WASHINGTON — Conservatives and liberals alike are calling President Barack Obama’s foreign policy doctrine in Syria a failure. For some, it was flawed to begin with, but for others, it never lived up to its promises.
“The Obama Doctrine, as I call it, is a contradiction in terms,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, at an event hosted by the conservative Heritage Foundation on Nov. 16. “From Syria to Egypt, foreign policy promises have not been kept. Red lines have been crossed and relationships, crucial to confronting terrorism, have gone cold. This administration’s inconsistency has demonstrated that the U.S. is no longer a steadfast partner…and we have seen what happens when the U.S. pulls back. The void is filled with another power.”
McCaul and other Heritage experts hammered Obama on what they called his incoherent policy with Syria, charging the president with failing to engage with moderate Syrians and allowing al-Qaida to spread.
“The reality is, you’ve seen the [al-Qaida] threat metastasized,” said Frank Cilluffo, director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University. “Ding dong the witch is dead. We did get Osama bin Ladin, but the threat lives on. It’s not as hierarchal, it’s a little more hybrid, and there’s a lot of sharing going on.”
In August, news reports said Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons on his citizens, killing more than 1,400 citizens. Obama threatened military intervention and even gave a national address in early September to outline the moral and political arguments for action.
At the time, some liberals harshly criticized the president’s plans to conduct airstrikes on Syria. Joe Klein, Time magazine columnist, wrote in September: “The president isn’t crass or stupid enough to say it, but I would guess that he is persisting in his public threats of military action because American credibility — and, more precisely, his credibility — really is at stake. But playing the ‘American credibility’ card is a foolish and extremely dangerous game.”
During the crisis, public opinion turned against the president’s position. Nearly half of Democrats opposed American airstrikes in Syria, according to a Pew Research poll.
But Secretary of State John Kerry found a diplomatic solution. In an off-the-cuff suggestion, Kerry said Syria could turn over its weapons to a third party to avoid an American attack. Russia and Syria agreed to Kerry’s proposal. This week, Kerry told The Washington Post that the chemical stockpile was “on target” for destruction.
While the president pursued diplomacy, conservative commentators argued that the move left the United States even more vulnerable.
“No part of the President’s doctrine has survived contact with reality,” wrote Heritage Foundation fellow Ted Bromund in Real Clear Politics this fall. “The net result of his incoherent policy in Syria has been to bring Russia back as a Middle Eastern power, to make it clear that the U.S. has no idea what its interests are in the region, and to position us behind Russia as the protectors of the Assad regime.”
But Obama’s aerial approach to Syria matches the technologically enabled warfare that Foreign Policy magazine described in March 2012. “Technology has enabled Obama to become something few expected: a president who has dramatically expanded the executive branch’s ability to wage high-tech clandestine war.”
At the Heritage event, McCaul found no hope in the president’s foreign policy doctrine. “This president has created more instability in the Middle East than any other president,” McCaul said. “He speaks loudly and carries no stick.”
The liberal think tank Brookings Institution argued the Obama’s Syria policy works, but it is sometimes misapplied. Obama should have invaded Syria, wrote Max Doran, a Brookings fellow, and Max Boot.
“The Obama Doctrine involves getting into a conflict zone and getting out fast without ground wars or extended military occupations,” Doran and Boot said. “This approach proved its effectiveness in Libya last year. But the president is not applying his own doctrine where it would benefit the United States the most — in Syria.”
