This week Secretary of State John Kerry admitted to Poland’s foreign minister what has been obvious to the world for months: The United States has come to the crisis in Syria very late in the day.
Unfortunately, Kerry’s answer is less a remedy than a time-tested way for diplomats to look as though they are making decisions when those decisions are in fact being made on the ground for them: a call for an international conference.
Fact is, there were never easy options in Syria. But let’s be clear. We have fewer options today because President Obama took the worst approach of all: Talk big but carry through on nothing — even when your national-security team advises otherwise.
US strategic interests in this part of the world are many. They include preventing Syria’s chemical and biological weapons from falling into terrorist hands, not opening a new base of operations for al Qaeda, constraining Iran’s regional ambitions and ensuring that friends and allies in the area are not dragged down with this conflict.
In a visit this week with The Post editorial board, Sen. John McCain said he worries how long the moderate regime of the most pro-American Arab leader, Jordan’s King Abdullah, can last with this war next door. And maybe the president can tell us the moral case for standing by as tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children are slaughtered.
Nearly two years ago, Obama declared, “The time has come for President Assad to step aside.” A year after, he warned that moving or preparing to use chemical weapons would be a “red line” that would change his thinking about military engagement.
That was then. Today we have Bashar al-Assad not only still in power, but winning the war against him even as he defies the president of the United States. If you were a terrorist in the Middle East, what message would you take?