Bombs Away: Actions Have Consequences

I cannot denounce Donald Trump’s decision to punish Syrian president Bashar al-Assad for his alleged chemical weapons attack on rebels and civilians earlier this week.

In truth, ever since Assad ruthlessly bombarded rebels and residents of Homs and Aleppo several years ago I was in favor of targeted military strikes to educate Assad that actions, particularly inhumane actions, have consequences. I wanted President Obama to issue a warning, and follow through on it, that he would systematically destroy Assad’s palaces, government buildings, and state infrastructure after any attack on civilians. But Obama didn’t, and one consequence of his inaction was the mass flight of millions of Syrians who felt insecure in their homeland, an exodus that has had significant international repercussions.

I am not ordinarily a war monger but I do believe a civilized country like ours has a responsibility to defend and protect the innocent against heartless slaughter or natural disaster, wherever they live. We did so in Bosnia. We did not during the Rwandan civil war. We are failing to do so in the humanitarian crisis of famine in East Africa.

We are not the policeman of the world. But we are the richest and mightiest nation. And the freest. We have some obligations to the rest of humanity.

Donald Trump will discover his actions, his words and those of his administration, have consequences, as well. Assad, it is reasoned, felt empowered to drop chemicals on Khan Shaykhun after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson indicated his removal from office no longer was U.S. policy. Now it may be.

Beyond Syria the military response has implications for our relations with Iran and North Korea. Trump has more than hinted he would unleash American forces to deny both countries the ability to develop nuclear weapons. Will their leaders be more circumspect now that they’ve seen Trump’s trigger finger is primed for action?

Presidents who successfully flex their muscles are apt to do so with impunity until catastrophe reins them in. Trump has all the leadership characteristics of a strong man who demands to get his way. He thinks in the moment. He is impulsive. Long term analysis is not one of his strong points. Nor is adherence to prior statements. Back in 2013 Trump tweeted against military action in Syria, especially without prior congressional approval.

Obama was more strategic in thinking so he deferred military intervention in Syria, North Korea and Iran.

By striking Syria, Trump may have set the United States on a new course of action with as yet unknown consequences.

Bizarre and Bazaar Turn of Events

I made Gilda promise me that when the time came, and I’ll explain shortly why that time seems to be rapidly approaching, she’ll place me in a nice, nearby facility for the memory challenged, one that she’ll visit at least weekly, a home with good looking attendants, for after all, I might become forgetful but I would hope I would retain my appreciation of the finer things of life. 

I told her Sunday morning I had found the missing white sheet. 

“Where was it?, she asked. 

“On the bed,” I sheepishly replied.

“You mean we were sleeping on it all this time?”

“Yes, and no.” Thinking the white sheet was a cover for the new Sleep Number mattress, I had somehow placed the next sheet set on top of it. It was only when I went to plug in our heated mattress pad that I discovered my mistake. 

Now, if I could only find that missing dryer ball ...

My initial optimism about a negotiated settlement for the removal and destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons stash has dissipated. We've now entered what may be called the “Arab suk” phase, and the bizarre twists and turns Assad has begun to play would make any bazaar merchant proud. He's trying to impose conditions on President Obama, not the reverse, despite the deal the U.S. and Russia seemingly reached. 

So let’s just employ the age-old tactic of walking away. If Assad doesn't capitulate and live up to the schedule in the Russo-American deal, strike. Don't wait for Congress or the United Nations to act. The “consequences” Secretary of State John Kerry said would rain down on Syria will never force Assad’s hand. Only action will. 

I'm reminded of when I sold one of my cars, a Buick, to a young man in Yonkers back in 1982. Not in any way comparable in importance to negotiations on chemical weapons, but instructive, nevertheless, on the give and take (mostly take) tactics of the Middle Eastern mind. 

The young man in question was a Palestinian student. I met him in Yonkers. His uncle represented him. He told me how much he liked Buicks. Solid, reliable cars. Still, his nephew was not rich. He couldn’t afford the $2,000 price tag. We haggled. The give and take was fun, but we reached an impasse. I wanted $1,600. He was stuck at $1,550. We didn’t split the difference. I said I was going home. 

Would I mind driving his nephew home as it was on my way to the parkway? No problem. When we arrived in front of his building, he asked if I would like to come up for tea. Recognizing this as a further attempt to negotiate the price down, I declined. Twenty minutes later I walked into our home. Just as I finished telling Gilda I should have accepted the lower price as the $50 difference would be eaten up by another newspaper ad (yes, these were pre-Craig’s List days; newspapers actually carried classified ads), the phone rang. The uncle called to say they’d pay $1,600.  

I don’t normally advocate military action. But this is an exceptional situation, one that Assad will play out. In the end, I doubt he will comply with any of the deadlines set in the agreement. We must be prepared to act. And act quickly.

Hoping to Avoid Another Gas Attack

Apropos Bashar al-Assad’s Oscar-worthy portrayal in the Charlie Rose interview of an aggrieved head of state wrongly accused of killing his subjects by using chemical gas attacks, I can only refer him to an old American saying, “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.”

Let’s not kid ourselves or anyone else. Assad gassed his people.

When I was a small child, my parents used to entertain some of my father’s relatives. One of them scared me. He looked like Lurch on The Addams Family. He was older than my father, probably around 60. He had wispy, blond hair. He had deep sunken eyes that had a faraway look to them. He was tall, even by a youngster’s perspective. His hands were large. His fingers never closed. Instead they were splayed out, lifeless.

I asked why he looked the way he did. He was gassed during World War I, my father explained. I was too young at the time to fully comprehend the meaning behind his affliction.

You might have noticed I have not mentioned him by name. I don't remember it. Like so many, I have put victims of gassing out of my mind. The world has a tendency to forget atrocities. It’s too convenient for our leaders and their citizenry to let incidents pass without repercussions, especially when they happen in distant lands and cultures.

Gilda sent me a commentary from Tom Friedman of The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/opinion/sunday/friedman-same-war-different-country.html?emc=eta1&_r=0). He's against any military action in Syria. Among other reasons, he cites the lack of results our might achieved in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan. Friedman believes lack of pluralistic-minded leadership dooms these sectarian conflicts to be catalysts of state destroyers. Just let the factions fight their own intolerant wars.

I agree bombing wouldn't resolve any part of the current crisis. But we wouldn't be bombing for regime change. We would be bombing to firmly define the limits of warfare, that gassing civilians cannot and will not be tolerated. That there be no next time.

Assad threatens retaliation. Are we seriously going to quiver? Does he seriously think his state can stand toe to toe with America, or has he determined that his best long term prospect is to lose a war with the United States a là The Mouse That Roared? (He does look like someone Peter Sellers could play, if he were alive today.)

President Obama’s firm resolve to punish Syria may have led to a diplomatic breakthrough, however inadvertently it appeared, courtesy of Secretary of State John Kerry's suggestion that Assad relinquish control of all chemical weapons (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/10/world/middleeast/kerry-says-syria-should-hand-over-all-chemical-arms.html?hp&_r=0). I hope this proposal takes root. But let's not be fooled. If it does, it is only because Assad was convinced of, and afraid of, Obama’s commitment to action. Otherwise, Assad would be gassing up again and again.

Syria Is Serious Business

We didn’t know precisely what happened 49 years ago in the dark waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. We were told North Vietnamese gunships engaged in a battle with one of our destroyers. So Congress hastily and precipitously passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, and though it did not authorize a war, that’s what we fought for the next nine years at a cost of 58,286 lives and 153,303 wounded and a fraying of the bonds of trust between the government and the people it is supposed to serve. Those were just the American casualties.

We were told weapons of mass destruction in Iraq threatened the stability and safety of the world. Our respected secretary of state, Colin Powell, the former chief of staff of the armed forces who led us to victory against Iraq in the Gulf War a little more than a decade earlier, reassured us intelligence confirmed the presence of WMDs stored all over Iraq. We believed him and his toy mockups, pictures and drawings and so we went to war. And we unleashed hell in Iraq at a cost of nearly 5,000 lives and more than 32,000 wounded and a near total meltdown of our domestic economy to fund the war. Those were just the American casualties.

When President Obama drew his chemical weapons red line in the Syrian sand a year, or was it two years, ago there were few who argued with his deliberation. Times, tempers and tenacity are different today. While still reserving the right to act unilaterally, Obama has downshifted our country's response mode to the apparent gassing by Bashar al-Assad of his people, albeit people who would like nothing better than to dance on his grave or see him rot in prison or be indulged in some Idi Amin-like asylum in another country.

Obama wants to hear from Congress what the U.S. should do. I am mostly a pacifist but on this question I come down on the side of military action. Even a war weary country must come to the conclusion that doing nothing will cast America as a paper tiger and encourage tyrants, terrorists and all sorts of enemies to be bolder while our friends and allies question our resolve to stand by our words and commitments. 

Unlike Vietnam and Iraq, Syria provides overwhelming evidence (circumstantial to some, but nevertheless overwhelming) that the Assad regime gassed its own people, killing more than 1,400 including 400 children. There is a moral imperative for America to act, not to topple Assad but rather to convey our resolve that there are lines in the sand that cannot be crossed. 

Can we be the world’s policeman? No. Not even an entire police force can monitor all the abuses under its domain. Not every humanitarian crisis will evoke a response. One could argue Obama spoke too hastily in setting a red line. But no rational person wants chemical weapons used. It is in our best national interests, not in Israel’s or in those who would oust Assad, to strategically punish the Syrian government, even at the risk of killing innocents, what the military euphemistically calls collateral damage. 

Many in Congress fear more U.S. boots on the ground despite administration assurances the military campaign will be limited to air attacks. Others, including many in the Tea Party, want America to hark back to its isolationist days, not understanding that by looking inward after World War I we enabled the rise of fascist, war-mongering governments across Europe. 

Cruise-bombing Syria will not bring peace to Arabia, will not settle the sectarian strife dividing Islam, will not help or hinder efforts to forge an Arab-Israeli peace, will not make Iran or North Korea more pacific. It will, however, reaffirm America’s commitment to combat and avenge any use of weapons of mass destruction. And that is a good thing.