Posted Sept. 11, 2013
President Barack Obama’s speech Tuesday evening outlining the case for a military strike against Syria even while embracing Russia’s proposal that the country agree to give up its stockpile of chemical weapons accomplished many things, although convincing Americans of the need for military force doesn’t appear to have been one of them.
At a town hall meeting at Al Jazeera America’s nightly news show, “America Tonight,” most of the mainly 20-something crowd said the president didn’t give them any new information and didn’t sway their opinions, which were generally against use of force against Syria to destroy its chemical weapons caches.
But among the things the speech did accomplish, according to experts who spoke on the show:
- Making it clear that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government has for the first time acknowledge it does have a supply of chemical weapons, although it has not admitted using them.
- Sending a message to Iran that the United States will use military force to back up threats.
- Pointing out that if Syria can freely use chemical weapons without retaliations, other nations and terrorist groups won’t be far behind.
- The U.S. is willing to act unilaterally if necessary.
Jason Johnson, a political science associate professor at Hiram College in western Ohio, said Obama’s decisive statements saying military force will be used if there is no quick diplomatic solution were necessary to show he will back up statements saying what a country can and cannot do to cause the U.S. to take kinetic action. If Obama had only promised to use diplomatic means and not forcefully backed up his “red line” statement, Johnson said, Iran would have felt free to build nuclear weapons capabilities without fear of retaliation.
“Diplomacy without the threat of force wouldn’t have done it,” he said.
Chris Dickey, Middle East editor of Newsweek/Daily Beast, and others emphasized the importance of the Assad regime acknowledging it had chemical weapons. But he said Obama must take action, either through air strikes or diplomacy, that decisively eliminates the chemical weapons, because otherwise Assad will feel free to use chemical weapons.
“If he ask able to use chemical weapons freely, he will win the war” because, having seen their effects, Syrians will be terrorized into doing whatever Assad says, Dickey said.
Retired Air Force Col. Cedric Leighton, an intelligence exprt whose last assignment was as National Security Agency deputy director for training, noted that the president “has tried hard to avoid unilateral” action in order to appease allies, going it alone is sometimes the only way to achieve national objectives.
Leighton and Dickey agreed that “pinprick” air strikes would not be effective.
It’s “very hard” to eliminate chemical weapons caches without boots on the ground, Leighton said. He also noted pinprick strikes could actually cause the release and spread of sarin gas and other chemical agents.
Hillary Mann Leverett, a foreign policy professor at American University who served on the State Department’s policy planning staff and on the National Security Council staff, criticized Obama, saying the U.S. has a strategic crisis in foreign policy because of Obama’s handling of the Syrian war and the Libyan air strikes he ordered. “We’re becoming less and less effectual,” she said.
Ellen Shearer is co-director of the National Security Journalism Initiative, as well as the William F. Thomas Professor of the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University. She teaches in the school’s Washington Program. Before joining the Medill faculty, she was a senior editor at New York Newsday, a consulting editor at Newhouse News Service, marketing executive at Reuters, and held positions as senior executive, bureau chief and reporter at United Press International.
