The shifting sands of the Obama Administration’s policy toward the war in Syria are shifting might quick these days, so quick that the administration has come up with four distinct policies vis-a-vis the Syria disarmament plan in less than 24 hours, and is now dubbing it a “significant breakthrough.”
It all began this morning, when Secretary of State John Kerry presented the proposal, mockingly insisting Syria would never agree to it. That position collapsed immediately when within a couple of hours Russia, and then Syria, agreed to it.
The State Department and White House officials responded to that by insisting the offer “wasn’t a real proposal” and that Congress still needed to authorize war against Syria, even though it’s clear that’s not going to happen, with the Senate indefinitely delayed and the votes flat out not there in the House.
Within an hour or two, and hot on the heels of that Senate delay, President Obama called it a “modestly positive development,” saying that if Syria was sincere, the attack would temporarily be on hold.
From there to here, just a couple more hours down the road, the president is now trying to paint this as a victory for his threats to start a war, and claiming he’d been planning this for years.
The reality is that the president’s push for war has failed. He lost the argument for war days ago, and today’s sudden deal, first met with anger by a hawkish administration that thought it was ruining everything, is now being grudgingly embraced as a last ditch way to save face for having been beaten so decisively in the court of public opinion.
The question from here is less about the implementation of the deal itself than about whether the administration thinks it can still salvage the war. If they come up with another “can’t miss” plan to lie America into war, expect the Syria deal to be summarily ditched again, since today’s shifts show they clearly don’t have much invested in making a deal happen.
Flip flapping is my policy, not being true worthy of my words is my Daily job, Which is the reason for a messier of all the mess that was made before me and before him, here nothing that I would be blame for, because i already blamed it on that other guy..,
first met with anger by a hawkish administration that thought it was ruining everything, is now being grudgingly embraced Maybe naive, but I might credit Iran coverage here for that. That's a similar pattern (make-you-an-offer-you-can't-accept) covered here on US rejection of Iran's fuel swap deal meeting US criteria –if that were a pattern widely noticed, it'd be another blow to US credibility. So it may at least be important that it 'look' different from that if their strategy can't tolerate a deal. otoh, Gareth Porter, among a few others, thought Obama had already signaled that he really didn't want the war. So the feint, if that's what it was, first sidelining a cascade of ~'scandals,' might've gotten him more than he'd dreamed. Since the chem/bio/nuke bogies are the new holy moral-outrage/fear inducers (regardless of proof, the hurry-er the better), it'll be awkward to put this Obama myth in it's place. One thing that might be forgotten: he claimed war powers, and that should've hanged him. It's also a 'victory' for military threats –and aint that a war crime?
Michelle Obama may be the number one lobbyist. Maybe she will step forward now and be like Elanor Roosevelt, as important as her husband in shaping policy moving forward.
How has Obama changed position? Have we stopped training and arming the overthrow of the Syrian government? No. We're still completely involved in this war, cruise missiles or no. These are still war crimes and impeachable offenses.
Disgusting, to place pictures of this serial liar and serial war criminal !
… in articles of an alleged antiwar portal ….
Oh but look at the picture choice – Obama has the posture of a girl.
Well, it's an old picture. He is manner now.
Many thanks to Jason Ditz — this is a jewel of journalism. It is not easy to capture the spirit of "salvaging the war"! But I would not put it past the warmongers to find a way. Afer all, fat profits are at stake for some.
And have little faith in Congress. They are still capable of snatching the defeat out of the jaws of victory.
I don*t know why I did read the article despite this fouling of this liar/killer picture and despite of expecting nothing of interest. Now its clear – none of these details is relevant or interesting at all. Its wasting time and action to read such nonsense.
Of course they come up with always another “can’t miss” plan – but are you willing to always check these plans and getting directed by them? – led around by the nose?
Face it – this is a corrupt, criminal government apparatus which jointly with brainwashing media is controlled by corporations to exploit the power of the US military and state to fool, rob and kill for their aims and profit within the U.S. and worldwide.
Jason Ditz tries to cover this with such irrelevant non-sense here. There is already a new designed T-shirt for him: http://wp.me/a7ORt-6x
WTF man?
Nobody forces you to do anything, so don't complain about it.
My guess is the US will demand something totally unacceptable, like Assad standing down as part of the deal, which would totally scupper it. The US always shifts the goalposts, like they did with Iran when Iran agreed a deal to ship its uranium out of the country.
I've never believed this was about CWs, it's all about regime change, so I doubt this will change anything.
It smells like a diplomatic deal which needs to save face everywhere. Perhaps some of the UN evidence already leaked? Or the White House realized there's no attack vector that is clean and "do-able". Not sure how international control of weapon caches would work. The benefit for Assad would be that he's now spending efforts to relocate them, out of fear the rebels might take them over (if that not happened already). He might be well aware he has no current use for them considering all the advanced trigger happy weaponry waiting just over all his borders. His missiles would never achieve anything at this point in time.
flash message to al-CIA-duh! time for another falseflag! get ready to gas more hostages: the "hospital" set is ready and waiting!! allahu-akbar!!
The war party doesn't want a Disney version.
As I posted on another thread…
As the warmonger bandwagon breaks an axle and lurches to a halt lets spare a thought for those on board. Have sympathy for the hardworking people at AIPAC, defense industry CEOs and shareholders, their faithful friends in Congress – all the people (corporations are people too, my friend) who were banking (literally) on this new war.
Lets play them some soothing music:
Don't look so sad, I know it's over
But life goes on and this old world will keep on turning
Let's just be glad we had some time to spend together
There's no need to watch the bridges that we're bombing…
You wish.
The war is still on.
Obama is "consulting" with the Fabius/Hollande/Cameron axis. Fabius says Syria has to hand everything over or "we bomb".
Kerry is in the standard "fake urgency" mode. "They must act quickly or else…" (or else we go full out on war crimes, I suppose)
Why must they "act quickly"? Are there daily gassings going on? No.
It's the same fire sale mood as for Palestine. Hurry, hurry, hurry. Don't think. Don't reflect.
As he said last month "The Palestinians must come to the table of peace talks quickly, or else…".
You know that the entity named is going to be shafted and public is being flimflammed with actual facts hidden behind the large "HURRY, TIME IS RUNNING OUT" sign.
You're right. I'd add two things:
First, the French are doing their best to present a proposal the Russians will be forced to reject, adding in every bell and whistle that might offend. I doubt they are doing that without Obama's consent.
Second, Obama was not only going to lose the war resolution, he was about to go full lame duck early with a resounding no confidence vote from his own party. This deal does not really fix that problem, because everybody knows he lost his party on this. He may now see leading us to war as the only vindication that can undo that damage. If so, it is no longer about Syria or even Iran. It is all inside the Beltway, a Beltway War above all.
And didn't some fellow spokesliar for da-Prez not say that they should give this rat the authority to wage an attack irregardless? The arrogance is simply astounding!
Consider this scenario…
1) The insurgents fire conventional weapons into Israel, as before.
2) Israel fires back with greater force than before.
3) The INSURGENTS then fire rockets with chemical weapons into Israel, in an attempt to either make it seem like Assad’s forces did it or that Hizballah did it with Assad support.
4) Israel then has two choices: 1) blame Assad for the attack, or 2) blame the insurgents for the attack. The former “justifies” an attack against Syria. The latter “justifies” an attack against Syria because “Assad can’t control his chemical weapons” or “Assad has given chemical weapons to Hizballah.”
5) Either way, Israel launches a moderate-scale war on Syria. It also calls for the US and NATO to come in and assist. I have no doubt the US Congress, British Parliament and French Parliaments and likely the German Bundestag would all support Israel.
6) The US and NATO begin a full-scale air campaign against Syria.
7) Israel then uses that as cover to attack Hizballah in Lebanon.
The only thing that would derail that plan is if enough evidence leaked out in time, like the current false flag operation did, to blunt the effect. But there would be very little time because Israel would move quickly to attack Syria. My guess is that it would be mere days before Israel could call up its reserves and initiate the attack.
They can’t keep these false flag operations up for TOO long or the entire world will become suspicious. They have to fish or cut bait.
They're not going to stop until they get a Syria war. They HAVE TO because Israel needs both Syria and Hizballah to be rendered ineffective actors against Israel in an Iran war. And we all know Israel WANTS THAT IRAN WAR.