Thread: Mapping America's Dwindling Invasion Coalition

Mapping America's Dwindling Invasion Coalition

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/31/2013 16:45 -0400

Via Stratfor,

U.S. President Barack Obama is evidently not getting the multinational coalition his administration was expecting to share the burden of a limited strike operation against Syria. The British parliament has voted against a military intervention, and NATO has said it would not participate in a U.S.-led mission. The United States can either unilaterally fire a symbolic but ineffective shot to demonstrate action for the sake of action, wage a highly unpopular multi-month air-land attack alone or abandon the military campaign altogether.




Without a meaningful coalition, the United States has little choice but to focus its efforts on a highly ambitious and difficult negotiated settlement involving Russia and Iran. The mounting limitations on the U.S. military option will redirect U.S. attention to an uphill diplomatic effort with difficult negotiating partners. Russia has an opportunity to demand U.S. attention on a number of issues related to defining a Russian sphere of influence in former Soviet territory and having the United States respect the boundaries that Moscow sets. Notably, any such deal would be designed to allow Russia and Iran to preserve political influence in Damascus. The low prospects of that negotiation on top of the limited utility of a unilateral punitive strike could lead the United States to back off its position toward Syria unless it sees a significant shift from still-wavering allies France and Turkey.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-0...sion-coalition

Obama's "Next Steps" (On The Ground) Briefing - To Seek Congressional Approval

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/31/2013 13:09 -0400


UPDATE

• *OBAMA SAYS USERS OF CHEMCIAL WEAPONS MUST BE HELD TO ACCOUNT
• *OBAMA SAYS `MENACE' OF SYRIA MUST BE CONFRONTED
• *OBAMA SAYS U.S. MUST TAKE MILITARY ACTION AGAINST SYRIA
• *OBAMA SAYS HE WILL SEEK AUTHORIZATION FROM CONGRESS ON SYRIA

Via Bloomberg,

U.S. must take action against Syrian “menace,” Congress will debate, vote on authorization of military strike, President Obama says at White House.

U.S. will be stronger if Congress approves steps; “We should have this debate,” Obama says

* Regimes that use chemical weapons must be held to account
* “Atrocity” committed with chemical weapons “must be confronted”
* Reiterates no ground troops in Syria

The Associated Press ✔ @AP
BREAKING: Obama will seek authorization from Congress for taking military action against Syria
1:57 PM - 31 Aug 2013


While Andrea Mitchell reports that the President will not be announcing airstrikes from the Rose Garden at 115ET, his press briefing this afternoon will update the American people on his decisions about how to proceed... so with no report due from the UN on Syrian chemical arms until lab tests are done, we wait with bated breath for Obama's next steps (but not on the ground...)


Agence France-Presse ✔ @AFP
#BREAKING President Obama will not announce imminent military action, a White House official tells AFP
12:32 PM - 31 Aug 2013



Agence France-Presse ✔ @AFP
#BREAKING No report from UN on Syria chemical arms until lab tests are done
12:50 PM - 31 Aug 2013



http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-0...g-live-webcast

Guest Post: Where's Congress on Syria?

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/31/2013 12:18 -0400

Submitted by Robert W. Merry via The National Interest,

Where’s Congress? That’s the question that should haunt the American people in the wake of President Obama’s apparent decision to get their country into another Mideast war. In the long history of the American experience, matters of war and peace have always been hotly debated. And those debates traditionally have been most intense and concentrated in Congress.

Remember Arkansas senator William Fulbright’s famous hearings on the Vietnam War, beginning in 1966. He was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and he shared the Democratic Party label with his president, Lyndon Johnson, who had perpetrated the U.S. war effort in Vietnam. But that shared party label didn’t prevent Fulbright from going after the president with these words at the start of his hearings:

Under our system, Congress, and especially the Senate, shares responsibility with the President for making our Nation’s foreign policy. This war, however, started and continues as a Presidential war in which Congress, since the fraudulent Gulf of Tonkin episode, has not played a significant role. The purpose of these hearings is to develop the best advice and greater public understanding of the policy alternatives available and possible congressional action to end American participation in the war.

Clearly, Fulbright wasn’t messing around as he thrust himself into the war controversy based on his standing in a Congress charged with joint responsibility for America’s wars.

Or recall North Dakota’s Republican senator Gerald Nye from the 1930s, chairman of the Senate Munitions Investigating Subcommittee. A rustic progressive who advocated the nationalization of what he considered troublesome industries, he also was a tireless friend to thousands of German-born Dakota farmers still angry about America’s role in the Great War.Nye wanted the country to avoid any further foreign conflicts, and so he attacked the forces he viewed as promoters of war—the big arms manufacturers, which he called “merchants of death,” and international bankers who financed the purchase of armaments and then, as Nye viewed it, fomented war to ensure a return on their investments.

Nye’s headline-grabbing hearings fostered the Neutrality Act of 1935, which placed America on the sidelines of all international conflicts. The legislation required the president to proclaim the existence of any foreign wars and prohibited American vessels from carrying arms to or for belligerents in such wars. It was popular at the time largely because of widespread lingering feelings among Americans that the World War I adventure had been ill-conceived. Whatever Nye’s contemporaries may have thought of his legislation or the thinking behind it, no one could doubt that this driven politician intended to wield all the power that the Constitution bestowed upon him as a member of the Senate.

Consider also Missouri’s Democratic senator Thomas Hart Benton, who served his state and party from 1821 to 1851—and demonstrated throughout those three decades a fierce independence tied to a zest for political pugilism. Although an early political ally of President James K. Polk, Benton balked when Polk sought from Congress authorization for war with Mexico that could include an invasion of the southern neighbor. He maneuvered cleverly in the Senate in opposition to Polk’s interests and threatened to unleash a full-bore opposition campaign, which could have emboldened the Whig opposition and destroyed the president’s war resolution. In the end he came around, but only after his good friend, Francis Blair, warned that opposition to the war could render him a “ruined man.”

What these men had in common was that they mattered. And they mattered because they were willing to employ as much legislative power as they could muster to influence the big national debate before the country - and thus influence the course of events. Such politicians have nearly always emerged whenever the big guns of the American military began to roar in earnest.

Until recently. Now we have a president who declares in word and deed that war decisions, as artificially defined by him as something short of actual war, are exclusively within his constitutional domain. And we have a Congress that shows no serious inclination to challenge that claim of prerogative and power. This is a very serious - and potentially calamitous - development in American history.

This is not to say that men such as Fulbright, Nye and Benton - and many more who followed their path - were entirely correct in their view of foreign policy and the war decisions of their time. But they served the highly valuable purpose of ensuring that matters of war and peace would get serious attention, generate robust debate, and thus enlighten the American people about the geopolitical stakes involved. That’s what’s missing today.

In fairness, there have been some expressions of discomfort coming from Congress. Washington’s Democratic Rep. Adam Smith, ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, said that, while he’s still waiting to see what the administration has to say about a potential strike, he is “concerned” about how effective such an action could be and “worried” that it could draw the United States into a wider Mideast war. And House Speaker John Boehner, the Ohio Republican, sent a letter to Obama that seemed to be designed as a shot across the president’s bow. He asked for a “clear, unambiguous explanation of how military action—which is a means, not a policy—will secure U.S. objectives and how it fits into your overall policy.” Separately, 116 House members—ninety-eight Republicans and eighteen Democrats—sent a letter to Obama saying he shouldn’t attack Syria’s government forces without congressional approval.

But these are largely pro forma expressions and actions, not efforts to force these crucial war-and-peace issues into the cauldron of unavoidable congressional consideration. The Fulbright and Nye hearings forced every member of Congress to take a stand, one way or the other, on the matter at hand. Benton threatened not merely to oppose his president in expression but to muster sufficient opposition to defeat the man in his most frightful hour of need.

If Boehner really wanted to give Obama pause in his push toward another military action in the Middle East, he would foster a resolution declaring a sense of the chamber that the president of the United States must get congressional approval for any such action. He would then bring that resolution to the floor, forcing a real congressional debate (of the kind that that tired institution rarely sees these days) that would rivet the American people and place upon members the onus of actually taking a stand—not just on the matter of presidential prerogative but on the policy itself.

Now that would be an approach worthy of the American political tradition. But no one should bet the 401K fund that that will actually unfold as Washington slouches toward another overseas action that has no real strategic significance, has very little pretense of any strategic significance, and is designed primarily to teach a lesson to a once-proud national leader whose country lies in tatters, whose life is in peril, and whose standing in history has been reduced to that of a monster. History has dealt Bashar al-Assad far more devastating lessons than Barack Obama or his country could ever administer. Meanwhile, the strategic ramifications of U.S. military strikes against Syrian targets cry out for serious deliberation and analysis. Will such deliberation and analysis emerge? Not bloody likely.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-0...congress-syria

John Cleese has it about right:

"The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent events in Syria and have therefore raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved." Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross." The English have not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from "Tiresome" to "A Bloody Nuisance." The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish Armada.

The Scots have raised their threat level from "Pissed Off" to "Let's get the Bastards." They don't have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.

The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from "Run" to "Hide." The only two higher levels in France are "Collaborate" and "Surrender." The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France 's white flag factory, effectively paralysing the country's military capability.

Italy has increased the alert level from "Shout Loudly and Excitedly" to "Elaborate Military Posturing." Two more levels remain: "Ineffective Combat Operations" and "Change Sides."

The Germans have increased their alert state from "Disdainful Arrogance" to "Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs." They also have two higher levels: "Invade a Neighbour" and "Lose."

Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual; the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels.

The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.

Australia, meanwhile, has raised its security level from "No worries" to "She'll be alright, Mate." Two more escalation levels remain: "Crikey! I think we'll need to cancel the barbie this weekend!" and "The barbie is cancelled." So far no situation has ever warranted use of the last final escalation level.

-- John Cleese - British writer, actor and tall person.