WHATEVER OBAMA DECIDES ABOUT SYRIA, HE LOSES

FROM NEW AMERICAN

Foreign entanglements with the “international community” such as NATO and the United Nations now bring the Washington establishment face to face with two bad outcomes: If either side wins (Assad or the FSA rebels), America loses. In a remarkably candid and revealing analysis, New York Times military writer Edward Luttwak explained:

It would be disastrous if President Bashar al-Assad’s regime were to emerge victorious after fully suppressing the rebellion and restoring its control over the entire country. Iranian money, weapons and operatives and Hezbollah troops have become key factors in the fighting, and Mr. Assad’s triumph would dramatically affirm the power and prestige of Shiite Iran and Hezbollah, its Lebanon-based proxy — posing a direct threat both to the Sunni Arab states and to Israel. 

But a rebel victory would also be extremely dangerous for the United States and for many of its allies in Europe and the Middle East. That’s because extremist groups, some identified with Al Qaeda, have become the most effective fighting force in Syria. If those rebel groups manage to win, they would almost certainly try to form a government hostile to the United States. Moreover, Israel could not expect tranquility on its northern border if the jihadis were to triumph in Syria....

Given this depressing state of affairs, a decisive outcome for either side would be unacceptable for the United States. An Iranian-backed restoration of the Assad regime would increase Iran’s power and status across the entire Middle East, while a victory by the extremist-dominated rebels would inaugurate another wave of Al Qaeda terrorism.

Whatever decision comes out of Obama’s meetings with his high-level military advisers about how to deal with Syria, one thing is certain: He, and they, would never have gotten themselves into this fix if they had followed Thomas Jefferson’s advice. In his first inaugural address on March 4, 1801, Jefferson laid out his administration’s philosophy of government which included this:

It is proper you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our government, and consequently those which ought to shape its administration. I will compress them with the narrowest compass they will bear:

Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.