The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.
Out on a Limb
“Obama Administration’s Message on Syria Is Muddled”–headline, Washington Post, Sept. 12
Bottom Story of the Day
“Congressional Scholar Says Gridlock Is a Result of Political Polarization”–headline, Cornell Daily Sun, Sept. 10
The Litella Administration
“Secretary of State John Kerry may not have expected his casual suggestion that Syria avert American military action by giving up its chemical weapons to be taken seriously,” the New York Times editorializes. “But it may have created a diplomatic way out for President Obama.”
In a New York Post column, Rich Lowry puts it a million times more pointedly: “Now that John Kerry is the secretary of state, his gaffes can launch major diplomatic initiatives.”
In case you’re not up to date on yesterday’s fast-moving events, here’s what happened, as per London’s Daily Mail. First, Kerry mused out loud that “if Assad handed over his chemical weapons within a week, the U.S. would not attack Syria.”
Russia “backed” the plan and Syria “welcomed” it, prompting Kerry to tell Russia “that he didn’t mean it as a serious proposal.” A White House official told CNN that “that Kerry’s comments were a ‘major goof,’ and that he ‘clearly went off-script.’ “
Apparently that White House official was somebody other than President Obama himself, for by the time he sat for interviews with half a dozen TV networks, he had warmed to the idea: “And, you know, we’ve seen some indications from the Russians as well as the Syrians today, uh, that they may be willing to look at the prospect of getting those weapons under control, perhaps even, uh, international control, and getting them out of there, where they could be vulnerable to use by anybody,” he told Fox’s Chris Wallace. “And that’s something that we’re going to run to ground over the next couple of days.”
By this morning, the secretary of state was crediting the president with pressing the Russians into accepting Kerry’s goofy, off-script idea: “Kerry told a closed meeting of House lawmakers that the Russian government is only seeking to help Syria because they believe the U.S. is serious about taking military action, according to multiple sources present,” Politico reports.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi echoed the claim in a tweet: “Thanks to Pres. Obama’s strength, we have a Russian proposal. We hope that it is credible and real, and therefore progress.”
If Pelosi had any wit, she’d have tweeted that we have to bomb Syria so we can find out what’s in it. As it is, she seems oblivious to how her second sentence undercuts her first. Putin is a canny political player who has never shown any interest in the sort of humanitarian moralism Obama has embraced of late.
It’s clear that Putin saw in Kerry’s wishful rumination an opportunity. The president, in announcing that he would seek approval from Congress before launching a military strike on Syria, was transparently seeking political cover for a decision that both went against his inclinations and was unlikely to be popular. He miscalculated in expecting enough lawmakers of either party to give him what he needed, so Putin rode to the “rescue.” A New York Times news story leads by spelling this out with remarkable candor:
President Obama woke up Monday facing a Congressional defeat that many in both parties believed could hobble his presidency. And by the end of the day, he found himself in the odd position of relying on his Russian counterpart, Vladimir V. Putin, of all people, to bail him out.
It’s a good deal all the way around for Putin: He looks both powerful and statesmanlike; his client in Damascus is spared any outside intervention, probably for the duration of Obama’s presidency; and international inattention will invariably assure that the promise to dismantle Syria’s chemical-weapons stocks–not an easy task even from a technical standpoint–will not be fulfilled. RT, the English-language Moscow propaganda organ, reports Moscow is peddling the line that evidence of Syrian chemical attacks is phony:
Footage and photos of the alleged chemical attack in Syria, which the US cites as the reason for a planned military intervention, had been fabricated in advance, speakers told a UN human rights conference in Geneva.
Members of the conference were presented accounts of international experts, Syrian public figures and Russian news reporters covering the Syrian conflict, which back Russia’s opposition to the US plans, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The speakers argued that the suspected sarin gas attack near Damascus on August 21 was likely a provocation of the rebel forces and that a military action against the President Bashar Assad government will likely result in civilian casualties and a humanitarian catastrophe affecting the entire region. . . . Evidence for the Russian case, including numerous eyewitness reports and results of investigations of the chemical weapon incident by activists, was handed over to a UN commission of experts probing the Syrian crisis, the ministry said.
So Putin is going to see to it that Syria destroys the weapons his own government denies it has. Good luck.
For Obama, the gambit affords a way that the most dramatic crisis of his presidency can end with a whimper, which as a political matter is vastly preferable to a bang. But the U.S. has been made ridiculous in the world to an even greater extent than it already was.
Would the result have been better if Congress had steeled itself to vote “yes” on the authorization to use force? Color us skeptical. Obama and Kerry had been at pains to minimize the seriousness of the force the administration was willing to use, and public opinion would have been inhospitable to any escalation. It’s quite possible that after a symbolic U.S. bombing, Putin would come forward with much the same plan, which surely would be greeted with as much relief in Washington.
In a mordant way, it is fitting that this crisis seemingly ended with an administration gaffe, for that is also the way it began. Obama wasn’t doing anything more than thinking out loud last year when he set a “red line” against the use of chemical weapons, but he trapped himself into making it U.S. policy, then demanded Congress and the world back it up. It’s as if Emily Litella–the hard-of-hearing old lady the late Gilda Radner played on “Saturday Night Live”–were in charge of U.S. foreign policy. Only President Litella, on having her error pointed out to her, would have the good sense to say: “Never mind.”
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