Images of children gassed provoked President Obama to demand the elimination of Assad's chemical weapons. The logic of raising the method of killing 1,400 as more horrific than the earlier 110,000 killed by bullets and explosives is simply odd, isn't it?
As I [Shadi Hamid] wrote here months ago, the Obama Administration's "red line" sent a disturbing message, implying that anything short of chemical weapon use -- the continued mass slaughter of civilians by other means, for instance -- was, in effect, permissible. Now that message will have been reinforced once again. What should have been about helping move Syria toward a resolution of its terrible, tragic conflict has now been turned into a cynical cat-and-mouse game over chemical weapons.
It is difficult to imagine Obama going back to Congress and the American people sometime in the near future and making an entirely different case that has nothing to do with chemical weapons and everything to do with stopping mass slaughter and shifting the military balance on the ground. That was not the case Obama and senior officials made this time, so how would they justify making it three or four months from now? As long as Assad gives the appearance of being mildly compliant on chemical weapons, he will be safe.
In summer 2014--if all goes as planned--even as the death toll in Syria approaches 200,000, President Obama will declare "mission accomplished" over the Assad chemical weapons issue. Because as everyone knows, the 1994 slaughter in Rwanda used blades and bullets--and Syria will have demonstrated that we are fine with that method of killing.
What the heck, President Obama might even share a Nobel Peace Prize with Assad and Putin for the deed.
So in the 6th year of the Era of Hope and Change, Responsibility to Protect (R2P) will be dead and buried. And why the Hell not? It's not like Syria has much oil like Libya, or anything. Right?
UPDATE: Thanks to Pseudo-Polymath for the link.
