US politicians offer neither consensus nor solutions on Syria

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/04/us-political-parties-divided-over-syria

Version 0 of 1.

For years, Republicans have criticised Barack Obama for not doing more to stop the brutalities carried out by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and to fight Isis. But what they think Obama should do and what the long-term solution might be remained hazy.

After prolonged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Americans are weary of getting involved in another conflict without a clear path to peace – and so is Obama, who six years ago was elected in part because he opposed invading Iraq. “When I hear people offering up half-baked ideas as if they are solutions or trying to downplay the challenges involved in this situation,” Obama said of Syria in a rare press conference on Friday, “what I’d like to see people ask is specifically, precisely, what exactly would you do and how would you fund it and how would you sustain it? Typically what you get is a bunch of mumbo-jumbo.”

With a presidential election and an important House leadership race on the horizon, Obama is hearing more than ever from critics about what specifically they think he should do. But unusually for Washington, their positions don’t line up neatly along partisan lines.

Last week, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton took the unusual step of openly breaking with the administration. Her comment came just after Russian warplanes began bombing Syrian rebels fighting the Assad regime, a move that’s widely seen as an attempt by Russia to prop up Assad. “I personally would be advocating now for a no-fly zone and humanitarian corridors,” Clinton said in a TV interview days after a White House spokesman dismissed the idea of a no-fly zone.

It’s a statement that puts Clinton closer in line with Republicans than with the White House and it’s a position of great consequence. At issue is whether the US wants to risk the possibility of escalating a military conflict with the Syrian government and even, in the case of a misfire, with Russia. The potential repercussions of a no-fly zone are enormous: war.

In his Friday press conference, Obama sought to paper over the differences with his former secretary of state and possible successor, massaging fault lines wherever possible. “There’s a difference between running for president and being president,” he said. “They require a different kind of judgment and that’s what I’ll continue to apply as long as I’m here.” The suggestion is that any daylight between the two of them can be chalked up to a difference in job description, not substance.

Yet the policy rift is real. Clinton and Obama have publicly broken on Syria before, as when she called for arming moderate Syrian rebels to fight the Assad regime as secretary of state. And during the presidential primaries of 2008, her more hawkish view on foreign policy, particularly her vote for the Iraq war, was a top reason Democrats lined up behind Obama instead of her.

Clinton’s comments on Syria would seem to be aimed at helping her win over disgruntled Americans in a general election. But the timing of them feels strange, coming just as Clinton is trying to beat back popular momentum for Bernie Sanders, the Vermont socialist candidate pressuring her from the left.

Before Clinton came out in support of the idea, Republican rising star Carly Fiorina had already called on the US to enforce a no-fly zone in Syria to protect US-backed rebel fighters, as had Jeb Bush in unequivocal terms. On Friday, another Republican presidential contender joined their camp: “You enter that no-fly zone, you enter at your own peril,” said Governor John Kasich. “No more red lines, no more looking the other way. If any hostile aircraft should enter that, there will be a great consequence to them.”

Republicans generally favour more intervention in Syria, but there are still plenty of voices in the party objecting to such moves, particularly in the party’s anti-interventionist arm. After Fiorina’s call was telegraphed to the public, reaction among conservatives was mixed to say the least, with one prominent rightwing blogger calling Fiorina’s support for a no-fly zone“a borderline nutty overcorrection to Obama’s passivity”.

Meanwhile, in Congress, the issue has taken a backseat to the messy GOP leadership fight, after House speaker John Boehner announced his resignation from Congress recently. Kevin McCarthy, the man who’s poised to replace him, did call for a no-fly zone, saying it would curtail Assad’s ability to strike down his own citizens. But it’s not a top priority for McCarthy, as he struggles to maintain his grip on the race for Boehner’s seat.

It isn’t the first time Syria’s politics have defied party lines. In August, the Syrian refugee crisis became a 2016 issue after an image of the lifeless body of Syrian toddler Alan Kurdi washed ashore on a Turkish beach, capturing the America’s collective conscience. Democrats generally favoured taking in refugees, though disagreed over how many, while Republicans were more likely to call for stricter US entrance requirements or loudly blame Obama for the unrest. .

There seemed to be no method to the madness of choosing a position. Part of the problem is that nobody has a good solution, which leads to confusion, and perhaps it is Republican front-runner Donald Trump who best embodies it. First he excoriated leaders for not accepting more refugees; then he announced refugee intake should be strictly limited; now he’s saying refugees should all be sent back to Syria. “If I win, they’re going back, I’m telling you,” he said.

But even if the battle lines are more complicated than usual, the battle lines are as juvenile as ever. There’s a notion, advanced by hawkish types in the US, that Russia is intervening in Syria because Obama left a leadership vacuum in Syria. It’s a flimsy narrative that glosses over the real question of what that leadership might look like, as well as whether and when intervention is necessary.

It also speaks to an unfortunate habit among political operatives and the press of describing foreign policy, and relations with Putin in particular, in the way one might describe a boxing match. At his press conference on Friday, Obama sought to discourage such sophomoric framing. “This is not a contest between the US and Russia,” he said. “It is in our interest for Russia to be a responsible, successful actor on the national stage that can share burdens with US because the problems we have are big.” Yet for all his grand gestures, the president didn’t quite rise above the pugilistic tone of the week, arguing Putin went into Syria “out of weakness” while he, Obama, was acting from a place of “strength”. He noted that the Russian economy was contracting and that Assad was one of the few friends Putin has left in the world.

Then he dropped the locker-room talk and got to the heart of the issue: “We’re not going to make Syria into a proxy war between the US and Russia. That would be bad strategy on our part. Our battle is with Isis.” Sorry, Mr President, but it’s unclear if your former secretary of state and likely future successor agrees with your analysis.

Lucia Graves is staff correspondent for National Journal magazine, Washington