Obama's Foreign Policy Failure in Syria

Is the Obama administration playing politics with the people of Syria or is the administration simply inept?
That is the question being asked increasingly as President Obama and US Secretary of state Hillary Clinton continue to talk about wanting to save Syrian civilians from the butchery of the Bashar al-Assad regime, even while blaming Russia and China for the continuing lack of concerted international action.
Today on CNN, an Assistant Secretary of State told Christiane Amanpour that President Obama is on top of the situation in Syria and reiterated that intelligence is providing information about just who is now included in the rebel coalition, and that it appears that there are al-Qaida operatives involved but that they are not significant.
But a few days ago, former U.S. National Security Adviser General Jim Jones told Amanpour that the absence of a post-Assad plan for Syria would have grave consequences for Syria and the rest of the region, while refusing to say that such a plan exists. The implication was that Jones is not convinced that there is a plan.
“It was okay to be surprised by Tunisia for example,” General Jones said. “Maybe you could excuse it a little bit in Egypt. But Syria is a real big strategic country, particularly as it relates to stability in the Middle East. What happens to Lebanon for example if Assad goes? What happens to Iran?”
General Jones’ analysis was very disconcerting -- he is not sure if there is a plan for “going in” and securing the chemical and biological weapons stockpiles now controlled by al-Assad. He said that al-Qaida would like to get its hands on these weapons and that Russia and China ought to be considering that eventuality as they continue to prevent international action in Syria. Jones noted that President Obama did the right thing in warning that the al-Assad regime would be “held accountable” if these weapons fall into the wrong hands.
Meanwhile, Mitt Romney’s Senior Foreign Advisor Richard Williamson, a former senior US intelligence official, told Amanpour that al-Qaida and other Jihadist elements are now active in Syria and that this is the result of the power vacuum created in the country by the international community’s inability to agree on a coherent policy for Syria.
Williamson said that rebel coalition calls for Western intervention are growing and that Romney believes that helping to arm the rebels should be part of any policy, a position that puts Romney at odds with Obama on the issue. Obama spokesman Jay Carney has said that arming the rebels would increase the “chaos and carnage” in Syria (that seems hard to imagine considering the grizzly daily reports coming out of Syria war zones).
Williamson added, “This has gone on for seventeen months and early on Governor Romney said we should have people working with the opposition, trying to identify the moderate forces and help them unify.”
Williamson said that Romney is not ready to join Senator John McCain in calling for a no-fly zone or safe havens but added, “Clearly it’s not something you can put off the table if this goes on.”
Vali Nasr, another former Senior Advisor to the Obama administration says the U.S. has taken a reactive role in Syria. “The conflict keeps metamorphosing into something worse. It goes in new directions, and then we try to come up to answers to what is happening….The danger now is that the situation in Syria is deteriorating very rapidly, and if we are going to have a policy of reaction to the latest development, then we will be chasing this ball in whatever direction it is going to go and that’s not where we want to be.”
Nasr argued that it is not in America’s best interest to allow Russian president Vladimir Putin and the Chinese leadership to determine the US policy on Syria because that will continue to prevent the United States from protecting the innocent Syrian people who are simply trying to escape a horrific regime.
Williamson joined the growing criticism that is rising against the Obama Administration, accusing the U.S. of using Russia’s opposition to intervention in Syria as a convenient shield to postpone any action until after the November elections.
But, there is also another element to consider in evaluating President Obama’s lack of leadership in the Middle East. It is perhaps the fact that he is not experienced in foreign affairs, that his Secretary of State is not experienced in diplomacy, that his security and intelligence teams seem not to be able to deliver their “insider” advice in a way that would be understandable to the current American leadership that simply has no background to bring to bear on foreign policy or the Middle East.
The evaluation made by President Obama before committing to the surge in Afghanistan seems to fit this pattern. It caused senior military officers to speak out publicly and it led to Jones’ exit from the administration.
Ari Fleischer, President G.W. Bush’s spokesman and senior advisor, added fuel to the fire today in saying on the Amanpour program that the problem with Obama’s Israel relationship is that the President does not understand the force of words in the diplomatic arena and so he has spoken very harshly to and about Israel’s positions publicly instead of dealing with differences quietly and privately. Clearly, Romney’s visit with Israeli prime minister Netanyahu while in Israel during his current international trip will partially be an attempt to bolster Israeli confidence in America’s commitment to it.
President Obama has not been a strong President in regard to foreign affairs. The almost comical recent evidence of this is that he criticized Romney for visiting fewer countries on his international trip than Obama did -- as if the number of stops could ever make up for their lack of substance.