{"id":6489,"date":"2013-09-17T11:00:16","date_gmt":"2013-09-17T18:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=6489"},"modified":"2013-09-18T09:43:17","modified_gmt":"2013-09-18T16:43:17","slug":"the-charade-can-go-on-and-on-and-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-charade-can-go-on-and-on-and-on\/","title":{"rendered":"The Charade Can Go On — and On and On . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO’s The Corner<\/em><\/p>\n

So far in the Syrian charade, Bashar Assad has won de facto permission to be a legitimate ruler negotiating with superpowers, while promising to kill thousands more by blowing them up, shelling them, and shooting them without \u201cobscene\u201d chemical weapons.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Vladimir Putin controls the tempo of the crisis. He now issues new initiatives, now delays for consultations and retrospection \u2014 as he steps up profitable arms shipments to the Syrians and Iranians. In short, he is in the short-term \u201csaving\u201d Obama from himself, while in the long term insidiously destroying presidential credibility, influence, and respect by the sheer force of his cunning and audacity, as Obama in terms of foreign influence curls up into a veritable fetal position and wishes it would all just go away.<\/p>\n

So Obama for now is relieved. He can say that his saber-rattling stopped further use of WMDs and let others sort out the truth that 99 percent of the killing, past, present, and future, does not require the agency of chemical and biological weapons. He can sorta threaten Assad \u201cto comply,\u201d boast about the U.S. \u201creserving the right to use force,\u201d promise support for the insurgents without really defining who they are, \u201cconsult\u201d with Congress \u2014 and golf in peace.<\/p>\n

The White House spin doctors and the usual crowd in the media can insist that only the threat of force brought Assad to the table, but will offer no answers about whether Assad is still supposed \u201cto leave,\u201d or exactly who in the insurgency we prefer and help, or how long and under what conditions we are to negotiate to dismantle Assad\u2019s stockpiles (a truce to let U.N. inspectors \u2014 largely American and Russian? \u2014 drive U.N.-insignia Range Rovers about Syria with Assad\u2019s minders?). We will hear daily of \u00a0\u201dIraq\u201d and \u201cBush.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s in the future?<\/p>\n

Probably thousands more dead by non-obscene, non-WMD means.\u00a0Probably a few more videos of al-Qaedists executing prisoners, eating human organs, and persecuting minorities \u2014 followed by assertions that the Syrian Free Army deplores the acts of a small minority of fellow fighters.<\/p>\n

Perhaps in a few weeks or months there will be another mysterious WMD attack just to red-line Mr. Obama. We may have three to four more melodramatic crises to go between Obama, Putin, the U.S. Congress, and our allies, as we repeat the charade of threatening unbelievably small attacks and shots across the bow that are not pinpricks\u00a0in a\u00a0noble cause to stop WMDs from killing another 1 percent of the next 100,000 to die.<\/p>\n

John Kerry\u2019s longer and louder pontifications will be relegated to the status of Obama\u2019s \u201cmake no mistake about it\u201d and \u201clet me be perfectly clear,\u201d and he may join Hillary in retirement, but without her sort of boast that \u201cwe came, we saw, Assad died.\u201d And we will muddle on, clinging to the hope that the Russians, Iranians, North Koreans, Chinese, and various terrorist groups do not assume this administration is synonymous with 70 years of bipartisan foreign policy.<\/p>\n

How long will this go on? Probably until election time 2014,\u00a0and\u00a0then things might change, and in ways we\u00a0scarcely\u00a0can imagine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO’s The Corner So far in the Syrian charade, Bashar Assad has won de facto permission to be a legitimate ruler negotiating with superpowers, while promising to kill thousands more by blowing them up, shelling them, and shooting them without \u201cobscene\u201d chemical weapons. Vladimir Putin controls the tempo of the crisis. […]<\/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":[196],"tags":[12,249,889,1041,424,76],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1GF","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6440,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-bare-chested-machiavelli\/","url_meta":{"origin":6489,"position":0},"title":"A Bare-Chested Machiavelli","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 10, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO's The Corner \u00a0 It is unfortunate that Vladimir Putin could not use his formidable diplomatic skills at home to address his own near failing state rather than showcasing them abroad at our expense. Oh, well . . . Without much effort, his Alice-in-Wonderland proposal of\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":6489,"position":1},"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":6525,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/syria-postmortem\/","url_meta":{"origin":6489,"position":2},"title":"Syria Postmortem","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 19, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO's The Corner\u00a0 I think the so-called Syrian crisis is working out as most anticipated: 1) In about a year or so Assad and Putin will announce that they \u201cthink\u201d they might have in theory rounded up a lot of the WMD, and will soon make\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":6584,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/game-changers\/","url_meta":{"origin":6489,"position":3},"title":"‘Game Changers’","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 3, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0Tribune Media Services\u00a0 When -- not if -- is the only mystery about an Iranian nuclear bomb. All the warning signs are there. 'Game changers' In 2008, presidential candidate\u00a0Barack Obama\u00a0on two occasions went out of his way to warn the Iranians that the development of a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Punditry"","block_context":{"text":"Punditry","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/punditry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6470,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/putin-saruman-come-alive\/","url_meta":{"origin":6489,"position":4},"title":"Putin — Saruman Come Alive","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 12, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO's The Corner \u201cIt was a delight to hear the voice speaking, all that it said seemed wise and reasonable, and desire woke in them by swift agreement to seem wise themselves.\u201d \u2014 J. R. R. Tolkien,\u00a0The Two Towers. If it were regrettable that Vladimir Putin\u2019s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "International Relations"","block_context":{"text":"International Relations","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/geopolitics\/international-relations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/6332095728_eecccbf53a-300x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":924,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/syrian-ironies\/","url_meta":{"origin":6489,"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\/6489"}],"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=6489"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6500,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6489\/revisions\/6500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}