Obama's Middle East Lack of Policy Evident in Syrian Chemical Weapons Crisis

"A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week." __George S. Patton. The major chemical attack on Syrian civilians occurred on 21 August. It is now 28 August. We have been literally bombarded with stark photos on site, analysis ad nauseum, and world political leaders united against the use of chemical weapons but paralysed when it comes to deciding how or what to do. We have watched as the determination of world leaders to strike and punish has become a series of questions and inconclusive answers. BUT, we have learned something far more important. We have learned that the era of a US President and his Secretaries of Defense and State determining when and where to take up hostile action is over. We have entered an era in which these major players have been joined, perhaps even forced, into public discussion of every sort with "experts" of greater or lesser competence about the alternatives and their consequences. So, let's enter this newest of the brave new worlds and analyze where we are vis-à-vis Syria and al-Assad. The Obama administration has said that neither incomplete intelligence nor allies' concerns would affect their plans. But the complicated intelligence picture Obama insiders present has made Obama say on TV that he has "not made a decision." He says he worries that the attack could later be tied to al-Qaida-backed rebels. Others say it has not been possible to pinpoint the exact locations of Assad's supplies of chemical weapons, and Assad could have moved them in recent days as the US rhetoric heated up. But that lack of certainty means a possible series of US cruise missile strikes aimed at crippling al-Assad's military infrastructure could hit newly hidden supplies of chemical weapons, accidentally triggering a deadly chemical attack. Some say that with shifting front lines in the civil war and uneven satellite and human intelligence coming out of Syria, US and allied intelligence units have lost track of who controls some of the country's chemical weapons supplies. US satellites have captured images of Syrian troops moving trucks into weapons storage areas and removing materials, but US analysts have not been able to track what was moved or, in some cases, where it was relocated. They are also not certain that when they saw what looked like al-Assad's forces moving chemical supplies, those forces were able to remove everything before rebels took over an area where weapons had been stored. It has now been suggested that intercepts by US intelligence reveal Syrian military officials discussing the strike was among low-level staff, with no direct evidence tying the attack back to an al-Assad insider or even a senior Syrian commander. US intelligence officials are not so certain that the suspected chemical attack was carried out on al-Assad's orders. Some have even talked about the possibility that rebels could have carried out the attack in a calculated attempt to draw the West into the war. SO...may we ask why President went out on such an obviously weak limb in the first place? ~~~~~ OR, dear readers, is there another question we ought to be asking. Should we be asking if President Obama deliberately overstated his confirmed intelligence in order to create the worldwide image of himself as a President determined to teach al-Assad the "chemical weapons" lesson. Alternatively, did Obama know that his initial intelligence was absolutely correct and he ran with it to get the worldwide "white hat" effect he badly needs - but being the fundamentally indecisive Obama we all recognize, he just simply couldn't carry out the plan. So, Obama scrambled up the intelligence - after all, who can prove him wrong - and has fallen back into his usual routine of hauling out all the possibilities and acting on none of them, thereby leaving British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President François Hollande lined up behind a fuzzy ghost. To them, we may add Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and the Arab League. Will Obama launch a series of cruise missile strikes against Syrian government infrastructure, perhaps some aircraft strikes, as well? It really doesn't matter because both President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have spread the word publicly that their goal is not to shape the course of the Syrian civil war or force out al-Assad. Their goal is to punish the al-Assad regime for using chemical weapons. This will not help anyone, least of all the Syrian rebels. Obama cannot be sure what a cruise missile attack would create - a response from al-Assad against more civilians, against US units in Jordan or Qatar, against Israel. Or no response - the ultimate show of contempt for a toothless tiger. Unless Obama and his allies are prepared to undertake the removal from Syria of al-Assad, the capture and removal of ALL chemical weapons, and the delivery of as much humanitarian infrastructure as the US and its coalition can put in place so that it reaches people in need, then firing missiles in a schoolboy temper tantrum is useless. And, what would come after al-Assad should not be on the coalition table. That weighty matter should be left to a civilian-military panel led by the Arabs who understand the issues involved and will have to live with the outcome. Otherwise, Obama will simply be repeating his catastrophes of Iraq and Afghanistan.