NP - It's Not About Syria

[David Morris]

And Juan Cole is invaluable for an understanding of the region's nuances.

On Saturday, September 7, 2013, Joseph Tracy wrote:

> This is a good argument from the most benign interpretation of US policy.
>  I'm not sure I see this country that way but always find Bacevich grounded
> and clear-thinking.
> On Sep 7, 2013, at 8:52 AM, David Morris wrote:
>
> > http://www.juancole.com/2013/09/attack-donohue-bacevich.html
> >
> > ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, I mean, if I could have five minutes of the
> president’s time, I’d say, “Mr. President, the issue really is not Syria. I
> mean, you’re being told that it’s Syria. You’re being told you have to do
> something about Syria, that you have to make a decision about Syria. That
> somehow your credibility is on the line.”
> > But I’d say, “Mr. President, that’s not true. The issue really here is
> whether or not an effort over the course of several decades, dating back to
> the promulgation of the Carter Doctrine in 1980, an effort that extends
> over several decades to employ American power, military power, overt,
> covert military power exercise through proxies, an effort to use military
> power to somehow stabilize or fix or liberate or transform the greater
> Middle East hasn’t worked.
> > “And if you think back to 1980, and just sort of tick off the number of
> military enterprises that we have been engaged in that part of the world,
> large and small, you know, Beirut, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, and
> on and on, and ask yourself, ‘What have we got done? What have we achieved?
> Is the region becoming more stable? Is it becoming more Democratic? Are we
> enhancing America’s standing in the eyes of the people of the Islamic
> world?’
> > “The answers are, ‘No, no, and no.’ So why, Mr. President, do you think
> that initiating yet another war, ’cause if we bomb Syria, it’s a war, why
> do you think that initiating yet another war in this protracted enterprise
> is going to produce a different outcome? Wouldn’t it be perhaps wise to ask
> ourselves if this militarized approach to the region maybe is a fool’s
> errand.
>
>
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