GIDON BEN-ZVI
August 29, 2013
With President Barack Obama ordering his national security team to
prepare a declassified report
for public release, it appears that the prospect of a military strike
by the United States on Syria is imminent. Yet, while developments in
the Middle East are forcing the Commander in Chief to act decisively and
with all due haste, every major poll taken about the public's attitude
towards another foreign conflict reveals a sobering trend:
Americans don't want to engage.
As such, a President who has long based his foreign policy on how it will
play at home
may be tempted to intervene in Syria's growing humanitarian crisis by
way of swift, dynamic action that is utterly lacking in continuity or
consistency.
While Obama is inching towards a response to the Syrian use of
chemical weapons, there is much he can learn from another country that
has acted on its own red line with regards to the rogue regime of Syrian
President Bashar Assad: Israel.
Israel has declared openly that it will prevent new arms from being
transferred from Syria to the Hezbollah terrorist group, based in
Lebanon. Without openly admitting it, Jerusalem has acted to
enforce this threshold.
Israel's own Syria policy should hearten the overwhelming majority of
Americans who recoil at the idea of another foreign entanglement.
Israel has proven that it's possible to prevent
game-changing sophisticated weapons,
including long range missiles, flowing from Syria to the Hezbollah
without the need to put boots on the ground. Furthermore, Israel's
targeted military strikes have been conducted without the country being
dragged into Syria's civil war.
Beyond the lessons that the U.S. administration can learn from Israel
with regards to viable military options, the U.S. President needs to
demonstrate the intestinal fortitude required to make a complete, sudden
change in principle and
attitude. Indeed,
Obama's
realpolitik outlook views unrest as more dangerous than injustice and a
functioning balance of power as more important than human rights.
And with Obama's value-free foreign policy being nurtured and
perpetuated by an inner circle of advisers who constantly talk about how
it will be virtually impossible for the United States to achieve any
desirable goal in Syria, how wouldn't this have an effect on the
public's attitude?
In contrast, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has damned the
torpedoes, continuing with the planned course of action despite a
calculated risk that Syria, Hezbollah or Iran will retaliate for its air raids.
It should be noted that to date, the response of Israel's and the
United States' common enemies to Israel's repeated bombing of Syria has
been muted.
For now, the focus of the Middle East's menagerie of tyrants has
shifted from Jerusalem to Washington. They are watching to see if
Obama's desire to reduce the U.S. influence in world affairs will
continue to guide his administration's approach to Syria.
After nearly five years in office as the President of the United
States, however, it is becoming painfully clear that there's a steep
bill attached to such a retreat from the world stage. The power vacuum
left by a president who has concluded the Middle East is beyond
American national interests
has empowered the very reactionaries that the administration of George W. Bush spent several years unraveling.
Barack Obama now has the opportunity to shift course. To do so, he
will first have to acknowledge that the United States cannot trade its
own unilateral power for
the empowerment of new forms of collaboration and global governance.
International institutions, alliances, and balances of power have
important uses, but none are by themselves a sufficient substitute for
America's unique role.
By acting boldly in Syria, Barack Obama will have taken the first
step away from a policy of disengagement that has created a serious
weakening in the current world order as well as a plethora of new
threats to the national security of the United States.
Whether or not America is in decline is a subject of much debate.
However, the manner in which the United States decides to define its
role in international affairs is not a matter of
large historical forces beyond America's control, but a question of Barack Obama's choices, policies, and resolve.
Gidon
Ben-Zvi is an accomplished writer who left behind Hollywood starlight
for Jerusalem stone. As a 'returning resident,' Gidon has vivid
memories of playing hooky from Rene Cassin High School while strolling
through Ammunition Hill. After serving in an IDF infantry unit for
two-and-a-half years, Gidon returned to the United States, where he
embarked on a twelve-year run of half-baked careers and wholly
misguided educational pursuits. Today, Gidon is happily entangled to the
prettiest, sweetest girl in Israel. The mildly unhinged Ben-Zvis
aspire to raise a brood of children who speak English fluently - with
an Israeli accent."
No comments:
Post a Comment