{"id":6399,"date":"2013-08-29T10:10:36","date_gmt":"2013-08-29T17:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=6399"},"modified":"2013-08-29T10:13:18","modified_gmt":"2013-08-29T17:13:18","slug":"is-the-war-to-save-face-or-save-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/is-the-war-to-save-face-or-save-lives\/","title":{"rendered":"Is The War to Save Face or Save Lives?"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0PJ Media<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Click here to see the symposium of PJ columnists analyzing the pros and cons of an intervention in Syria.<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Most of the arguments pro and con for an intervention in Syria have already been made.<\/p>\n

I think the consensus is that while stopping Assad in 2011 might have been wise (before the use of the WMD and 100,000 dead), doing so now is, well, problematic.<\/p>\n

He has shown far more resilience than the administration thought when it ordered him to leave (dictators rarely leave when ordered to by an American president). The opposition seems far more dominated by al-Qaeda affiliates than originally thought (not all that many Westernized intellectuals, persecuted minorities, and Arab Spring bloggers are still left on the barricades).<\/p>\n

In addition, both critics and supporters of the president point out that had Obama just kept quiet, he could have kept the option of intervening on his own timetable, rather than being forced to when his rhetorical red lines were not merely crossed but erased in humiliating fashion. Since his bluff has been called, he now has to act to save face rather than to save lives \u2014 100,000 of them too late.<\/p>\n

Yet the rub is not just that it is unlikely that we can find all the WMD depots and destroy them safely from the air (keeping them out of both Assad\u2019s and our allies\u2019 hands).<\/p>\n

Nor is the problem just that it is unlikely that a limited punitive blow against Assad will topple him (and then what?) and restore American rhetorical credibility.<\/p>\n

Instead, we are not sure that the opposition is likely to be any better than the monster Assad. Did we learn nothing from Libya and Egypt? The paradox in the Middle East is that Americans can control the postwar landscape and promote consensual government only by inserting large numbers of ground troops \u2014 an unacceptable political reality. A Putinesque shelling and bombing solution (more rubble, less trouble) is ethically unacceptable to most Americans.<\/p>\n

Then there are the domestic politics. During the Iraq War, authorization from Congress was essential; now it is not? The excruciating and ultimately failed effort in 2002 at the UN took weeks; now it is not even attempted by a Peace Prize laureate? Bombing a monstrous regime guilty of past WMD use was amoral; now it is ethical?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0PJ Media Click here to see the symposium of PJ columnists analyzing the pros and cons of an intervention in Syria. Most of the arguments pro and con for an intervention in Syria have already been made.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[127],"tags":[119,249,1041,1030,76],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1Fd","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6539,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/goodbye-syria-on-to-iran\/","url_meta":{"origin":6399,"position":0},"title":"Goodbye Syria, On to Iran!","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 23, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0PJ Media\u00a0 To paraphrase T.S. Eliot, this is the way Syria ends: Not with a bang, but a whimper. We are back where we started \u2014 lots of people dying \u2014 as the crisis recedes with a high five and a sigh, rather than with America\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Iran"","block_context":{"text":"Iran","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/iran\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5931,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/hope-for-change-in-syria\/","url_meta":{"origin":6399,"position":1},"title":"Hope for Change in Syria","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 9, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Once again, Obama has proven more of an idealist than an implementer. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Remember when President Obama used to warn Syria\u2019s Bashar al-Assad to stop his mass killing and step down? Moammar Qaddafi\u2019s dictatorship had just collapsed under Western bombing. The murders of Americans\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Syria"","block_context":{"text":"Syria","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/syria\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6437,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-farce\/","url_meta":{"origin":6399,"position":2},"title":"Obama’s Farce","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 10, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"He sold his plan for bombing Syria on flawed political assumptions. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Online \u00a0 To support the president\u2019s enforcement of his red line in Syria requires suspensions of disbelief. Here are several. I wish it were not true, but there is scant evidence that the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Syria"","block_context":{"text":"Syria","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/syria\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/5516984495_a7e9026136-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6389,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/what-is-the-syria-plan\/","url_meta":{"origin":6399,"position":3},"title":"What Is the Syria Plan?","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 28, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO's The Corner We are on the verge of a war with Syria. Yet I don\u2019t think the administration has as of yet articulated what its aims are and thus is confused about the means of obtaining them. Is the point of the impending military action\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Syria"","block_context":{"text":"Syria","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/syria\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6491,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-box-canyon\/","url_meta":{"origin":6399,"position":4},"title":"Obama’s Box Canyon","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 17, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Our Hamlet-in-cheif wanted simultaneously to act and not act. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Online The Syrian fiasco arose from two mutually contradictory desires. Barack Obama sincerely wanted Bashar Assad to stop killing his own people. Barack Obama also really was not willing to use force to ensure that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Syria"","block_context":{"text":"Syria","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/syria\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":924,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/syrian-ironies\/","url_meta":{"origin":6399,"position":5},"title":"Syrian Ironies","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 9, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The more Bashar Assad butchers Syrian dissidents, the more the world community expresses outrage \u2014 while it does little to stop the bloodletting. Why? Ironies on top of ironies 1.\u00a0The politics of intervention. Republicans might seem the most likely to push for an\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Syria"","block_context":{"text":"Syria","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/syria\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6399"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6399"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6401,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6399\/revisions\/6401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}