Say No to War With Syria

It was right for President Barack Obama to seek authorization from Congress before launching a military attack on Syria. And now, it would be right for Congress to say no.

The Constitution has a clear division of responsibility regarding U.S. involvement in a military fight: Congress has the power to declare war; the president is the commander in chief. So, Congress decides when and where we fight; the president decides how we fight.

The president’s inherent duty to protect the nation’s security cannot override the explicit constitutional delegation to Congress to decide when the country should engage in combat.

In Syria, the decision should be no because there is no clear national security interest of the United States at stake.

There are those, including prominently Arizona Sen. John McCain, who believe that the United States does have an actionable security interest at stake in the outcome of the Syrian civil war.

There are a lot of overlapping geopolitical currents at work there. The Sunni majority is trying to shuck off autocratic rule by the Shia-affiliated Alawite sect of Bashar Assad. Iran and Hezbollah want their co-religionist ally to survive. Russia’s trying to remain relevant in the Middle East. Jihadists are dedicated to establishing at least pockets of Islamist control in the chaos.

The notion that there is an actionable U.S. security interest at stake requires a confidence that, in the midst of these overlapping currents, we have the wisdom and capability to determine what outcome would be best and make that happen. Which in turn requires amnesia about the sorry 60-year record of U.S. efforts to micromanage Middle Eastern geopolitics.

It also rests on the belief that the Sunni monarchial despots in the region are our eternal allies and the theocratic despots in Iran have become the new Soviet Union, the deterrence of which should be our overriding foreign policy objective.

Obama is not arguing that the United States has an actionable security interest in the outcome of the Syrian civil war. According to Obama, the United States needs to take military action to punish Assad for using chemical weapons as a deterrent against them being used against us.

Terrorists, however, won’t be deterred from using chemical weapons against us because of any military action we take against Assad. And state actors won’t make the mistake of assuming that because we didn’t retaliate against the use of chemical weapons on the Syrian people we wouldn’t retaliate massively against the use of them on our own people.

The claims of knock-on geopolitical effects are, at best, exaggerated. Does anyone really believe that Iran will be less likely to develop a nuclear weapon if we bomb Assad for using chemical weapons, or North Korea more likely to give its up?

If the United States wants to maximize the chances of Iran changing its mind about developing a nuke, we would sell to Israel what it needs to maximize the effectiveness of a strike of its own, including bunker-busting bombs. Iran has obviously already discounted the prospects of a U.S. strike and nothing the U.S. does in Syria is likely to change that.

All that’s left is the argument that Syria violated an international norm and if the United States doesn’t take action, it will go unpunished. This, of course, doesn’t articulate an actionable U.S. security interest. And it doesn’t have to be true.

Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar all want Assad gone. Between them, they have the financial resources and firepower to get it done. The Saudis say they are restricting the lethality of the weapons they give to the rebels at the request of the United States.

If the United States weren’t trying to micromanage events, chances are the Sunni regional powers would tilt the balance on the battleground sufficiently to oust Assad. The gassing of Sunni civilians would certainly seem to provide an extra incentive.

Regardless, the United States has to get beyond the point of doing things not clearly in our national interest because of the claim that otherwise no one else will. Saying no in Syria is a good place to begin. 

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Say No to War With Syria