Of course if we give him backing he will have more power to negotiate with Putin and destabilize many Syrians who are currently with Assad, as no one wants to be under the Tomahawk bombing.  However I don’t know how to prevent Assad right now from using even more force against his people. I wonder why Obama did not move for the over 100,000 deaths and hundreds of thousands of wounded, caused by the Assad regime. Was this “legal”? Now because of the 1400 people dead through gas, Obama suddenly sees a “legal” opportunity to intervene based on the Geneva Convention. 

 I watched the hearings in Congress and heard Kerry’s, Dempsey’s and Hagel’s arguments. In my view, all this is geared to destabilize Syria, strengthen the rebels, and enhance Obama’s position vis-à-vis Putin.  Would our attack with no boots on the ground enhance the situation or kill more people? No one knows.

According to what I heard an attack would aim at weakening Assad and his army, and strengthening the opposition forces with arms and supplies. And we are pretending not to mix ourselves in other countries’ affairs!!! However, nobody assured the American people that the rebels are worthy of our effort. As far as we know, they consist of nine groups.  Have we checked every group?  Do we also want to scare Putin? Don’t we have other means to influence Putin? Since we are helping Russia in various fields, that should not be too difficult. Where is our diplomacy? Do we want to twist his arm by showing our force at the cost of US$ half a trillion?

I can only conclude, now that much more has been revealed to the American people, that we are getting ourselves into a mess from which we have no clue how to get out. We should warn Putin, Iran and the Hezbollah to stop playing games with the US, as none of them is secure. 

Copyright 2013 Emile Tubiana