lines (on multiple occasions), and the incriminating evidence gathered by the intelligence community made for a compelling and unequivocal indictment against him, but Obama decided to hold his fire. Everyone’s gaze was turned on Obama, in the hope that the American eagle would finally fly, but the president proved yet again that he was not cut from the same cloth as many former White House occupants.

His predecessors Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon never hesitated before making tough and unpopular decisions that showed their adherence to American values and an endorsement of the nation’s heritage (be it on domestic affairs or on national security and defense matters). Their decisions showed a commitment to overarching national security objectives.

Obama’s deer-caught-in-the-headlights behavior and his failure to do what he publicly pledged he would do are a consequence of a well-defined ideology that narrowed the spectrum in which the president could operate and think. Obama has found it hard, maybe even impossible, to go back to the George W. Bush era; he wants nothing to do with that war-ridden presidency.

But what was at stake was a “mini-operation” in Syria, not an Iraq- or Afghanistan-like military intervention, Obama was wary of any sort of act that would have cemented the perception that he was Bush’s ideological successor. Not so long ago, there was another Democratic president who did not shy away from taking a punitive measure in Iraq in December 1998. That president was Bill Clinton, and he didn’t even bother seeking congressional approval. Three months later, he orchestrated a NATO-led intervention against Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in Kosovo.

Obama hopes he will not have to fly solo (or at least have a few wingmen) when he intervenes; by obtaining legitimacy for every action, he wants to ensure that he does not overstep his international and national mandate. This behavior further underscores his weakness and reinforces the notion that he is an absentee president and a hegemon who has gone AWOL.

What is leadership if not the ability to chart a path forward in the face of opposition at home and abroad?

The lessons of the past, while instructive, might lead to sweeping generalizations and oversimplified comparisons. That said, there is still the troubling feeling that the decision to delay the moment of truth — on the bizarre pretext that Congress should greenlight such a move — is a sad throwback to the 1930s era of appeasement and the tragic consequences that inevitably followed it.

via Israel Hayom | Another blow to Obama’s leadership.

If the U.S. had concurrently announced that Syrian President Bashar Assad had used chemical weapons and that an American military response would be contingent on congressional approval, then there would have been no big problem. But U.S. President Barack Obama himself believed that he did not need the backing of his legislature for a punitive strike against the mass murderer Assad. Obama publicly set red lines for Assad and the Syrian ruler brazenly violated them.

Obama’s desire to receive congressional support for military action is somewhat understandable. In 1964, Lyndon B. Johnson got Congress to approve the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which enabled Johnson to escalate U.S. military involvement in Vietnam. Obama wants his own Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. So be it.

But during the worldwide diplomatic campaign that preceded his speech on Saturday, did Obama ever mention the possibility that he would ask for congressional support for a military strike against Syria? If he intended to do so all along, why didn’t he say so from the start? The idea of relying on congressional support arose belatedly. It is an excuse. With his words and cursory decisions, Obama is undermining America’s status as the world’s sole superpower.

If the phrase “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel” is true, then in this instance it is also right to say that Congress is the last refuge of the vacillator. Congress did not demand the authority to decide on a military strike against Syria. But Obama has now forced American legislators to make a decision on matter of which their professional understanding is limited and their views are partly fueled by irrelevant political considerations.

Obama is a carbon copy of America’s 39th president, Jimmy Carter. They both had delusional ideas, like the “Arab Spring.” Carter allowed the Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (who was indeed a tyrant) to fall in 1979, and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini rose to power. To this day, Iran still threatens to lead humanity into Armageddon. Meanwhile, Obama had a hand in the 2011 ouster of then-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and is currently making life difficult for Col. Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi by bizarrely supporting the Muslim Brotherhood. Everything that Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Morsi represents stands in stark contrast to America’s heritage.

Nations that have joined the world’s enlightened and democratic community, for which the U.S. provides the umbrella, since World War II now face a two-fold problem.

The first tough element of the problem is that the U.S. has lost its will to fulfill its duties as a superpower. It was this American weakness that led Britain, Canada and Germany to jump ship ahead of an attack on Syria. And the second, and even graver, component of the problem is that America’s evasion of carrying out an strike on Syria took place not after silence by the president, but rather after he had set red lines for Assad, the violation of which were supposed to constitute a casus belli.

Obama has asked the world — and Israel — to trust that he will not let Iran develop nuclear weapons. The president has called on Israel to make compromises, pledging that he would have its back, but what good are his promises? Even if the U.S. launches a limited strike on Assad in another 10 or 12 days, that would only partially repair the damage that has been done.

via Israel Hayom | US loses the will to lead.

Israel Hayom | White House uses Israel as lever to press Congress on Syria.

White House intends on using the Israel angle to sway politicians: Iran and Hezbollah would be emboldened if Congress does not approve the strike • Kerry: Assad has joined the ranks of Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein.

Israel Hayom | US, Russia deploy battleships for possible Syria showdown.

All gummed up | The Times of Israel.

Obama’s lack of teeth are a running theme in today’s papers, with some wondering how his decision will play out vis-a-vis Iran

Barack Obama speaking to House Speaker John Boehner from the Oval Office Saturday as Joe Biden looks on. (photo credit: Pete Souza/ Official White House)

Despite a delay in action, the Syria crisis (can you call something a crisis after two years of war and over 100,000 dead?) leads Israeli papers Monday morning, with how the US reaction, or lack thereof, affects Israel mostly taking center stage.

Israel Hayom takes the cake in the reading-really-far-into-things category, with the headline “Seeing Syria but thinking Iran” accompanied by a picture of Obama (seen above), leg up on his table, discussing the matter with House Majority Leader John Boehner on the phone.

But what the paper finds most interesting is the fact that Obama’s hand seems to be in the shape of a gun, meaning that of course he is ready to pull the trigger.

What he’s ready to pull it on, though, we can’t be sure, since, as the paper notes, his hesitancy on Syria has led to questions over how he will treat his Iran red lines. “Obama asked that the world (and Israel) agree not to let Iran develop nuclear weapons,” Dan Margalit writes in the paper. “The American president suggested to Israel a compromise that he would keep an eye on the region, but what has come of his promises? Even if he does in another 10 or 12 days order a toothless attack on Assad — he will only have partially repaired the damage.”

Haaretz leads off with the news that Obama called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before announcing his decision, surmising that it was likely to keep Israel from publicly criticizing the move.

The ad in Haaretz. “Haven’t got any teeth” text reads. (Screenshot/ Haaretz)

The paper devotes only one inside page to the Syria hubbub, including a translated New York Times article, but a large ad on page 7 of the paper succinctly sums up the zeitgeist with a picture of Obama and the simple phrase “Don’t have any teeth?” The ad, natch, is for tooth transplants.

However, Arab affairs columnist Zvi Barel says that even with American dithering, Assad is quickly being abandoned by his closest friends.

“The use of chemical weapons has rocked Russia’s steadfast position against the United States. Even though Moscow continues to claim it was not the Syrian regime that used the chemical weapons, the Kremlin will have to deal with the evidence presented to it — most likely during the G-20 summit this week,” he writes. “Nor can declarations coming from Tehran be particularly encouraging for Assad: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani denounced the use of chemical weapons — but avoided placing the responsibility on any of the sides. Former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani justified the American attack and even the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei made do with a warning that an attack on Syria would be a disaster, but he did not promise direct military support for Damascus.”

Maariv reports that Obama’s turn to Congress isn’t so much kicking the can down the road as buying himself time to try to come to a diplomatic solution between the US, Russia and Syria that would see Assad give up his chemical weapons. While the news is blasted at top of the front page, it is buried inside the last graf of the news story, possibly telegraphing that Maariv wants to sell papers with a sexy headline but doesn’t actually put much stock in the info.

The paper cites senior diplomats in a number of countries for the trilateral diplomatic efforts. “If there is an agreement on the future of Syrian chemical weapons, it will be part of a framework of wider understands for a peace summit to create a transitional Syrian government,” the paper writes. “It’s very possible that unlike their previous position, the Americans will agree to representatives of the Syrian regime taking part in the summit.”

Yedioth Ahronoth has the only real Syria scoop of the day, though it has less to do with chemical weapons and more to do with a first peek inside the Israel Defense Force’s field hospital set up in the Golan Heights to deal with injuries from the Syrian war. The story, a preview of a wider one to appear on Wednesday as part of the blowout Rosh Hashana holiday edition, is the first to come out of the installation, which has been off limits to journalists since being put up several months ago.

“Most of the injured are seriously wounded from the war,” Brig. Gen. Itzik Kreiss, who runs the center, tells the paper. “For us it doesn’t matter if they are rebels, military or civilian — he’s injured and thus we take care of him.” While the center has clear humanitarian objectives, Kreiss also tells the paper that it helps with selling Israel as a nice place filled with nice people as well, both to the world and to Syrians. “They grew up seeing us as monsters,” he says. “But suddenly they see that there are people on the other side.”

Buffer scuffle

In non-Syria news, Maariv reports on the buffer zone being created by Egypt along the Gaza border. The paper quotes security sources in reporting that the country has already made the decision to create a “Philadelphi route,” referring to a narrow strip of land in Gaza between Egypt and the enclave that was patrolled by Israel in years past to keep the two sides apart.

The paper’s Amir Rappaport is up in arms over the move, not because he feels for the people whose homes are being destroyed to create the buffer zone, but because Egypt is doing with impunity and without any outcry what Israel has come under harsh criticism for: blocking off Gaza. “The Egyptians are widening the area dividing the two parts of Rafah by ‘shaving off’ houses,” he writes. “Lucky for them, what is forbidden to Israel is allowed for them.”

In Haaretz, Oudeh Basharat writes that despite fighting in Syria and elsewhere, Arabs and the world should take heart that the people of the Middle East are finally throwing off the yoke of Islamic fundamentalism. Which is a fine and dandy thesis if you ignore the democratic victories of Islamist parties in many countries following Arab Spring revolutions.

“Today the Arab world is conducting an internal battle that is no less important than the struggle for national liberation,” he writes. “The Arabs are fighting a tenacious battle to be freed from religious extremism, which offers them only one option: turning back the clock several centuries. This battle is first and foremost a battle for hearts and minds, so that the public will be strengthened and able to stand firm against the religion profiteers.…The Arabs, who were wiped almost completely off the map a century ago, are today, with their own hands, fashioning their path into the modern era. Despite the terrible tragedy in Syria, the news coming from the public squares of the Arab world should infuse optimism into every democrat in the world.”

Israel fears US leaving it alone to stop Iran nuclear programme – FT.com.

When Barack Obama visited Israel in March, he made a speech in Jerusalem – virtuosic in parts and cloying in others – meant to endear him to an Israeli public which felt it neither knew nor trusted him much.

Atem lo levad (“You are not alone”), he intoned in American-accented Hebrew, channelling the same spirit of solidarity that John F. Kennedy invoked when he declared “Ich bin ein Berliner” in blockaded West Berlin in 1963.

Israelis are now recalling Mr Obama’s speech ruefully after his decision to refer any military action against Syria to Congress. Asked afterwards about how the decision made them feel, many offered up this word: “alone”.

Their worry is not that Israel is being left alone to cope with Syria, whose war Israel’s government and most of its people want no direct part in.

The fear – and it is a big one – is about the message America’s perceived wavering on Syria sends to its bigger and much more powerful ally: Iran.

Benjamin Netanyahu, who has made containing the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme the defining issue of his premiership, has said repeatedly in recent days that Syria is a “testing ground” for Iran.

Any lack of US resolve over disciplining Bashar al-Assad’s government for crossing “red lines” on chemical weapons use, Israelis feel, sets a bad precedent for efforts to stop Iran from developing a nuclear bomb. Israel was already worried western resolve to contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions was ebbing after the election of relative moderate Hassan Rouhani as president.

Mr Netanyahu, mindful of Israel’s delicate position in a region where Mr Assad or Hizbollah might respond to a US strike by attacking it, has told his ministers not to talk to the media about Syria.

However, Naftali Bennett, economy minister and head of the far-right Jewish Home party, gave one insight into official thinking on Friday – before Mr Obama’s speech, but after Britain voted against military action – when he wrote on Facebook: “The international stuttering and hesitancy on Syria just proves once more that Israel cannot count on anyone but itself.”

Commentators in Israel put it in earthier terms when they chided Mr Obama by quoting a line from Sergio Leone’s spaghetti Western, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: “When you have to shoot, shoot – don’t talk”.

“You hear more and more people in government saying, ‘Can we really rely on the US to stop Iran?” said Mike Herzog, a retired Israeli general and international fellow with The Washington Institute for Middle East Policy. “If they can’t take a decision on a red line in Syria, why should we think they could do so on Iran?”

US resolve in Syria, Israelis say, has proved weak on a chemical weapons red line that according to the British intelligence dossier was crossed at least 14 times before the attack outside Damascus that prompted a hesitant US call to arms.

Whereas gruesome news pictures of gasping victims provided apparent visual evidence that chemical weapons had been used, the trigger for action in Iran is more fungible and open to interpretation, and Israel and the US define it differently.

The US has said it would not accept a nuclear Iran, but Israel thinks this is too fuzzy. Mr Netanyahu, speaking at the UN last September, said that Iran must be stopped before it had amassed enough 20 per cent-enriched uranium for a single bomb. Israel says Iran has not reached this but is taking broader actions such as building centrifuges that would make it easier to cross the nuclear threshold quickly.

“Red lines don’t lead to war; red lines prevent war,” Mr Netanyahu said in his UN speech, in which he brandished a cartoon of a sputtering bomb. “I believe that faced with a clear red line, Iran will back down.”

Israelis are this week more doubtful on that point, with many saying that US prevarication on Syria has weakened the red line’s deterrence. Some worry it is now more likely that Iran will cross it and if forced to act, Israel may need to go it alone.

“Will the US back its own red lines and do something about Iran?” asked Yoel Guzansky, a researcher for the Institute for National Security Studies. “The answer after Obama’s speech is n

Syria asks UN to stop US strike, ‘prevent the absurd use of force’ | JPost | Israel News.

IDF Releases Most Reservists – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

Reservists

Flash 90

The IDF began on Sunday evening to release some of the reservists that were called up last week in preparations for a possible U.S. military strike in Syria.

On Wednesday, Israel’s security cabinet issued a limited call-up of reservists, part of Israel’s preparations for the possibility that the Syrian regime could choose to attack Israel in “retaliation” for intervention by the U.S. and its allies.

Last week, as speculations continued that the U.S. would strike in Syria as a warning to the regime for its use of chemical weapons on civilians, a number of Syrian officials threatened that if their country was attacked, it would retaliate by attacking Israel.

Most recently, a senior official in the Syrian army warned the United States and its partners that waging a full-scale war on Syria would be reciprocated with an immediate attack on Tel Aviv.

“If Damascus comes under attack, Tel Aviv will be targeted too and a full-scale war against Syria will actually issue a license for attacking Israel,” the Syrian army source told the Iranian Fars news agency.

“Rest assured that if Syria is attacked, Israel will also be set on fire and such an attack will, in turn, engage Syria’s neighbors,” he added.

The source also warned the U.S. and other Western states that if Syria grows weak, certain irresponsible groups will be formed which will endanger Israel’s security.

The decision to release the reservists was made after Israel understood that the strike in Syria would be delayed, in the wake of President Barack Obama’s announcement from Saturday that he would seek approval from Congress for such a strike.

Meanwhile, the head of the IDF’s Northern Command, Maj. Gen. Yair Golan, said Sunday that the IDF’s preparations for a possible strike in Syria were responsible.

Speaking with heads of local authorities in northern Israel, Golan said the IDF strengthened its defense capabilities without hysteria and without extensive calling up of reserves.

Syrian Rebel Leader Praises Minister Uri Ariel – Middle East – News – Israel National News.

Housing Minister Uri Ariel

Flash 90

One of the leaders of the Syrian rebel groups had praise on Sunday for none other than Israeli Housing Minister Uri Ariel of the Bayit Yehudi party.

Abu Adnan, one of the rebel leaders in northern Syria, spoke to Israel’s Channel One News and expressed his appreciation for Ariel’s comments regarding the chemical attack near Damascus.

“Allow me to send a message of thanks and appreciation to Housing Minister Uri Ariel for his humane and valuable statements and for his beautiful expression of emotion toward the children killed in Syria and toward the women being killed in Syria,” Abu Adnan told the channel’s Arab affair analyst Oded Granot.

“We appreciate this stance and thank him very much,” he added.

Last week Ariel said that, as Jews who suffered during the Holocaust, Israelis could not be silent over what was going on in Syria.

“Of all people, we, who cried out, and have been asking to this day, ‘how could the world have been silent?’ – We, as people; we, as Jews, cannot remain silent in the face of genocide, no matter who it is and where it is. And I say to ourselves – first of all, to ourselves, as Jews; as citizens of Israel; as a minister in the government of Israel, there will not be another genocide. We will not allow it,” said Ariel.

“The Jews in Zion and Jews the world over have an obligation – not a right, an obligation of the first degree – to alert and wake up the entire world, everywhere, in the UN, in the U.S. and Europe – we are obligated to do this because we experienced this as a nation, and we are the Jewish people. I am already acting and I will continue to act so that this awareness will reach everywhere and that with the grace of G-d, we will stop this horror,” he declared.

In Sunday’s interview, Abu Adnan also told Channel One that the rebels were disappointed in America for choosing to postpone the military strike in Syria by seeking approval from Congress, but that they believed Israel could be instrumental in convincing the world to act against the regime of President Bashar Al-Assad.

“We believe that Israel could assist us greatly in bringing down this regime,” he said. “We, as the Syrian people, have discovered that our first and primary enemy is the Assad family, Hezbollah and Iran. The main enemy is this regime and not Israel.”

Israel has more than once clarified that it is not a part of the civil war in Syria and does not take sides in the fighting. At the same time Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has warned Assad that if he chooses to retaliate to an American strike by attacking Israel, the Jewish state will strike back “fiercely”.

Despite Israel’s clarifications that it is not taking sides, Assad, likely in an effort to win the support of the Syrian people, has claimed that Israel is assisting the rebels fighting to topple his regime.

A commander in the Syrian opposition recently claimed the exact opposite, that Israel was collaborating with Iran and Hezbollah to keep Assad in power.