Back in 2007, Presidential candidate Joe Biden (now Obama’s VP) was crystal clear about what to do if The President attacks a country that didn’t threaten us without Congressional approval – impeach him.
His 6-year-old warning is completely appropriate to apply to the current president. Watch the video.
Chris Matthews: You said that if the President of the United States had launched an attack on Iran without congressional approval that would have been an impeachable offense. Do you want to review that comment you made? Well how do you stand on that now?
Biden: Yes I do. I want to stand by the comment I made. The reason I made the comment was as a warning. I don’t say those things lightly, Chris, you’ve known me for a long time. I was chairman of the judiciary committee for 17 years or its ranking member. I teach separation of powers and constitutional law. This is something I know. So I got together and brought a group of constitutional scholars together to write a piece that I’m going to deliver to the whole United State Senate pointing out the President has no constitutional authority…to take this nation to war against a county of 70 million people unless we’re attacked or unless there is proof we are about to be attacked. And if he does, if he does, I would move to impeach him. The House obviously has to do that but I would lead an effort to impeach him. The reason for my doing that, I don’t say it lightly, I don’t say it lightly. I say it because they should understand that what they were threatening, what they were saying, what it was adding up to be, what it looked like to the rest of the world we were about to do would be the most disastrous thing that could be done in this moment in our history that I could think of.
The Obama administration’s case for war against Syria is incrediblythin. That is unsurprising. What is a little bit surprising is that they’re not really even trying to make it more compelling.
As I’ve written, Obama is about to violate both the Constitution and international law by going to war without the consent of Congress or the UN Security Council simply “to make a point,” in the words of former State Department official Aaron David Miller. There is no defensive justification, no legal justification, no strategic justification, and no humanitarian justification. But you’d think administration officials would be able to fake it a little better.
One U.S. official who has been briefed on the options on Syria said he believed the White House would seek a level of intensity “just muscular enough not to get mocked” but not so devastating that it would prompt a response from Syrian allies Iran and Russia.
“They are looking at what is just enough to mean something, just enough to be more than symbolic,” he said.
So not only are we bombing another country “to make a point,” but we’re doing it in a way that ensures we won’t “get mocked.”
Can the case for for get any thinner?
Actually it can, if we just widen our lens to include some context. This McClatchy article is a worthwhile read: it explains that “morality as a motive in U.S. foreign policy is more contingent than absolute.” Genocide, international crimes, aggression, chemical weapons use – all of them are used selectively in order to justify U.S. foreign policy on wholly separate calculations. Let me flesh this out a bit…
Newly declassified CIA documents made headlines this week. They proved that the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein in his 1980s war against Iran with the knowledge that he was using chemical weapons indiscriminately on a near daily basis. Saddam killed far more people with chemical weapons than Assad (allegedly) has.
In the following decade, Saddam morphed into a bad guy. The United States imposed the worst economic sanctions on a single country in recent memory. This U.S.-led economic warfare directly led to the deaths of about 500,000 Iraqi children. Two UN envoys assigned to Iraq in the 1990s resigned in protest because of how horrible the sanctions were, one of them describing it as “genocidal.”
Then in 2003, the United States launched a war on Iraq under falsepretenses. The invasion didn’t have a defensive justification, since Saddam didn’t pose even the remotest threat to America, and it didn’t have legal justification either since it wasn’t approved by the UN Security Council. By the most conservative estimates available, about 150,000 people were killed as a result. More reasonable estimates, published in peer-reviewed academic journals, put the number at closer to 600,000-700,000.
Those are three examples in the past three decades of U.S. policy in the Middle East that pull the rug out from under the Obama administration’s moralistic rationale for war against Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. All three demonstrate serious international crimes committed by Washington, all three with humanitarian costs far more severe than anything Assad has done.
So, really…where does America get off?
Update:In Al Jazeera, Rachel Shabi makes a similar point:
Why should military action be necessitated by outrage over chemical attacks? Was there a red line on chemical weapons when the US used depleted-uranium ammunition in Fallujah, Iraq? Was there a red line when Israel deployed white phosphorous in Gaza in 2008? Or when Saddam Hussein, then a western ally, gassed the Iranians and then his own people during the 1980s? This arbitrary and self-serving declaration of what’s acceptable is precisely what makes the US so lacking in credibility when it comes to preaching codes of warfare to the Middle East.
In most Hollywood horror franchises we know that the villains – take your Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, or your rakish Freddy Krueger – always come back. No matter what painful death or injury felled them in the previous romp, an endless string of potential victims means room for one more film. Make that 17 more.
The neoconservative war doctrine of aggressive military force and self-serving regime change did not die after the failed wars of Iraq and Afghanistan, which proponents pushed with an enthusiasm not equaled since the world tilted on its axis and Freddy met Jason in an epic hack-off. No, the neocons went nearly dormant (there is a Bram Stoker trope here, somewhere), reduced really, to sniping at Obama, but more or less biding their time until the next opportunity to manipulate global affairs in the Middle East.
That time, it seems, has come. We’re seeing subtle signs already this week as President Obama takes the country one step closer to air strikes against Bashar Assad’s military assets. We know one thing: neither the administration or military seem particularly interested in pursuing regime change or nation building (their “punitive strike” strategy of course is a topic for another post). However, with Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham as neocon spear points — push, push, pushing for military force, now! — neoconservative voices, old and new, are starting to hint that “to do it right,” we might be in Syria for a long time afterwards, helping the “new” government find its way.
Fred and Kim Kagan consulting the military in Basra in 2008
Never heard of her? She is clearly a protégé of the Kagan Clan, representing Kimberly Kagan’s Institute for the Study of War. Kim Kagan, who is married to Fred Kagan (brother of Robert Kagan), is no doubt happy to put someone besides a Kagan to front her think tank, which frankly, is now aligned with the demise of Gens. David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal, who turned to her and Fred as “consultants” in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Over the last several years, she’s written “The Surge: A Military History,” and numerous magazine articles and op-eds as panegyrics to General Petraeus and “his generals” and their now-discredited COIN pop-doctrine.
So sending out the signal for another regime change must be done carefully and with none of the old baggage. O’Bagy has a Ph.D but this appears to be her first job. She says she has traveled extensively with the rebel groups in Syria to essentially prove that there are moderates out there who the U.S can work with. But her recent appearances on FOX and other venues come across as bullet-point briefings with very little color. The bottom line for O’Bagy: the rebel groups can be parsed. We need not worry about the “extremists,” she insists, they are are outnumbered by the “more moderate groups” who will welcome American assistance (echoes of the Iraqi National Congress?).
Elizabeth O’Bagy
And then for the capstone — “there needs to be more than just punitive measures” she charged on FOX Monday night. “These moderate forces .. could quickly be taken over by the ideology of these extremist groups,” if we don’t do more than just strike, she added. O’Bagy doesn’t say “regime change” is necessary, but she certainly suggests it.
This is fascinating because this is the second time, at least, that O’Bagy has been given over 5 minutes of coveted Special Report time on FOX to describe events in Syria, even though there is a city filled with more experienced foreign policy and military analysts and journalists outside [Note: Special Report gets about 1.9 million viewers each night]. She’s spreading the word at different think tank discussions in Washington, too, like here and here.
While O’Bagy appears to be a gentle enough scout for what will no doubt turn into a full-blown message-control and lobbying campaign, there are more strident neoconservative foot soldiers in the ranks. Like Charles Krauthammer, who all but dared Obama to take out Assad on Special Report tonight. Like former George W speechwriter Michael Gerson, who in Tuesday’s Washington Post laid it all on the line:
The best-case scenario is probably this: a negotiated outcome in which Assad departs and other regime elements agree to form an interim government with the non-extremist members of the opposition. The new government would then need to engage in a multi-year power struggle (aided by the United States) with the jihadists. But this approach would require convincing the regime it can’t win militarily. Which would probably only happen after a Kosovo-style, Western air campaign.
Wow. If I close my eyes and listen to this read out loud and replace “Assad” with “Saddam,” I can almost make out the contours of our failed war in Iraq. If I close my eyes long enough I may see Freddy Krueger, which to tell you the truth is a less scary prospect. Sorry Freddy, maybe it’s time to find another day job after all.
UPDATE: We cannot forget the notoriously neoconservative Washington Post editorial page, which on Tuesday warned that seeing “moderate forces prevail … can’t be achieved with one or two volleys of cruise missiles.” Here’s more:
The United States can’t dictate the outcome in Syria, and it would be foolish to send ground troops in an effort to do so. But by combining military measures with training, weapons supplies and diplomacy, it could exercise considerable influence. The military measures could include destroying forces involved in chemical weapons use and elements of the Syrian air force that have been used to target civilians, as well as helping to carve out a safe zone for rebels and the civilian populations they are seeking to protect.
Such military action should be seen as one component of a policy that finally recognizes a U.S. interest in helping to shape Syria’s future.
UPDATE II : The old gang, back together: The Weekly Standard publishes fatuous letter to the president offering assistance with Syria. Supposedly it includes signatories from “all over the ideological spectrum,” but that is a joke. Not when you are talking Bill Kristol, Elliot Abrams, Cliff May, Joe Lieberman, Robert Kagan, Martin Peretz, Karl Rove, Dan Senor …. you get the point. And not a true realist or anti-interventionist in sight. Not surprising, though, when you see the bottom line :
It is therefore time for the United States to take meaningful and decisive actions to stem the Assad regime’s relentless aggression, and help shape and influence the foundations for the post-Assad Syria that you have said is inevitable.
Over at the Christian Science Monitor, Nathan Gardels interviews Hans Blix, chief UN arms inspector for Iraq from 2000-2003 and former head of the IAEA, on the Obama administration’s plan for bombing Syria. Blix, of course, has some experience dealing with American plans for war prior to UN confirmation of WMD allegations.
Nathan Gardels: Based on your experience, and what you’ve seen in recent days, do you believe the verdict of the Western intelligence agencies that Assad used chemical weapons is credible and reliable?
Hans Blix: The indications are certainly in the direction of the use of chemical weapons. Also, the circumstantial evidence points to the Assad regime carrying out the use of such weapons.
However, since the Western powers have asked for United Nations inspections – and Syria has accepted and inspectors have been put in the field – we all should wait to see the report of the inspectors before action is taken.
As we’ve seen before, the political dynamics are running ahead of due process.
Gardels: An echo of Iraq under President Bush?
Blix: In a way, yes. Then, too, the Americans and their allies asked for inspections for mass destruction weapons. Then, too, they said, “forget it, we have enough evidence on our own to act. We are the world police. Our publics are demanding immediate action!”
I do not go along with the statement by the US that “it is too late” for Syria now to cooperate. That is a poor excuse for taking military action.
Blix goes on to say that “this is about world police, not world law.”
It’s been mentioned that Obama, whether he thinks so or not, is going to need to get Congressional approval before he bombs Syria. It doesn’t look like that’s going to happen, given that administration officials say strikes could come as early as Thursday of this week and Congress is out of session right now.
But Congress being out of session isn’t the only reason Obama doesn’t want to consult Congress, as he is legally obligated. Really, it’s because it looks like Congress might push back on his demands for war.
Despite mounting evidence that President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons on his people, many members of Congress still don’t see a role for the United States military in Syria.
A raft of Republican and Democratic lawmakers — including those directly involved in intelligence oversight — think the U.S. would be wise to take a pass on military intervention in the war-torn country.
“Syria is too far gone to pick sides,” said Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee who taught at West Point. “The rebels are infiltrated with Al Qaeda. Assad has joined the ranks of history’s most evil despots in what he’s willing to do to stay in power. And Russia won’t help us find a solution because relations [between Washington and Moscow] are as bad as they have been in 30 years. I don’t see a way forward, but U.S. boots on the ground is out of the question in my opinion.”
Rep. Loretta Sanchez of California, the No. 2 Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said that the situation in Syria is “as complicated as it could be” but added that military intervention in Syria could “have unintended consequences that could, in fact, make the situation worse.”
“We should take all necessary steps to support the United Nations inspection efforts and keep a close watch on who has access and who could have access to chemical weapons,” Sanchez said in an emailed statement. “We need to make sure an attack of this nature cannot happen again. Going forward, Congress should be involved in any course of action that the Obama Administration takes.”
…Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said that “Absent an imminent threat to United States national security, the U.S. should not be engaged in military action without congressional approval.”
It’s not clear if Congressional opposition would be enough to block any executive branch proposal for airstrikes, but it wouldn’t be a rubber stamp, which is what President Obama would want to legitimize his bombing campaign. Short of that, Obama will act unilaterally, and violate the Constitution once again.
On another note, former Carter national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski had the following exchange with a German think tank:
Q: Do you think the Obama administration has a strategy or a grander plan for Syria and its aftermath after military action?
Brzezinski: If it does it’s a very well-kept secret.
Blix, of course, has some experience dealing with American plans for war prior to UN confirmation of WMD allegations.