There is nothing more dangerous in the world than to be an American ally in a small, embattled country. Just ask the South Vietnamese or the Iraqis — we left both countries in the lurch. Or for that matter, ask the Syrian resistance fighters who are now in the process of being betrayed by the Obama administration.
Anne Barnard has a devastating article in the New York Times about how the administration’s stance on Syria is shifting. Originally President Obama called for Bashar Assad to go and began funding Syrian resistance fighters through the CIA. But the U.S. never gave any indication that it was doing nearly enough to actually oust Assad – no-fly zones, among other steps that might have seriously slowed the Assad war machine, were never implemented and nor were the rebels provided with anti-aircraft weapons. The administration strategy seemed to be to press Assad militarily without actually overthrowing him in the hope that this would lead to his negotiated departure via an international agreement.
Now, however, with Assad’s fortunes improving — thanks to a Russian and Iranian-backed offensive on Aleppo, Syria’s largest rebel-held city — the administration seems to be giving up any desire to even press Assad militarily. Barnard relates a dismaying exchange that occurred last week in London between Secretary of State Kerry and Syrian opposition leaders who asked him to do something to pressure Russia and Iran to stop the offensive on Aleppo which is leading to massive casualties and refugee flows among civilians:
The Syrian said Mr. Kerry seemed to blame the opposition for refusing to participate in United Nations-led talks in Geneva, and when the Syrians mentioned that 230 barrel bombs had fallen on Aleppo that day, he corrected them, saying it was 180.
Then, the Syrian said, Mr. Kerry added: “It’s going to get much worse. This will continue for three months, and by then the opposition will be decimated.” Pressed further, Mr. Kerry said, “What do you want me to do, go to war with Russia?”
This is simply the latest admission of administration ineffectuality. Yet as two prominent liberals — Michael Ignatieff and Leon Wieseltier write in the Washington Post, there is plenty that the U.S. can do to relieve the suffering in Syria without getting into a war with Russia (which, it should be noted, was only able to intervene in Syria because of the administration’s failure to act during the previous four years).
They write: “Operating under a NATO umbrella, the United States could use its naval and air assets in the region to establish a no-fly zone from Aleppo to the Turkish border and make clear that it would prevent the continued bombardment of civilians and refugees by any party, including the Russians. It could use the no-fly zone to keep open the corridor with Turkey and use its assets to resupply the city and internally displaced people in the region with humanitarian assistance.”
Ignatieff an Wieseltier are right about what can be done, and right, too, that the administration’s failure to act will be an eternal smirch on its historical reputation. “Aleppo is the new Sarajevo, the new Srebrenica,” they write, “and its fate should be to the Syrian conflict what the fate of Sarajevo and Srebrenica were to the Bosnian conflict: the occasion for the United States to bestir itself, and for the West to say with one voice, ‘Enough.’”
Sadly the administration seems to be saying “enough” not to the murderous Assad regime but rather to the rebels fighting against it. It is truly a wonder that Samantha Power, an anti-genocide activist who wrote an entire book called A Problem from Hell bemoaning American failure to confront earlier atrocities, can continue to represent this administration in the United Nations as it does nothing in the face of the worst war crimes being committed in the world today.
