Obama's Ultimate Test

The ultimate test of the Obama presidency will be the decision he makes on Syria. Michael Gordon and Mark Landler report this morning in "Rebels’ Losses in Syria Complicate Options for U.S. Aid" that the administration is engaged in a heightened debate about providing military support now that rebel forces are in free fall.

I say Syria is the ultimate test because Obama's support is at root based on a belief held by voters that he is anti-war. It was his anti-war stance, the fact that he spoke out against going to war in Iraq when he was a state legislator in Illinois, that gave him the edge over Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary. And though his stimulus package during the financial meltdown was too small and his health-care overhaul was a massive expansion of a failed status quo, he did pull all the troops out of Iraq.

For Obama to send heavy weapons to the rebels or use the U.S. air force to attack Syria would undercut the source of his appeal with the electorate. Polls show there is no support for military intervention in Syria. But there is clearly support in the State Department, based on a reading of Landler and Gordon's story, for expanding U.S. involvement.

The problem with the State Department's hawkish position is that it doesn't acknowledge that military aid in order to be effective has to eventually end up in battle. And who is dominant on the ground for the opposition? Wahhabi fighters, foreign mercenary religious zealots -- the very enemy we have reconfigured our society to confront since 9/11. This is from Kareem Fahim and Hania Mourtada's story today, "Syrian Teenager’s Public Death Reveals Growing Anger as Civil War Continues":

The condemnations were a measure of the growing anger at the small but assertive cadre of extremists who have joined the rebel ranks, and whose hard-line beliefs have unsettled even pious Syrians. Their influence is being felt in mosques, in schools and in committees and courts intended to enforce a strict version of Islamic law. Disgust with the radicals has peaked in recent months after reports of summary executions, including of government soldiers and men accused of crimes and then punished. 

Last month, antigovernment activists in Aleppo were beaten and detained by armed guards of the city’s Shariah committee, after the activists tried to raise the flag of the Syrian revolution. 

One of them, Seif Azzam, said the Islamists threatened two of his friends by saying they were “infidels who should be killed for the sake of God.” The two were eventually released. 

“The Shariah committee’s behavior is completely identical to that of air force intelligence,” said Mr. Azzam, referring to the most feared government intelligence agency. “We are revolting against Assad’s regime, and the Shariah committee at the same time,” he said. 

The identities and affiliations of the three men remained a mystery. Muhammad’s mother said she thought that two of them were possibly foreigners, but that the third was Syrian. His father, who spoke in a separate video interview, was less sure. “Are they Afghans? I don’t know. There are a lot of battalions nowadays, how can we know?”

That the State Department is actually considering putting heavy weapons into this situation is insanity; it speaks of how absolutely disconnected government is from the basic aspirations of people -- peace, employment, safety. The other thing that goes unmentioned in Landler and Gordon's account of hawkish thinking in the State Department is the lack of acknowledgement that opinion within in Syria has significantly shifted towards Assad. Religiously-motivated murders like that of 14-year-old coffee vendor Muhammad al-Qatta are the reason why the Syrian government enjoys majority support among its Sunni population. If we in the United States go to war with Syria we will be doing so in violation of international law. We will be going to war with the secular-minded people of Syria on behalf of Sunni extremists, a truly upside-down world.

Kareem Fahim also has a detailed story today, "Still More Questions Than Answers on Nerve Gas in Syria," about the various allegations of sarin gas use by the Assad government. After reading the story one is left with the distinct impression of shadow craft by competing intelligence agencies.