Is Obama about to achieve an historic Checkmate?
Image Courtesy of caricature artist Donkey Hotey, licensed CC2.0
On the eve of the 12th Anniversary of 9/11, are we witnessing a masterful game of international "good cop, bad cop" on the chess board, with the two cold war super-power nations playing the leading roles? Are we seeing our President make bold moves that might appear to be towards yet another middle eastern civil-war, but which are really away from such future involvements? And are we, at the same time, seeing our President brilliantly eliminate one of the greatest WMD threats to our security in the world? Are we even seeing our current President deliberately diluting the power of his own office, in order to prevent the sort of abuses of that power engaged in by our last President - before we end up with our next one?
I think we just might be. Let me illustrate why....
Imagine you were the President of the United States, and the one nation, Syria, a middle eastern nation no less, with the world's largest stockpile of chemical weapons - which are, ounce for ounce, thousands of times more deadly than conventional arms - was engaged in a civil war, and using their chemical weapons on their own people? And what if you knew the man in charge of that country was a psychopathic tyrant with close ties to terrorists, who wouldn't hesitate to give those chemical weapons of mass destruction to those terrorists to use against us, here at home, and our allies and outposts abroud, in retaliation for any attack on him?
And what if you were the President who'd had to clean up the war messes of the last administration, which had lied America into a war we didn't need to be in, and botched the war we should been in, leaving both mess for you to clean up? And what if the America you presided over were a war weary nation that every poll said would never approve of going to war again so soon? And what if your base were liberals who would not support getting involved in yet another war without a crystal clear and inarguably present danger? And what if you're the first black President, and the opposition party has been engaging in plenty of "wink and nod" racist rhetoric during your tenure, and controls the House of Representatives. And what if, because of their prejudices, the "loyal opposition" has been unprecendentedly obstructionist toward anything you try to do, since gaining control that control of the House?
And what if the rebels in the civil war, where the lunatic tyrant was gassing his own people, had been heavily infiltrated by the same enemy we've just spent a dozen years at war with, after they attacked us on 9/11? And what if our old Cold War adversary of Russia was strongly supporting their strategic ally, the tyrant in question - and was still superpower enough to make that a very scary proposition? And yet, what if the man in charge of Russia were himself a tyrant, but one who is not entirely opposed to cooperation with America? And what if you knew he'd gladly stick a "peace-maker" feather in his cap if he could, and could therefore be manipulated into playing "good cop" (from Bashar Al-Assad's perspective) to your "bad cop"?
And what if you're in your 2nd term, and won't face re-election, and what you'd really like to do is make it harder for the next President to lie us into a war the way our last President did, while avoiding getting involved in this war, but also while putting an end to the chemical attacks? Indeed, what if you're ambitious enough to actually dare to hope to use this opportunity to rid the world of the largest cache of chemical WMD's in existence, with the cooperation of the very tyrant who has been using these horrendous weapons? And, what if you were a Constitutional Lawyer before you were a politician, and wanted to reset the precedent, so future Presidents would be more likely to abide by the Constitutions provisions for declaring war, in ways no President since FDR has? In fact, what if you were even audacious enough to hope you could somehow restore not only some semblance of the way the Founding Fathers wanted America to declare war, but also could alleviate the international pressure on the United States to be the world police, which seems to be what drags us into war after war, by helping to restore the power of international law? And what if you wanted to give it all extra historical significance to make the new precedent more likely to stick?
So, if all of that were (as it has been) the situation, what would you do? How could you possibly achieve your goals of:
* Avoiding getting involved in yet another middle eastern civil war...
* Keeping this use of chemical weapons from emboldening others who have them to use them...
* Keeping this use of chemical weapons of mass destruction from leading to their proliferation, as increased demand leads to increased supply...
* Avoiding these weapons falling into the hands of terrorists who might use them against us or our allies...
* Avoiding being pressured into supporting and arming our own enemies, such as Al Queda, among the Syrian rebels.
And even achieving your bonus goals of:
* Getting the world's largest cache of Chemical WMD's destroyed, without risking the lives of Americans to get it done...
* Returning America to a Constitutional process for declaring war, making it harder for the next President to do what our last President did. Indeed making it harder for future Presidents to declare war on their own they way we have since after World War II...
* Restoring the international courts to their role of dealing with war criminals, so that the perpetrators of these recent - and future - atrocities will face the Hague Tribunals just like the Nazi war criminals did. And so that the pressure on the United States to always be the world police is alleviated...
* And lastly, giving the whole thing extra historical significance, so the new precedence you're setting is likely to last.
How might you get that done? How could you move the chess pieces on the international board to manage such a check-mate? Here's how:
* Perhaps, you might utter a seemingly off the cuff remark about a red line. And then, when that line gets crossed, you might make a big noise about military strikes in retaliation, knowing full well the people will howl in protest, and your political opponents - who control congress, and like to pay lip service to caring about the Constitution - will seize on the opportunity to demand that you obey the Constitution in ways they, themselves, never before really supported - never dreaming you'd call their bluff.
* But then, you'd hesitate and not strike right away. You'd call the Republicans' bluff, and let the main stream media - owned in large measure by defense contractors salivating at the idea of more war profiteering - accuse you of dithering.
* In response, you'd feed the media noise machine by sending your Secretary of State to make the case for war - in a way glaringly reminiscent of the way another Secretary of State in the previous administration did, knowing that the previous administrations arguments had proven to be specious, and knowing that in accordance with the "boy who cried wolf" principle, people would therefore be naturally suspicious of this latest case for war by a US Secretary of State.
* Then, through back channels, you'd encourage our tenuous ally and old adversary, the faltering superpower Russia, to find a diplomatic solution with their ally, and you'd "dither" long enough to give them time to negotiate.
* Meanwhile, you'd have the same Secretary of State whose making the case for war speak, seemingly out of line, to suggest a solution (not coincidentally, the one you wanted all along: letting the international community take control of, and destroy, this huge stockpile of WMD's).
*Then, you'd sit back and let another of our allies, this time the French, whose language lends itself so well to poetic demands for justice, be the ones to call for international tribunals as part of the deal. And you'd let them take the matter to the United Nations.
* And you'd time it all to reach that check-mate position, where the Middle Eastern tyrant accepts the terms of surrendering their WMD's so we don't have to strike them, and can let the international courts handle it from here (with our influence, of course), on the eve of the anniversary of the terrorist attacks which caused us to get into the wars we're so sick of as a nation in the first place.
* Then, to keep the pressure on, but signal that if the Syrians follow through on giving up their WMD's, they can avoid US military strikes, you'd continue to call for strikes personally from the Bully Pulpit, as President, even as you had your spokesperson and aides start saying things like 'diplomacy is now our priority', and "we see this as potentially a positive development", sending mixed signals that they can sort out to get your meaning, but give you cover to do whatever you end up needing to do.
THAT is how you'd do it - up to this point.
So, is that what we as a nation are witnessing unfold before us? A game of good cop, bad cop, accross the international chess board, brilliantly masterminded by our President? It remains to be seen, but it's looking like that could be the case. And we should all hope so. And if so, I must say: Bravo, President Obama. Well played. Historically well played, indeed.
Edward Lynn is the Chairman of the Beer Party.