"Smart Diplomacy" in Action!

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“Smart Diplomacy” in Action!

As we consider the prospects of American policy with regard Syria, it is all too easy to see in the day-to-day events of the past two years inaction rooted in the incompetence of the Obama administration. But what if we were to look at that record not with an eye toward proving incompetence, but instead to discern the outlines of an intelligent policy? What would such a policy have to resemble?

The downsides of American intervention in Syria are many and obvious. We could very easily help to overthrow Assad only to find that we’ve placed an inveterate group of anti-American jihadists in power in Damascus.

Alternatively, if we continue to do nothing the butchery in Syria will continue with tens of thousands of additional civilians killed. The the growing sectarian divisions evident in Syria could very well accelerate and consume not just Syria, but also Iraq, Lebanon, and Jordan, destabilizing a huge swath of the region between the Mediterranean and the Iranian plateau.

That said, the current policy of inaction by the Obama administration, if we assume it is a conscious choice, would have to: 1) accept the deaths of thousands of additional Arabs in Syria, and 2) accept the dangers of the spread of sectarian strife from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates, and all that entails.

Such an assumption would suggest that the Obama administration, perhaps in response to the reality checks that came in the wake of the “Arab Spring,” has concluded that the Islamic world is doomed and the implosion that is coming is beyond the capabilities of the United States, and the West, to shape or contain. Hence our inaction, despite the course of events.

In other words, the only general strategy toward the region that is congruent with current Obama policy is one that has basically written off the Arab, and perhaps even more broadly, the Islamic world!

That’s right! The Obama that the American right so likes to castigate as an inveterate liberal actually has adopted a policy that is the most cold-hearted and bloody realpolitik approach of the modern era! Barack Obama has decided that we will sit back and watch as the world’s Arabs massacre each other in a spasm of violence that may ultimately engulf the entire region. But isn’t it better that they kill each other than us! In short, Obama’s new anti-terrorism policy is to let our enemies, and potential enemies in the Islamic world, massacre each other, while we re-focus our efforts on rebuilding our own economy and society.

Alternatively, the Obama administration is simply incompetent.