America Needs a Unified Strategic Middle East Policy

America's top military officers, hoping to be confirmed for second terms as members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a US Senate Armed Services Committee panel Thursday that the Obama administration is considering whether to use military power in Syria. The Syrian civil war is in its third year and has killed almost 100,000 people, causing an increasing demand by the Syrian rebel leadership for active US involvement. Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared during congressional testimony that he has provided President Obama with options for the use of force. But Dempsey declined to talk about those choices, saying : "it would be inappropriate for me to try to influence the decision with me rendering an opinion in public about what kind of force we should use." The remarks by Dempsey came after Republican Senator John McCain asked him which approach in Syria would carry a greater risk - continued limited action by Washington or more significant actions, such as the establishment of a no-fly zone and arming the rebel forces with the weapons they need to stem the advance of al-Assad's forces. "Senator, I am in favor of building a moderate opposition and supporting it," Dempsey said. "The question whether to support it with direct kinetic strikes ... is a decision for our elected officials, not for the senior military leader of the nation." The use of kinetic strikes, a military term that refers to missiles and bombs, "is under deliberation inside of our agencies of government," Dempsey said. Navy Admiral James Winnefeld, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said, "There are a whole range of options that are out there....We are ready to act if we're called on to act." McCain later told a group of reporters he plans to block Dempsey's confirmation saying he was dissatisfied with the answers to the questions Dempsey was asked about Syria. Dempsey acknowledged in response to a question from GOP Senator Lindsey Graham that al-Assad's forces have the upper hand in Syria. "Currently the tide seems to have shifted in his favor," the general said. The Armed Services Committee is considering Dempsey's and Winnefeld's nominations for a second term and the Democratic-led committee is all but certain to approve the reappointments. Leading senators including Democrat Carl Levin, committee chairman, and GOP minority ranking member McCain, have been pressing Obama to take a more forceful approach to defeat al-Assad. While the administration has authorized lethal aid to rebel forces, it has so far refused to enforce a no-fly zone in which Syria's combat aircraft would be barred from flying, or to otherwise intervene militarily to halt the war. To avoid being drawn deeper into Syria's civil war, administration officials have pointed to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 as an example of what can go wrong when America's military becomes involved in Middle East conflicts. "We've rushed to war in this region in the past. We're not going to do it here," Obama's chief of staff, Denis McDonough, said recently on CBS' "Face the Nation." During his exchange with McCain, Dempsey said, "situations can be made worse by the introduction of military force" without first understanding how the country would continue to govern and ensuring that government institutions don't fail. Dempsey's first term as chairman has been a turbulent one with the military drawing down from long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. At the same time, he has dealt with billions of dollars in budget cuts that the military leadership says could threaten military readiness, as well as an epidemic of sexual assaults in the ranks, the crisis in Syria, and unrest in Egypt. ~~~~~ Dear readers, it seems certain that Dempsey and Winnefeld will be confirmed. What is less certain is whether and in what time frame and to what extent they will prevail on a reluctant President Obama who seems to have turned his attention and that of his Secretary of State to the Israel-Palestine peace process, to intervene militarily in Syria. The American military leadership should be stressing the interwoven essence of all that exists and occurs in the Middle East. Israel's and Palestine's futures are inextricably tied to the future of Syria and her neighbors - Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq. Only a unified and coordinated American policy and tactics will have the desired long-term effect in the Middle East.