Obama, Syria, Migration, and Intervention

Initial reactions from a few Republican presidential candidates and handful of Republican governors have ranged from disheartening to appalling. Unsurprisingly Democrats, including President Obama have attacked Republicans and others for refusing to accept Syrian refugees.

Conservatives have hit back, putting some of the blame on the Obama Administration for producing the Syrian crisis., and making a case for intervention. As Fred Hiatt of the Washington Post argues:

Four million Syrians have fled, with even more internally displaced. Half of all Syrians have been forced from their homes.For that, the Obama administration bears some responsibility — and the reasons should be something voters think about in 2016....He withdrew all U.S. troops from Iraq when experts advised that a residual force of 15,000 would help to keep a fragile peace. He bombed Libya to overthrow its dictator but opposed a small NATO training force that might have stabilized the new government. He ordered a limited surge of troops to Afghanistan but soon began withdrawing them on a timetable unmoored to conditions. When Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad cracked down on democracy protesters, kindling violence, Obama kept the United States aloof.

As a result, Hiatt claims we are paying "the price of inaction."

Today Libya is “engulfed in civil war and bloodshed.” In Iraq, having lost leverage and interest, the United States stood aside as the Shiite prime minister turned the U.S.-trained armed forces into a sectarian militia that gave space and impetus for radical Sunnis — reborn as the Islamic State — to reemerge. In Syria, effects even direr than Obama feared from U.S. intervention bloomed in its absence: a wider war, spilling across borders; radical jihadists establishing the kind of statelet that al-Qaeda never achieved; millions of refugees destabilizing not only Syria’s neighbors but all of Europe. 

This argument fits well with an ongoing discussion in my class on the extent to which the U.S. needs to engage in global affairs. Following Chris Preble in  The Power Problem, overextending our reach only does us more harm than good, and does not benefit U.S. interests. We should rely on regional powers and our allies to deal with crises in distant lands, especially if we cannot make the situation any better. Others, believe the U.S. must exercise its leadership and lead by example, recognizing that securing long term U.S interests do require maintaining/managing  global crises.

Military Means to Political Ends: Memories of Clausewitz

Two articles in last Sunday's Post shed light on the problems facing the Obama Adminstration's stated political end in Libya - the departure of Moammar Gaddafi. I hadn't seen Carl von Clausewitz's (the famous 19th century German military strategist) name evoked in a long time, but Gideon Rose raises the key message of Clausewitz: The central strategic challenge of any war is how to use military means to achieve political ends. Rose gets bonus points for also throwing in "the fog of war."

Many commentators have pointed out the mismatch between Obama's military strategy to enforce a no fly-zone and his ultimate desire to see Gaddaffi go. The result will likely be mission creep - even if NATO rather than the U.S. ends up leading this campaign. As Rose quotes, "By intervening to help one side in a civil war, it is now embroiled in Libya’s political future to a vastly greater extent than it was two weeks ago." Moreover, Dan Byman questions the efficacy of the no fly zone, using Iraq in the 1990s as an apt analogy.

This is the sentiment of other commentators such as Fareed Zakaria. You can throw me in with the skeptics about the efficacy of the current policy towards Libya. The best outcome is perhaps putting enough pressure on Gaddaffi to agree to a cease fire and negotiate some poltiical settlement for transition before NATO has to rely on ground troops or supply the rebels with arms.

For international (and perhaps domestic) reputational reasons, there was probably no way Obama could have not responded. So a middle ground approach may have been the best poltical solution on Obama's part.

On a side note, I wonder how a pacifist would respond to the humanitarian crisis in Libya?