Warhawks on the Ropes

The warhawks were dealt two enormous blows yesterday. First, several polls were published showing a super-majority of respondents opposed to an attack on Syria. Pew Research Center, Reuters/Ipsos and New York Times/CBS News had surprisingly similar results, the most noteworthy of which is that opposition to a United States military strike has actually grown in September despite the Western media almost unanimously falling in line behind the Obama administration's tendentious case for war. This from yesterday's Reuters story by Mark Felsenthal:

Americans' opposition to a U.S. military strike against Syria is increasing as they learn more about the Arab nation's alleged use of chemical weapons, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll that shows the challenge President Barack Obama faces in seeking congressional approval for military action. 

The poll, conducted September 5 to 9, indicated that 63 percent of Americans opposed intervening in Syria, up from 53 percent in a survey that ended August 30. That was a week after the August 21 chemical attack in a Damascus suburb that U.S. officials say killed more than 1,400 adults and children. 

Meanwhile, support for a U.S. intervention in Syria has declined, the poll found. About 16 percent of Americans surveyed said the United States should get involved - down from 20 percent on August 30.

And even if it's proven that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's troops used chemical weapons against fellow Syrians, only 26 percent of Americans said the United States should intervene. About 52 percent said the U.S. military should not get involved in such a circumstance, up from 44 percent on August 30.

The story in the New York Times by Mark Landler and Megan Thee-Brenan is an amazing testament to the public's distaste for war and its wariness of the siren call of the humanitarian bombers:

The poll underscores a steady shift in public opinion about the proper American role in the world, as fatigue from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has made people less open to intervening in the world’s trouble spots and more preoccupied with economic travails at home. 

In the Syrian crisis, 6 in 10 Americans oppose airstrikes, according to the poll, with similar majorities saying they fear military action could enmesh the United States in another long engagement in the Middle East and would increase the terrorist threat to Americans. 

But the antipathy to foreign engagement extends beyond the current crisis. Sixty-two percent of the people polled said the United States should not take a leading role in trying to solve foreign conflicts, while only 34 percent said it should. In April 2003, a month after American troops marched into Iraq, 48 percent favored a leading role, while 43 percent opposed it. 

When asked whether the United States should intervene to turn dictatorships into democracies, 72 percent said no while only 15 percent said yes. That is the highest level of opposition in a decade of polling on this question. At the start of the Iraq war, 48 percent favored staying out and 29 percent favored getting involved. 

“A lot of people bought the idea that if we create democracy in the Middle East, the terrorists would stop coming,” said Walter Russell Mead, a professor of humanities and foreign policy at Bard College. “But that conflation has disappeared, and that makes it harder to gin up the popular support for foreign military intervention.”

The depth of this repudiation should not be understated, and I'm sure it has the elites who run the show quite concerned. The Kosovo model of skirting international law in the name of policing self-defined "crimes against humanity," what has come to be known as the "responsibility to protect" initiative in the United Nations, is now completely rejected. Even though people accepted Obama administration allegations of Assad regime chemical weapons use, they do not feel this justifies even a limited intervention, and they're also opposed to arming the rebels:

The resistance to getting involved in Syria is deep. While 75 percent of people think that Mr. Assad’s forces used chemical weapons, 74 percent say they oppose supplying rebel forces in Syria with conventional arms. The Obama administration reluctantly adopted that policy on a covert basis in June after it concluded that Syrian forces had used chemical weapons on a smaller scale in previous attacks.

The depth of the repudiation for governing elites -- in the media, in government, in the think tank foreign policy establishment -- is immense. The rulers need to go back to the drawing board and figure out how play their "Great Game" peacefully. This of course will not happen.

Which brings us to enormous blow #2 suffered by the warhawks yesterday -- Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov's proposal, following a John Kerry quip at a news conference in Britain yesterday, for Syria to give over its chemical weapons to the international community. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon embraced the plan, as did China. Though the response in the West has been tepid, the only outright rejection has come from the Syrian opposition (which is not endearing them to the anti-war public). What we need to worry about now is the French getting out front of the Russians in the Security Council with a proposal loaded down with "poison pills." This from Alan Cowell's "France to Seek U.N. Backing for Russian Plan on Syrian Chemical Arsenal":

In Paris, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said the French approach to the Security Council would be made under Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter, which provides for an array of action, including military, to restore peace and would urge the Syrians to accept that their chemical stockpiles would be dismantled. 

He also said he expected a “nearly immediate” commitment from the Syrian authorities and added that Russia had information about the chemical weapons stockpile amassed by the Syrian authorities. Mr. Fabius said that he hoped the Security Council would approve a tough resolution after months of efforts by China and Russia to thwart Western action at the United Nations. 

The French proposal will call for Syria to allow inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to oversee the destruction of chemical weapons in the country and will require that Syria become a member of the organization. It is one of five states that have not signed the Chemical Weapons Convention, an international convention banning the use and stockpiling of chemical arms and the materials required in their production. 

“Extremely serious consequences” would be planned for any deviation from the obligations of the resolution, Mr. Fabius said, though he remained cautious about the prospect of the French proposal being adopted. Russia, a firm ally of Mr. Assad and permanent member of the Security Council, has vetoed three Security Council resolutions on Syria since the start of the conflict. 

“It is upon the acceptance of these precise conditions that we will judge the credibility of the intentions that were expressed yesterday,” Mr. Fabius said.

The danger here is that we will repeat the Iraq scenario. Weapons inspections will be sensationalized and politicized and then, despite any proof of noncompliance, the United States, relying on bogus intelligence, will claim they are a enforcing Security Council resolution, and it will be bombs away.

But that was over a decade ago. The public is engaged now on this issue. Bellicose elites will have to concoct another nefarious scheme to shift opinion. Don't rule out another spectacular attack on the homeland a la 9/11. But for now, the warmongers are on their heels.