"Obama's Syria Gambit and the Art of Political War"



For Barack Obama, everything is about partisan politics and power - every decision, every maneuver, every ploy - even when it comes to something as deadly serious as Syria.

Here we have a President with a clearly defined history of cynical political gamesmanship - a committed ideologue who gains advantage by agitating and distracting, by exploiting disarray and disorder, often caused by his own disruptive actions. Here we have a President who has proven time and again that he's willing, if not eager, to flout the Constitution, disregard the law, disrespect the Congress and ignore the will of the people.

And yet now, this same President is supposedly ready to make his case to the Congress that the United States should unilaterally attack the sovereign nation of Syria in order to punish its dictator of a President who supposedly gased and slaughtered his own people. And yet, even as team Obama consults with Congress in apparent respect of the Constitution, we must ask: Is this anything more than a charade? A pretense? A deception? A farce and a mockery of the kind we've come to expect from a White House whose political pattern is to cultivate chaos, to divide and conquer?

Consider Obama's strange move over the weekend. To announce to the world that, though he is convinced that he right now has the authority to order a strike on Syria, he will hold off so that Congress can weigh in. In what can only be described as odd, if not altogether astonishing, Obama said that military action against the Assad regime would be effective days or even weeks from now. Despite the chemical attacks that have left hundreds dead, despite the apparent humanitarian crisis and the ongoing suffering in Syria, Obama said he's willing to wait weeks to do something.

Also over the weekend, key players on team Obama made it clear that the President may just go ahead and launch a strike even if the Congress doesn't approve. Remember, the House actually voted overwhelmingly against authorizing the U.S. war in Libya, and yet Obama simply ignored the vote and proceeded to prosecute the war anyway.

Consider also that Obama is personally reaching out to certain key Republican lawmakers - Senators Graham and McCain, specifically - to get them on his side. And it appears to be working, as McCain says to undermine the President and block a Syria strike would be catastrophic. Really, catastrophic for whom? Obama? The United States? The Syrian rebels? Israel?

And now consider the timing of Obama's congressional consultations and of the lengthy debate that will likely ensue. What else will be happening on Capitol Hill that could take a back seat? What other important issues could be overshadowed, what other critical deliberations could be thrown into disarray? As Obama effectively splits and splinters the Republicans and, yes, even the Democrats on the Syria question, what happens to immigration? Gun control? The budget resolution and the effort to defund ObamaCare?

With the Syrian mess moved into the Congressional arena, and given the President's declaration that debate can go on, well, for weeks, has team Obama once again played a deviously clever and effective political game of gotcha? Will opposition to Obama's immigration, gun control, and health care agenda now be more fractured and ineffective?

Sadly, it would seem, Syria is yet another device, another distraction, another means to an end. And after the congressional dust clears - whatever the outcome of a vote to use military action - Obama appears likely to do what he wants anyway. Having depleted and weakened his opponents in this war powers debate over striking Syria, the imperial President will have struck another blow against the power of the Congress and thus of the people. Obama will have once again strengthened his political power at the expense of the United States Constitution.

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