Given his rhetoric at the Democratic National Convention, President Obama seems to want to limit his foreign policy achievements to killing Osama bin Laden.
In light of the administration’s embarrassing rhetoric and obfuscation in regards the terrorist killing of our ambassador to Libya, along with three other American diplomats, Obama might want to broaden his horizons and accept the advise of two foreign policy experts from either side of the political spectrum regarding what to do about Syria.
The authors offer five reasons why Obama should act in Syria. Suffice it focus on the first as the most important.
“American intervention would diminish Iran’s influence in the Arab world. Iran has showered aid on Syria and even sent advisers from its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps to assist Mr. Assad. Iran knows that if his regime fell, it would lose its most important base in the Arab world and a supply line to pro-Iranian Hezbollah militants in Lebanon,” write Boot and Doran.
Obama himself said at the UN this week, “The Iranian government cannot demonstrate that its program is peaceful.” And he has declared that Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. But Obama is clearly unwilling to confront Iran directly and so here is his perfect opportunity to show the Iranians and Jewish voters, by the way, that confronting Iranian ambitions of nuclear weapons and regional hegemony will be thwarted.
The trouble with this argument is that Barack Obama hasn’t proven that he actually believes in his own words or philosophy since the opportunity to help Syria and simultaneously strike a blow against Iranian power has existed for more than a year. It has existed as 30,000 Syrians have been slaughtered and a regional refugee crisis has been brewing.
Boot and Doran may be giving Obama the benefit of the doubt but there is little evidence that Obama himself is persuadable.
Perhaps Mitt Romney should step into the breach and endorse the notion of stopping the Syrian mess. He is going to be lambasted for talking foreign policy in any case so what has he got to lose? The easy part for Romney is that he probably agrees with Dolan and Boot.
Same can’t be said for Obama.