Heck, I'm not innocent in all this. I thought for years that we could flip Syria based on a take-it-or-leave-it policy of offering our hostility until Syria flipped first. Then--and only then--we could talk goodies. Briefly during the Bush administration it seemed like we were trying that. Now I'm not sure we could engineer that kind of flip as long as Iran supports Syria. And Pelosi's pilgrimage to Damascus when she became Speaker in 2007 ended the or-else track, anyway.
I wrote recently about an article that just doesn't seem to get that Syria is not interested in flipping through promises of Western help and lamented reporters could fall for the idea that the fall of the Assad regime would be bad for the prospects of peace with Israel. I admitted that perhaps my beef should be with the foreign policy types the reporter interviewed. Well, I probably owe the reporter a hearty "I'm sorry for assuming you are an idiot." No, from the top the delusion of working with Assad persists, as Secretary of State Clinton indicates:
There is a different leader in Syria now. Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he’s a reformer. What’s been happening there the last few weeks is-- is deeply concerning. But there’s a difference between calling out aircraft and indiscriminately strafing and bombing your own cities, then police actions, which frankly have exceeded the use of force that any of us would want to see.
Assad is a "new" leader? And he's a reformer? On what reality-based planet do you have to live on to believe that Boy Assad, in power for a decade and reliant on his father's brutal minions to do what it takes to stay in power, is a reformer?
Apparently, if protests after Friday prayers lead the Assad regime to put down the protesters violently with means that fall short of using aircraft (and to be fair, Khaddafi's limited use of air power was largely aimed at armed targets rather than against civilian targets), that won't count--although it will frankly exceed the use of force that any of us would want to see, of course.
The belief in Assad's powers of reform are strong in this Secretary of State. But in the end, can't you just see Clinton hopefully running up to kick the ball that Assad is holding, only to see Clinton ending up on her back, staring at the sky and muttering "Rats!"? That smarts, all right.
The nuance! It burns!
UPDATE: Krauthammer isn't impressed by the "reformer" claim:
Few things said by this administration in its two years can match this one for moral bankruptcy and strategic incomprehensibility.
Hillary Clinton said her judgment after getting a 3:00 a.m. crisis call is superior to then-candidate Obama's judgment. Her Sunday morning analysis doesn't bolster her claim.
