Obama's Political Immolation

If you've been following the news on Syria every day, you know that the case that the United States has presented blaming the Syrian government for a chemical attack in a Damascus suburb last week is weak to nonexistent. For instance, you would expect banner headlines the morning after the Obama administration's briefing last night of Congressional leaders if there had been any compelling, "smoking gun" proof that Assad's forces were responsible. Instead all you get is a description -- inside the story "Obama Set for Limited Strike on Syria as British Vote No" by Mark Landler, David Sanger and Thom Shanker -- of heavy hitters on Obama's cabinet going through the tired motions of trying to sell an intercepted telephone call between military officials as definitive proof justifying scrapping international law in order to let the Tomahawk cruise missiles fly:

In a conference call with Republicans and Democrats, top officials from the State Department, the Pentagon and the nation’s intelligence agencies asserted that the evidence was clear that Mr. Assad’s forces had carried out the attack, according to officials who were briefed. 

While the intelligence does not tie Mr. Assad directly to the attack, these officials said, the administration said the United States had both the evidence and legal justification to carry out a strike aimed at deterring the Syrian leader from using such weapons again. 

A critical piece of the intelligence, officials said, is an intercepted telephone call between Syrian military officials, one of whom seems to suggest that the chemical weapons attack was more devastating than was intended. “It sounds like he thinks this was a small operation that got out of control,” one intelligence official said. 

But Republican lawmakers said White House officials dismissed suggestions that the scale of the attack was a miscalculation, indicating that the officials believe Syria intended to inflict the widespread damage. 

“I’m comfortable that the things the president told Assad not to do he did,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who took part with seven other Republican senators in a separate briefing by the White House chief of staff, Denis R. McDonough. 

Among the officials on the conference call were Secretary of State John Kerry; Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel; the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr.; and the national security adviser, Susan E. Rice. It was unclassified, which means the administration gave lawmakers only limited details about the intelligence they assert bolsters the case for a military strike. 

Before the call, however, some prominent lawmakers expressed anger that the White House was planning a strike without significant consultations with Congress. “When we take what is a very difficult decision, you have to have buy-in by members and buy-in by the public,” Representative Mike Rogers, the Michigan Republican who is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Thursday on MSNBC. “I think both of those are critically important and, right now, none of that has happened.”

If there had been definitive proof Cameron wouldn't have gone down in flames in the House of Commons yesterday.

Everywhere you look Obama is on shaky ground. No compelling evidence has been presented to justify a unilateral assault on a sovereign nation. International law will be violated if such an attack takes place. And so far the only ally to come forward vowing support is the Socialist government of Francois Hollande.

The damage that Obama is doing to his ability to govern is enormous. The source of his political power, his success as a politician both nationally and internationally, is his standing as an anti-war advocate and as proponent for peace and toleration. He beat Hillary Clinton and rose to the top of a crowded field of primary contenders in 2008 because as a Illinois state senator he came out against going to war in Iraq. Starting with the Snowden revelations and his peevish response to them, and now coming full force with his disingenuous case for an attack on Syria, Obama is eviscerating the basis of his support.

Obama has three-and-a-half years left to govern, and he is effectively mortally wounded. It's not clear going forward what impact this is going to have -- on budget negotiations with a belligerent GOP House caucus, on his ability to get any legislation through Congress, on midterm elections and the short-term viability of the national Democratic Party.

There are five destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean. Each has a payload of 36 cruise missiles. As a baseline that's what the Syrians can expect -- a barrage of 180 missiles. It will probably be worse, and it will probably commence not too long after the UN inspectors exit the country. Sunday morning? Nothing will likely be achieved other than destruction, death and Obama's political immolation. At this point, there might a silver lining in the last item.