WarSclerotic

In a few weeks, Syria will be out of the news in the United States. That is exactly where U.S. President Barack Obama wants it, and it may be the only solace he obtains from his disastrous stewardship of American foreign policy the last few weeks in response to a chemical weapons use by Syria against its civilian population. Two weeks back, the president was ready to launch an “unbelievably small” operation, to use the vernacular of his verbally challenged Secretary of State John Kerry, against Syrian targets. The president and the secretary of state both signaled that the attacks would be symbolic, without any goal of changing the momentum on the battlefield between the Assad regime and the various rebel groups, and that it would be of short duration, maybe a day or two.

Administration spokespeople leaked to various media outlets that the attacks would include the firing of cruise missiles launched from destroyers in the Mediterranean Sea, but under no circumstances would there be any American soldiers with “boots on the ground.” The president also stayed away personally from boots on the ground, choosing golf shoes, while teeing up a few more times (consistent with a five year pattern of hitting the links at a pace four times that of his predecessor) as the discussion about how to respond to the alleged heinous criminal act by Syria was debated in the media and Congress. The president’s relaxed schedule after his return from Europe belied the supposed seriousness of the Syrian use of chemical weapons, and the need for America to respond in some way (symbolically at least, if not meaningfully) to defend the “international norm prohibiting the use of such weapons.

The effort to inform Syria, the intended recipient of the cruise missiles, that our attack would be insignificant, seemed to some like an attempt to tell the world that we did not really want to do this. The comedian Albert Brooks tweeted on August 29: “I don’t know the right decision on Syria, but basically telling them Saturday between 3 and 4 seems stupid.”

When a liberal Democratic president is mocked in Hollywood, you might as well say that that president has hit bottom and lost his core constituency. And this was before the collapse of will in the week that followed.

After the British House of Commons voted not to support any U.S. effort against Syria, the president’s already cold feet on the use of force got noticeably frostier. He punted the decision to Congress, where he knew there was strong resistance to an attack within both political parties, and where passage in the House seemed highly unlikely, given the combination of a Republican majority in that body and numerous left wing Democrats pretty much opposed to all wars. The president had ignored Congress when he “led from behind” in the supposed humanitarian war in Libya, and had never argued that he needed Congressional authorization for striking against Syria, until British Prime Minister Cameron took the issue to the House of Commons and lost. Without the British as an ally in the fight, and with no authorization for military action from any international organization, the president retreated. Obama was, after all, the president, who based his campaign in 2008 on not repeating the mistakes of the Bush administration with its alleged unilateralism in Iraq (a coalition with 45 more countries than the president had secured for action against Syria), and for ignoring the will of the international community (though former President Bush had 12 more Security Council resolutions on Iraq to work with than President Obama had obtained for actions against Syria). After sending the military action resolution to Congress for a vote, the president seemed to argue that he could launch the strikes even if the effort went down to defeat in Congress, but few took that threat seriously.

With an embarrassing Congressional defeat staring him in the face, the president was saved from both Congressional defeat and an inconsequential and unpopular military engagement, by what seemed at the time as a Russian effort to capitalize on one more boneheaded comment by Kerry. In responding to a question on how a military action could be avoided, Secretary Kerry answered that Syria would need to turn over all its chemical weapons within a week. Almost immediately, the State Department walked back Kerry’s comment, issuing a statement that his remarks were hypothetical, not administration policy. Just as quickly, sensing an opportunity to force Obama to accept Russian goals with regard to the Syrian conflict, Vladimir Putin accepted the Kerry offer and “refined” it.

The New York Times showed their great respect for Putin’s diplomatic courage and effort by giving him an op ed to bash U.S. policy, while taking credit for saving the day and securing peace in our time.

Was the Kerry statement one that was in the works with the cooperation of the Russians, or merely an effort by him to show that he can say more inappropriate things than Vice President Joe Biden in any given period of time?

But there is a scarier prospect. Is American foreign policy actually being created by Albert Brooks? Here was the comedian’s tweet from September 7, two days before Kerry threw out his new chemical weapons alternative to avoid American military action:

“Russia and the U.S. could unite for one week, go into Syria, remove the chemicals, and let them continue fighting.”

The president, sensing the kind of outcome he wanted — a defeat by any other name, but one without the risk of military action and blowback from Syria or its allies, and without the humiliation of an overwhelming defeat on the resolution in the House, quickly caved and endorsed the Russian approach. Of course, the next day, he allowed AIPAC, whom he had strong armed, to send its emissaries on an utterly useless lobbying effort in Congress for a vote that would not take place, and praised himself for his steely behavior in threatening military force, which he claimed forced Russia’s hand. The AIPAC effort, of course, brought all the Israel haters and anti-Semites out of the closet to decry the Jews sending the U.S. to war again, as they have since the War of 1812. Of course, no one other than the president saw things this way, but who is to argue against success — if avoiding military action of any kind and avoiding Congressional defeats defines success as the leader of the Western world these days.

Within days the Americans and the Russians have announced agreement on a deal that would supposedly lead to Syria surrendering and or destroying its chemical weapon stores (now dispersed in dozens of locations throughout Syria, and it seems Iraq as well). Russia has again called the shots in forcing the United States to agree to drop any threat of military action for Syrian non-compliance, if it wants to see United Nations “action” during the nine months of the deal Putin effectively wrote.

At the start of Obama’s first term, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, beginning her million mile marathon as the nation’s chief diplomat, was giddy as she gave her Russian counterpart a button labeled “reset.” Supposedly U.S. Russian relations were now reset, and the two nations were on the same page and could work toward joint goals, such as reducing each side’s nuclear weapons arsenals. Now, in the first months of the president’s second term, we see Russia holding the cards in every showdown with the United States, from the Edward Snowden face-off to the “resolution of the Syrian crisis.” What we have witnessed is a complete American retreat on Syria, and Russians setting the terms for how the international community will act towards Syria. Most important, any momentum the rebels might have had from the expectation of some American military effort, however small, has been lost. Syrian President Bashar Assad is still holding power and on the offensive again against the regime’s opponents along several fronts.

One of Obama’s biggest fans is columnist Andrew Sullivan, who argued this week that Obama was the chess player in all this, not Putin. Sullivan of course is the same writer who has obsessed over whether Sarah Palin’s last child, the one with Down syndrome, was really her baby or actually her daughter’s child. Clearly Sullivan is an important thinker, not be to dismissed casually. Sullivan argued that the Middle East and Syria were Russia’s to deal with, and the United States could now abandon any pretense of a role; a strategic victory. That fits with the general sense of retreat and disinterest that Obama has been communicating for nearly five years, of course. Foreign affairs is messy, and the international community does not behave like lapdogs, as Obama’s allies do in this country. The president wants a war on coal, and maybe a war on Texas and its governor. His wife wants a war on bad school lunches, but war with Syria or Iran? Never mind. The president put up as much of a fight against Putin and Assad, as a first round opponent does against Serena Williams in a major tennis tournament. This was an easy straight set victory for Putin against an opponent with no will to fight. When the leader of the free world communicates confusion, incoherence, and weakness, it is inevitable that the world’s bad guys will get the message, and their provocations will find us. We will not need to go looking for them.

An old Arab fable describes a man who speaks highly of himself yet offers pitiful results. This how U.S. President Barack Obama’s grim condition in our region can be described after he was miraculously saved from himself by the Russians. The arrangement reached by Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov culminated with the U.S. president’s pitiful fiasco in which he flexed his flimsy muscles, masterfully playing the role of “hold me back.”

Throughout the years Syria has become a maddeningly large “bodega” for chemical weapons, which it has accumulated to attack Israel with. Assad’s decision to use chemical weapons against his own people stemmed from his growing weakness at home. Following the Kerry-Lavrov agreement in Geneva, Assad has no choice but to stop using these weapons against his own people, as the world will no longer permit it. Additionally, relinquishing his chemical weapons will weaken the anti-Israel mantra employed by Assad to unify the ranks and to create a strategic balance against us.

Everyone is celebrating the agreement that will force Assad to give up his chemical weapons in 2014, and which threatens him with sanctions or the use of force if he fails to do so in the allotted timetable. Everyone knows that the agreement is founded in the fact that no one wants the Islamist radicals to ascend to power in Syria, which explains the tyrant’s growing self-confidence. Using an analogy from the game of chess, which the Russians excel at, Assad sacrificed a rook and maybe a knight for his king’s survival, and in light of the Russian opposition to a military strike against him in the future, he certainly has not given up his queen.

The deal, however, is more analogous to a “ketuba” (marriage contract) ceremony at a wedding, with a Syrian groom, his excited Russian and American groomsmen, but no bride. The Syrian people, the Free Syrian Army, and primarily the fighters from the “takfiri” rebel groups and al-Qaida where all absent from the ceremony. These forces are refusing to accept the winding and dragging arrangement crafted around them. The rebels, predominately Islamists, are clashing with each other in the fight for control over Syria, and are even further ahead of themselves as they hatch plots to conquer the world after they “liberate” Iraq and Syria. They will not allow Assad, under any circumstances, to return to an acceptable consensus within the framework of the “agreement” and will continue to fight him.

The deal, under its current Geneva formula, leaves “chemical” Assad in power without being punished or deterred and without a future solution for Syria. The result: The Syrian regime managed to extricate itself from a military blow, which was supposed to weaken it significantly, while the chemical weapons, the existence of which was denied, will now be hidden and smuggled out of the country. Nothing of essence will change in Syria if Assad is not physically removed.

The Russians have benefited from dictating a solution to the Americans, which they also desired, by brilliantly guiding the administration. Obama, who was squeezed without support from home or abroad, ran toward the solution he wanted in the first place. On the ground the Russians are now seen as a faithful ally to the Syrians and their other partners. The agreement allowed them to avoid being tested, and exhibiting their weakness, were the Americans to have gone ahead with a military operation in Syria. The Americans lost their element of deterrence in the Syrian and Iranian arenas, because their intention of “hitting” Syria proved to be nothing but hot air.

The United Nations, the same impotent institution that was unable to stop Assad, notched a dubious achievement around the international legitimacy for an American attack, the lack of which provided the excuse to prevent a U.S. strike against Syria. The Russians were able to turn the Security Council into the “straight jacket” that will hinder Obama from using force, in the future as well.

Israel benefitted, because the chemical weapons, maybe, will be dismantled and destroyed. Assad will stay and the Islamists will not take over Syria. On the other hand, it’s possible that Israel will once again be exposed to calls to get rid of its own alleged weapons of mass destruction.

Who else is in the arena? The Egyptian army under Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, currently pummeling the Islamist takfir forces in Sinai, is happy that its Islamist enemies in Syria failed to feed off of the prevented U.S. attack. Iran is pleased, because Obama’s deterrence failure in Syria frees it to take the brakes off of its nuclear program. The Palestinians are confused: Will the Kerry-Lavrov arrangement bring the spotlight back to the Palestinian arena, or should they go wild again on the Temple Mount? And as usual, the European Union is preoccupied with Israel. Its products must be boycotted and its academic work needs to be denunciated. This is the only way for the world to be saved.

An old Arab fable describes a man who speaks highly of himself yet offers pitiful results. This how U.S. President Barack Obama’s grim condition in our region can be described after he was miraculously saved from himself by the Russians. The arrangement reached by Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov culminated with the U.S. president’s pitiful fiasco in which he flexed his flimsy muscles, masterfully playing the role of “hold me back.”

Throughout the years Syria has become a maddeningly large “bodega” for chemical weapons, which it has accumulated to attack Israel with. Assad’s decision to use chemical weapons against his own people stemmed from his growing weakness at home. Following the Kerry-Lavrov agreement in Geneva, Assad has no choice but to stop using these weapons against his own people, as the world will no longer permit it. Additionally, relinquishing his chemical weapons will weaken the anti-Israel mantra employed by Assad to unify the ranks and to create a strategic balance against us.

Everyone is celebrating the agreement that will force Assad to give up his chemical weapons in 2014, and which threatens him with sanctions or the use of force if he fails to do so in the allotted timetable. Everyone knows that the agreement is founded in the fact that no one wants the Islamist radicals to ascend to power in Syria, which explains the tyrant’s growing self-confidence. Using an analogy from the game of chess, which the Russians excel at, Assad sacrificed a rook and maybe a knight for his king’s survival, and in light of the Russian opposition to a military strike against him in the future, he certainly has not given up his queen.

The deal, however, is more analogous to a “ketuba” (marriage contract) ceremony at a wedding, with a Syrian groom, his excited Russian and American groomsmen, but no bride. The Syrian people, the Free Syrian Army, and primarily the fighters from the “takfiri” rebel groups and al-Qaida where all absent from the ceremony. These forces are refusing to accept the winding and dragging arrangement crafted around them. The rebels, predominately Islamists, are clashing with each other in the fight for control over Syria, and are even further ahead of themselves as they hatch plots to conquer the world after they “liberate” Iraq and Syria. They will not allow Assad, under any circumstances, to return to an acceptable consensus within the framework of the “agreement” and will continue to fight him.

The deal, under its current Geneva formula, leaves “chemical” Assad in power without being punished or deterred and without a future solution for Syria. The result: The Syrian regime managed to extricate itself from a military blow, which was supposed to weaken it significantly, while the chemical weapons, the existence of which was denied, will now be hidden and smuggled out of the country. Nothing of essence will change in Syria if Assad is not physically removed.

The Russians have benefited from dictating a solution to the Americans, which they also desired, by brilliantly guiding the administration. Obama, who was squeezed without support from home or abroad, ran toward the solution he wanted in the first place. On the ground the Russians are now seen as a faithful ally to the Syrians and their other partners. The agreement allowed them to avoid being tested, and exhibiting their weakness, were the Americans to have gone ahead with a military operation in Syria. The Americans lost their element of deterrence in the Syrian and Iranian arenas, because their intention of “hitting” Syria proved to be nothing but hot air.

The United Nations, the same impotent institution that was unable to stop Assad, notched a dubious achievement around the international legitimacy for an American attack, the lack of which provided the excuse to prevent a U.S. strike against Syria. The Russians were able to turn the Security Council into the “straight jacket” that will hinder Obama from using force, in the future as well.

Israel benefitted, because the chemical weapons, maybe, will be dismantled and destroyed. Assad will stay and the Islamists will not take over Syria. On the other hand, it’s possible that Israel will once again be exposed to calls to get rid of its own alleged weapons of mass destruction.

Who else is in the arena? The Egyptian army under Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, currently pummeling the Islamist takfir forces in Sinai, is happy that its Islamist enemies in Syria failed to feed off of the prevented U.S. attack. Iran is pleased, because Obama’s deterrence failure in Syria frees it to take the brakes off of its nuclear program. The Palestinians are confused: Will the Kerry-Lavrov arrangement bring the spotlight back to the Palestinian arena, or should they go wild again on the Temple Mount? And as usual, the European Union is preoccupied with Israel. Its products must be boycotted and its academic work needs to be denunciated. This is the only way for the world to be saved.

A war criminal receives a reprieve — and the world gives its blessing to the American-Russian agreement to rid Syria of its WMD stockpiles.

Bashar Assad still has not passed the first stage — submitting an inventory of his chemical weapons stockpile, which he has until next week to do — but everyone (almost) is already praising the genius of the deal that was signed in Geneva. Only in 2014, if at all, will Assad relinquish his chemical weapons, but those who have welcomed the deal are already at the next station: Tehran.

The American president’s new foreign policy is supposed to dismantle Syria, and then Iran, of unconventional weapons. “The Iranians recognize they shouldn’t draw a lesson that we haven’t struck (Assad) to think we won’t strike Iran,” President Barack Obama told ABC News on Sunday. It is a little difficult to believe that the Iranians are actually convinced that a credible military option is on the table today. Syria, after all, is a much easier and convenient target than Iran. Indeed, Syria was attacked four times this year and it did not have the ability to respond in any real way.

It is reasonable to assume that whoever will not attack Syria, will not attack Iran. And that is the primary message we can take away from this latest saga in Syria.

In a normal world, Assad should have been in handcuffs on the way to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Isn’t it fun when you have a Russian babysitter? Assad has just won a prize for using unconventional weapons. It needs to be pointed out that his entire policy of escalation since the onset of the rebellion against him has only served him. Who would have believed that the use of chemical weapons on August 21 will actually make him immune?

Assad, the regime in Tehran and his Russian patron have understood that war has fallen out of style. The see how public opinion no longer tolerates military casualties. They can also read the polls.

The Assad regime and the Ayatollah regime are programmed to control their people by employing systems of fear. This is the only way they survive. For them, to be a ruler means to be a ruler for life. In Iran, the nuclear program should serve as the regime’s insurance policy (similar to North Korea), while in Syria, because the regime’s nuclear program was thwarted in 2007 (not through peaceful means), chemical weapons are its judgment day weapon. Therefore it is a little hard to foresee Assad giving up his insurance policy, particularly during a brutal civil war. In the Arab world, former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi is perceived as hugely naïve for relinquishing his nuclear program in 2003.

The United Nations report is expected to be published soon and we are supposed to be nauseated by its content. We will discover, officially, that Assad is the person responsible for gassing his own people, and we will see how the Russians care more about preserving its alliances and interests than the actual truth (Moscow continues to claim that the Syrian opposition is behind the chemical weapons attack).

The temptation to join the list of supporters for the Kerry-Lavrov deal is considerable. What normal person likes war? But Obama, today, likes to listen to the Russians, and therefore should take heed of what renowned revolutionary Leon Tolstoy once said: “You don’t always have an interest in war, but sometimes war has an interest in you.”

U.S. President Barack Obama feels very much relieved. In a display of czar-like chivalry, his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin pulled Obama’s chestnuts out of the fire, which burned in Congress and among the American public.

The Tomahawk missiles are going back into their boxes, and mighty aircraft carriers are folding their flags while playing the American national anthem. The flags’ stars have been turned off, and the stripes have been painted black. The U.S. is now like a stealth bomber moving fast under the radar, but in the wrong direction.

The current world order — founded on universal basic morals and a vision shared by all humanity — has collapsed into a black hole of violence, cruelty, genocide and narrow personal interests. The U.S. never served as the world’s policeman, it was a lighthouse that provided hope to the world and its rights. Due to some sort of malfunction, the light in the lighthouse has now gone out. I was not happy to learn of the possible attack in Syria, but the reports bolstered my faith that a system of reward and punishment still exists where human lives had lost all value.

For many years, Israel has relied heavily on American financial, security and political assistance. It is an alliance between two countries that share common values and a commitment to a better world. There is no doubt that American assistance has been a key component in maintaining Israel’s military superiority. I’m afraid that in light of the recent dramatic changes within American society, as demonstrated in the last U.S. elections, Israel will soon find itself on its own again, in the face of fundamental, existential challenges. This has been our fate ever since Abraham stood on one side of the river and the entire world stood on other side.

Now the U.S. has backed down, and the global axis of evil has drawn its own conclusion. In China, Iran, North Korea, Lebanon and Syria, they now know that American threats are actually empty. When red lines morph into retreat lines, Putin can afford to smile as he retires to his dacha on the coast of the Black Sea. Obama’s impressive speeches and the various media analyses cannot make up for the American weakness.

In this new reality, precipitated by the U.S.’s retreat from its threats, it is entirely clear that ultimately, Israel will have to pay the price for Obama’s lost dignity. American pressure on Israel to strike a peace agreement with the Palestinians will intensify tenfold, forcing us to make significant concessions and relinquish swathes of the Jewish people’s historic homeland. Obama desperately needs a parade of Israeli and Palestinian delegations to prance across the White House lawn, so that he can give his dovish “historical breakthrough” speech.

Just like in the days leading up to the Yom Kippur War, this time, too, the writing is on the wall, in enormous letters. Time after time, every Israeli concession in favor of the Arabs known as Palestinians has resulted in tragedy and victims. The security of the state of Israel, in addition to the Jews’ historical rights, require that we retain control over every part of our homeland. Every territorial concession, even outside the settlement blocs, means the establishment of another terror outpost.

Within the madness currently raging in the Middle East, relinquishing one grain of land, or one shingle of one roof, would be to put ourselves in real danger. The leaders of Israel must always remember that Yasser Arafat’s Ten Point Plan is alive and well, and it is keeping Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas going. Anyone who says, “If I am not for myself, then who will be for me?” (Hillel the Elder), knows that the same is true for Judea and Samaria. After 2,000 years, the Jews are entitled to take their time. Patience, people, patience.