We're going to attack Syria, whether our Congress can be bullied and bribed into approving the plan or not. Congress doesn't matter.
Our Secretary of State, John Kerry, says our President has the "right" to make war when he will.
Hmmmm. Some people were dropped on their heads as babies. Others were clearly thrown up in the air, hit the ceiling fan, bounced off the bedpost and the dresser, then fell out the window and left a dent in the sidewalk.
He has the "right" to make war? Our Constitution grants "rights" only to we, the people. American Presidents have duties and responsibilities, and a good salary. That's it. No special rights, privileges or royal prerogatives. Their job, and it is just a job, is to see that the laws of the land are carried out, and to oversee defense of our country. Only our Congress has the onerous duty of deciding collectively if and where and when we go to war, not our Presidents.
But try telling that to the neoliberal multi-millionaires living in sealed bubbles within the confines of that giant asylum on the Potomac, Washington, DC. Our collective representatives are not only off the reservation, they're unaware that there is a reservation, or a Constitution either.
So the facts of life are plain: Obama will have his splendid little war, no matter what, all on the basis of, "Who's going to stop me?"
Well, sir, if you must know . . .
You are going to be stopped. America will be stopped. This little expedition is a very bad idea any way you look at it, and it's guaranteed in multiple ways to go completely wrong from the get go. If you could be persuaded to spend a few evenings this week reading a book about how and why World War One got started, you will come away with a clear picture of the holocaust you are about to unleash.
Or maybe you know that already, and feel you have no choice. That, too, was part of how WWI got rolling. When a nation feels it is circling the economic drain, sliding toward Depression and loss of status on the world stage, it is better to kick over the table and start a brawl than play the losing hand you've been dealt, slowly losing your power and prestige among nations. Sure, you could lose more than you would have by this reckless gambit. But you just might gain more than you imagined.
I think that's what you've decided. That's why you will have your war no matter what, with or without allies.
The British Parliament has refused permission to their Prime Minister to join in, and Germany has politely but firmly declined every invitation to attend as well.
France has major interests in building an oil pipeline through Syria, so they want a new government there, so they are gung ho to join us, whether their Parliament approves or not.
You say your war is to punish Assad for using sarin gas, a violation of international laws of war, and it's a charge not proved by any stretch. But that's just a handy excuse. America supplied Saddam Hussein with the components to make sarin gas in his war on Iran from 1980 through 1988 (Reagan's two terms), and we didn't respond with even a yawn when he killed many thousands of Iranians with it. Nor when he killed Kurds with it. And those attacks were confirmed and proven ten times over.
Well, none of that helps you make your case, so it's inadmissible in your bubble. You've picked your excuse, and here we go.
The truth is we're going to bomb Syria for a few days because Assad is winning his war against the al Quaeda rebels we and the Saudis fund and supply there, plus Iran just elected a new President, a real statesman and capable negotiator unlike the nut job who was in charge for the last few years. He looks likely to make Iran a much more stable and prosperous regime. And Iran is a key supplier of Assad, of Hamas in Lebanon and Palestine, and is Israel's only serious enemy in the Middle East.
So by attacking Assad's military we help our rebels regain all the territory they've lost to Assad lately, we weaken Assad's regime, we cost Iran a lot of money replacing what we destroy, and we force Iran into openly supporting Assad's vicious military regime, thus painting Iran as a monster on the world stage at the very moment when Iran is starting to look like a modern, civilized state that wants peace with all its neighbors.
In case you weren't aware, we have been trying to control or topple Iran since WWII, including assassinating their democratically elected President in 1953 so we could install the Shah as our obedient dictator for 26 years. That lasted until 1979. Then we funded an 8-year war by Iraq upon Iran, starting in 1980. We lost, in spite of all the sarin and mustard gas and satellite photos and weapons we supplied Saddam with, and we're still trying to topple Iran or make it ours. We are what you call an implacable enemy of Iran's independence.
Iran's other two implacable enemies are ancient, and enemies by dint of religious decree -- Israel and Saudi Arabia. The Israelis follow a policy of expansion of their little rump state into Greater Israel someday, by pushing out their borders into Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and even Egypt. Might take a century or two, but one day Israel will be the super kingdom of Yahweh that it was before the Romans finally destroyed their temple in 70 AD. There's no reasoning with these people. They will fight for generations to create Greater Israel again, and no cost is too great to bear.
The Saudis are Sunni Muslims of the extremely orthodox Wahabi sect, and they consider all Shia Muslims to be infidels, traitors to the Prophet, lower than dogs and deserving of death on sight. There's no reasoning with these people about this, for "it is written." And they have enormous oil wealth to back their ancient feud against Iran, the Persian homeland of the Shiites. So the Saudis are very much on board with making Sunni Islam dominant in the Middle East, which currently takes the form or taking down Iran and their client state Syria. The Saudis more or less see themselves sharing the Middle East with Israel someday, with Iran broken and despoiled permanently. If there is to be a contest for territory or dominance of the region with Israel, that will come after the field is cleared of the Shiite infidels and usurpers. One war at a time is a prudent policy. Until that day, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
There is the further complication that both Russia and China are close allies of Iran, both for commercial reasons and because Iran is the last Middle Eastern nation not allied with the Americans or turned into a failed state like Iraq that threatens only its own stability, no one else's. Russia is a close ally of Syria for the same reason. Russia knows that once Iran and Syria are no longer standing against the Americans, the entire southern belly of Russia -- the Caspian Basin with all its small Muslim nations -- are ripe for America to topple one by one as well, claiming their enormous oil and natural gas supplies for the West, not for Russia.
You can understand that asking Russia to let us topple Iran and Syria is like asking your opponent in a knife fight to drop his pants and close his eyes for just a sec. "Just a sec, this won't take long, okay?" Well, that's not going to happen. We actually went to the UN Security Council and asked Russia to do just that. To no one's surprise, they refused. No UN approval of this splendid little war will be forthcoming.
President Obama doesn't care. He has the right to make war because he is the President.
Both China and Russia have repeatedly warned us and France in the last couple of weeks to stay out of Syria. Right now it is a proxy war, like Vietnam was. Russia is supplying the Iranians and Syrians with their best anti-ship missiles, which no one doubts can put any of our carriers or other ships on the bottom in less than 30 seconds. We can't put ships within 400 miles of the Syrian coastline without risking their being sunk, and we definitely can't put ships in the Persian Gulf. We will lose them all in a hurry if things get rolling.
Russia and China won't budge on Syria or Iran because they know that handing them over to the Americans is just going to lead to wider wars up into the Caspian Basin, and more American attempts to militarily encircle and dominate the globe, preventing China and Russia from having as viable an economic role in the modern world as they are capable of. We would deny them that and preserve it for ourselves, through force if necessary.
Clearly, Syria is the time and place to stop the Americans. Russia and China know it. If it can be kept to a proxy war, a vicious little game between great powers, that is best. If it comes to it, though, the gloves are ready to come off and the pretense about who is really behind this struggle will go right out the window.
In short, we have a situation with multiple powerful, implacable players, none of whom can afford to back up one inch. And we intend to wade into this tinderbox and push everyone on the other side back about an inch. It's a "whatcha gonna do about it?" move.
Well, they're going to do plenty, Mr. President. You will lose control of the situation within minutes, and never get it back.
This is how World War One started. Some minor Serbian prince was assassinated by some local anarchists in a distant corner of Europe. No one wanted war. But an insult like that must not go unanswered, so a little punishment expedition was launched. But punishment expeditions cannot go unanswered either, so there was a localized military response to that, but there were treaties and they had allies and before you know it everyone was openly at war with everyone else. If atomic bombs had existed in 1914, the world would have ended then and there.
They exist now, and a very likely scenario for the latter half of September is nuclear war in the Middle East, and possibly wider use of these deadly weapons. No one will have a choice, you see. That's how a house of cards falls down. Pull one card out and the other cards have no choice about what happens next.
Call it the physics of war. Things fall into disorder with no one able to control events.
The difference this time is that this war will come home to America in the form of Depression very quickly. It will not be something sanitary played out on TV, fought by volunteers sent repeatedly on combat tours. It will come into your kitchen, your workplace, your living room, your schools, and your neighborhood. Once the shooting starts, your world will never be the same again.
Here's how it will happen:
* America launches cruise missiles from the Mediterranean against Assad's military assets, command and control centers, stockpiles of weapons, troop concentrations, airfields, oil pipelines, etc to seriously weaken his regime. A punishing expedition, just like 1914. A splendid little war. And it's all supposed to stop with that. No one should respond. Syria deserves this slap-down, so let it happen. Responses from Syria or its allies would be a very bad thing.
But there will be all kinds of responses from Syria, and from allies who cannot afford to back up even an inch. Just like 1914, but with nukes waiting just behind the curtain.
* Syria has promised to attack Israel the moment they are attacked, with missiles from Syria and from southern Lebanon through their Hamas proxies. There is real risk of this including sarin gas or other chemical weapons this time. All of northern Israel is a target.
* Israel has vowed to strike back hard at Syria and Hamas in Lebanon and even Iran if they are attacked. Iran is the real target of this punishing expedition. Israel has been pushing for several years now to attack Iran's uranium enrichment facilities, since they fear a nuclear Iran more than anything else. Only tactical nuclear bombs have any chance of taking out Iran's underground enrichment factories, so tactical nukes are likely in this attack. That puts things in a whole 'nuther ball game.
* Iran has promised to attack Israel if Israel attacks Syria or attacks Iran. They may also attack American bases in Iraq.
* Iran has particularly let it be known that they will close the Persian Gulf to all oil commerce, and attack Saudi Arabia's oilfields if they are attacked by Israel and its western allies. This will crash the economies of every Western nation overnight. Fully 20% of all oil moves through the Persian Gulf, and the Iranians can shut it down in an hour by firing a few anti-ship missiles from the Zagreb mountains. If only one tanker is sunk, insurance for tankers will be impossible to buy, so oil will stop moving immediately. Putting warships in the gulf won't get oil moving. Those ships will be within 20 miles of the Iranian coast at all times, and land based Russian missiles can sink them in under four seconds. There simply is no defense.
* America (and Europe) will be in a deep Depression the morning after the Persian Gulf is closed, and there is little doubt we would use multiple nuclear weapons to take Iran completely out of the equation and reopen the Gulf to shipping as fast as we could do it. Our survival as a nation would be at stake.
* Russia has missile ships stationed off the Syrian coast right now, and has said they will not put up with us attacking Syria or Iran. We can sink their missile ships easily, and they know it. The question is, can we sink them before they launch their missiles, because 30 seconds after their missiles launch, every one of our ships will be blown apart and sinking. Whoever shoots first loses just as fast as the other guy who shoots back. Everyone sinks within minutes. No winners. But sinking each other's warships immediately puts America and Russia on the brink of using ICBM's.
* Russia supplies Europe with its natural gas. They can turn off the pipelines to individual countries or all of Europe at will to punish them for supporting or allowing this splendid little war. Europe can't do a thing about it. War won't solve it. That would only destroy the pipelines and gas wells. Only the threat of nuclear war could possibly persuade Russia to turn on the spigot.
* Russia could actually sit this whole thing out, in hopes that the closing of the Persian Gulf by Iran will so destroy the American nation that they will never be a military threat to the Caspian Basin. But that risk is not worth taking. The hard line is that under no circumstances can America be allowed to dominate the Middle East and be free to make little wars on up into the Caspian nations. The place to stop America is Syria. The time is now.
There will be responses aplenty, back and forth, escalating every time. President Obama's splendid little war is going to go very badly, within hours. Our genuine opponents in this proxy war in Syria are not going to drop their pants and let us have our punishing expedition without consequence. They can't. Their risk level in this is existential. They can't back down; they must respond. Response will lead to response in kind, and hell will come to breakfast before anyone has time to fervently wish none of this had ever happened.
But you are right in the middle of it this time, you and your family and your life as you know it. If you're lucky, you will only be an economic refugee. This time the war will most definitely come home to America in the form of Depression. There will be no functioning economy when the oil stops flowing. The oil shock of even a week's interruption of shipments to Europe and America will last for decades. The Middle East will never be the same, and neither will you and yours.
And it is all unnecessary. There is no compelling need beyond the urge of our elites to expand Americas' military reach over the whole Middle East.
It won't be the Syrians, Iranians, Israelis, Saudis, Russians or Chinese who start this thing. It will not be the American people. It will almost certainly not be Congress, the only government body with the duty to decide when America goes to war.
It will be a royal usurper in the paid role of our national Executive, it will be President Obama who says, "Launch!" even though he has no right to do so.