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Guest Column
Editorial
Obama's 'Red Lines' On Syria
Resemble Zebra Stripes
I Noah Beck
I
f zebras had pink stripes, they would resemble
President Obama's "red lines" on Syria.
Obama's policy has communicated the follow-
ing incoherent and spineless message: "In Libya we
intervened to support liberty and prevent a bloodbath;
Muammar Gaddafi threatened to hunt down his ene-
mies, 'house by house, alley by alley:"
Oh, is that what Basher Assad has been doing in Syria?
Well, we can't intervene there because it's too risky.
True, our isolationism could mean that the post-
Assad Syria will — as either a failed or Islamist state —
become Al Qaeda's next headquarters, but surely that
can't be as bad as U.S. intervention. Oh, are Syrians
being slaughtered by the masses? Well, maybe inter-
vention is justified on humanitarian grounds, but only
if Assad uses chemical weapons. Tens of thousands
killed by Assad's mortars, guns, tanks, Scud missiles
and warplanes don't suffice.
Oh, did the intelligence agencies of our allies
(Britain, France and Israel) conclude that Assad used
chemical weapons? "Well, we still need the interna-
tional community to confirm these findings with a
thorough investigation:'
As he backtracked on the issue, Obama said, "We
don't know how [the chemical weapons] were used,
when they were used, who used them"
White House officials have conceded that better
information is obtainable only if the Syrian govern-
ment allows international inspectors on the ground.
But the notion of any cooperation from the Syrian
regime is absurd given that prior international efforts
merely "to monitor" (much less inspect) anything in
Syria both times ended after about two months for
security reasons.
For Obama to obtain the kind of thorough investiga-
tion that would trigger his latest "red line he would
need to provide the very military commitment that he
so obviously wants to avoid with his muddled Syria
policy. So his legalistic backpedaling is just a cowardly
admission that he's all talk on this issue — a fact that
must be painfully obvious to the Syrian people.
If the use of chemical weapons is finally confirmed
to Obama's satisfaction, what might he do? What
Russia and Iran have done from day one of the conflict:
pick a side and arm it. Two years later, the U.S. admin-
istration may finally decide to supply weapons to those
it has claimed to support for the last two years. Or
maybe it can even muster the courage to do what tiny
Israel has already successfully done twice: pinpointed
airstrikes against Assad's military assets.
Whatever Obama finally does, it will look like too
little, too late. During two years of U.S. dithering, tens
of thousands of Syrians have been tortured, slaugh-
tered or turned into refugees, with survivors wonder-
ing why they're any different from the Egyptians and
Libyans who received robust U.S. support when they
sought freedom from tyranny.
Obama's failure of leadership on the Syrian issue —
and the bloody stalemate that resulted — has helped to
spawn a new breed of battle-hardened terrorists. They,
and Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah, are all in
close proximity to one of the world's largest stockpiles
of chemical weapons — the kind of WMD that the
intelligence community has obsessed about since 9-11.
Strategic blunders aside, U.S. credibility has suffered
a serious blow. Obama's "red lines" are more like pink
zebra stripes. It turns out that Obama's "game chang-
ers" (declared last August) don't change the game at all
— they just require new, tough-sounding terminology
that can be fudged later.
❑
Noah Beck is the author of The Last Israelis, a military
thriller about the Iranian nuclear threat and other Mideast
geopolitical issues.
aoapbtx
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to
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I do believe that there should be more Jewish singles events at the JCC, and I'm really looking
into if there is a possibility to do speed-dating.
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Insecure Borders Cast
Middle East In Doubt
F
or the first time in years, Israel has four
borders active with terrorist players tied to
fundamentalism and radical Islam – Lebanon,
Gaza, Syria and the Sinai. Think about the dynamics of
this sea change: The Jewish-Arab conflict in the Middle
East has moved from geopolitical to religious.
The change that's
happening is deep and
foundational. The central
characteristic of this change,
even if it seems banal, is
instability and uncertainty,"
Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, the
Israel Defense Forces' military
intelligence director, told JTA,
the New York-based Jewish
Maj. Gen. Aviv
news service.
Kochavi
The change is rooted in
religious identity overtaking
national identity in the Arab world. A byproduct of
the change is the way war is fought. No longer does
Israel have to fear only nation states; Iran, of course,
is the most dangerous state actor. Terrorist groups
have come sharply into play. Hezbollah and Hamas,
for example, control Lebanon and the Gaza Strip,
respectively. The Muslim Brotherhood presides over
the Egypt-controlled Sinai. Iran and Hezbollah togeth-
er support the shaky Assad regime in Syria, going so
far as to amass an army of 50,000 there, but also are
preparing for when the brutal dictator falls.
Israelis face danger as unstable states in the wake
of the Arab Spring scramble to find lasting leader-
ship. The Sinai continues to be lawless despite tough-
talking Mohamed Morsi's ascension to the Egyptian
presidency with Muslim Brotherhood backing. It's a
matter of time before Hezbollah re-engages Israel in
guerrilla warfare that last ended unsettled (in 2006).
Hamas, which Israel battled in 2009 and again in
2012, keeps sending rockets toward Negev cities and
towns. Syria's civil war has forced Israel into putting
up a fence on the perimeter of the Golan, the stra-
tegic high ground. Earlier this month, Israel bombed
a weapons convoy it feared was headed from Syria
to Hezbollah operatives based in southern Lebanon,
near Israel.
Religiously inspired terrorist groups are hard to
deter. Generally, they are less susceptible to diplo-
matic pressure than nation states. And unlike the dic-
tators they appear to be replacing, the groups enjoy
more popular support.
Israel even must worry about its border with the
West Bank, governed by the Palestinian Authority,
presumably a peace partner, but whose controlling
political party is Fatah, which boasts a terrorist wing
in the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
The one calm border is between Israel and Jordan;
Jews and Arabs travel regularly between Eilat and
Aqaba.
With four insecure borders, Israel clearly not only
must stay militarily vigilant, but also be aggressive in
helping shape policy and direction for the embattled
region. Isolationism might seem wise tactically, but
helping set the stage toward peace over jihad [reli-
gious struggle] obviously is a better bet for Israel.
❑
May 23 • 2013
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