Would U.S. President
Barack Obama -- who former President Bill Clinton dismissed as an incompetent
“amateur” who “doesn’t know how the world works” – approve arming Syrian
opposition forces this week?
I doubt very much,
though I hope he proves me wrong.
The Obama administration
ordered strategy sessions on Syria after thousands of Iran’s
Lebanese Hezbollah militiamen poured into the country to help regime forces
capture the border town of Qusayr last week and press on with a campaign to
clear rebels across the heart of Syria.
Top aides from the State
and Defense Departments, the CIA, and other agencies gathered for a ‘‘deputies
meeting’’ at the White House yesterday, with officials saying a decision on
arming beleaguered rebels could happen later this week.
They were seeking to lay
the groundwork for a meeting that President Obama will hold with his senior
national security staff, reportedly planned for tomorrow, Wednesday.
Secretary of State John
Kerry postponed a planned Middle East trip to participate in the White House
discussions.
While nothing has been
concretely decided, U.S. officials said President Obama was leaning closer
toward signing off on sending weapons to vetted, moderate rebel units.
Obama already has ruled
out any intervention that would require U.S. military boots on the ground.
Other options such as
deploying American air power to ground the regime's jets, gunships and other
aerial assets are now being more seriously debated, the officials said, while
cautioning that a no-fly zone or any other action involving U.S. military
deployments in Syria were far less likely right now.
The president also has
declared chemical weapons use by the Assad regime a "redline" for
more forceful U.S. action.
American allies,
including France and Britain, determined with near certitude that Syrian forces
have used low levels of sarin in several attacks, but the administration is
still studying the evidence. The U.S. officials said responses that will be
mulled over in this week's meetings concern the deteriorating situation on the
ground in Syria, independent of final confirmation of possible chemical weapons
use.
Bernadette Meehan, a
spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, said the Obama
administration was continually looking at ways to strengthen the opposition but
had nothing new to announce.
"At the president's
direction, his national security team continues to consider all possible
options that would accomplish our objectives of helping the Syrian opposition
serve the essential needs of the Syrian people and hastening a political
transition to a post-Assad Syria," she said.
"We
have prepared a wide range of options for the president's consideration, and
internal meetings to discuss the situation in Syria are routine," she
said. "The United States will continue to look for ways to strengthen the
capabilities of the Syrian opposition, though we have no new announcements at
this time."
One
reason why I expect the president to continue slow walking on Syria is his
upcoming meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the June 17-18 G8
summit in Northern Ireland’s
Lough Erne.
I can’t imagine him burying the planned Geneva-2
peace conference agreed with Russia by announcing any time soon an overt and unequivocal
measure to shore up the Syrian opposition.
Editorially, columnist Elias Harfouche, writing today
for the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat,
says:
The Syrians did not need the Qusayr tragedy to ascertain
the depth of the Obama Administration’s treachery and deceit.
Obama told them time and again Assad’s days are
numbered, the use of chemical weapons is a redline and the massacre of
civilians is unacceptable.
All the Syrians got from these empty promises and farcical
warnings was more killings, massacres and sarin gas attacks by the Syrian
regime…
The Syrians never asked the Obama Administration to
put U.S. boots on the ground and fight the regime on their behalf. All they
asked for was a modicum of power balance on the ground.
They appealed to the United States not to prevent
her allies from putting their shoulder to the wheel of the opposition, at a
time when President Bashar al-Assad’s regime was being fully armed and funded
by Iran and having its military arsenal ceaselessly replenished by Russia.
Bill Clinton was not dramatizing when he dismissed
Obama as inept, saying, “Obama doesn't know how to be president. He doesn't know how the world
works. He's incompetent. He's an amateur!”
The bystander president is not only undermining
America’s national interests, but also our region’s confessional and social
stability.
His ill thought withdrawal of U.S. troops presented
Iraq to Iran on a silver platter. His spineless response to Iran and
Hezbollah’s brazen intervention in the Syria fighting was an expression of
“concern.”
Obama has proved to be ignorant of the region’s history
and sensitivities by allowing Iraq and Syria – once cradles of the two most
important empires in Arab history – to fall into the lap of Iran, the Arab
world’s strategic rival for power and influence…
Russia on Golan
Separately, Israel has given Russia an official reply
to its offer to send peacekeepers to the Golan Heights, but does not want to
make that reply public, an Israeli deputy foreign minister told RIA Novosti
yesterday. Other Israeli officials have revealed contradictory feelings about
the offer.
“Israel’s position was
expressed openly and unambiguously during a conversation between the two
countries’ leaders. Sometimes there are things that are best left on that
level,” Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Zeev Elkin said, referring to a
telephone conversation between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and
President Putin.
Putin on
Friday said Russia was ready to deploy troops to the Golan Heights to
replace nearly 400 Austrian peacekeepers being pulled out of a UN monitoring
mission due to intense
fighting in Syria.
Although Elkin was
tightlipped about Israel’s reply to Putin’s offer, other officials have
revealed conflicting views about Russian troops in the area.
Israeli Deputy Interior
Minister Faina Kirshenbaum, currently on a visit to Moscow, said Monday she
thought Israel would not oppose the deployment of Russian peacekeepers.
“If President Putin has
decided to deploy his forces there, I don’t think Israel will oppose that. We
always want somebody to be there to monitor the situation,” she told Ekho Moskvy radio. “We would like any
forces that could assume responsibility. Those can be Russian, Austrian or
Australian. That doesn’t make any difference to us at all.”
Yuval Steinitz, Israeli
minister of international, intelligence and strategic affairs, said Friday that
Putin’s idea of sending Russian peacekeepers to the Golan Heights to replace
the Austrian contingent was “unrealistic.”
In Beirut, Rosanna
Boumounsef, in her column today for the independent daily an-Nahar, notes that the Syrian army has
asked the IDF not to hit its tanks in the Golan and that contrary to its 1974
Disengagement Agreement with Syria, Israel is allowing Assad’s army to keep
a military presence in the area of separation of forces.
She quotes from UN Report this part of a note
submitted to the Security Council last Friday by UN Undersecretary General for
Peacekeeping Operations Herve Ladsous:
During
the (June 6) clashes, SAAF (Syrian Arab Armed Forces) reinforced its presence
in the area of separation with five main battle tanks and five armored
personnel carriers, moving in the direction of Quneitra. The Israel Defense
Forces (IDF) informed the UNDOF (UN Disengagement Observe Force) Force
Commander that should the movement of SAAF tanks continue, the IDF would take
action. Subsequently, the UNDOF Force Commander conveyed the message to the
Senior Syrian Arab Delegate (SSAD), UNDOF’s main interlocutor on the Bravo
side. The SSAD informed the UNDOF Force Commander that the presence of the
tanks was solely for the purpose of fighting the armed members of the
opposition and asked that the IDF not take action. Also, during the fighting,
armed members of the opposition took control temporarily of the Bravo Gate.
After several hours of clashes between the SAAF and the armed members of the
opposition, the SAAF regained control of the Bravo Gate and fighting in the
area had subsided. Currently, four main battle tanks and three armored
personnel carriers remain in the area of separation, in violation of the
Disengagement Agreement.
