For Barack Obama, Syria Is Best Forgotten This Election Year -- Fouad Ajami, The Daily Star
The ordeal of Syria has been a rebuttal of what the diplomacy of Barack Obama once promised and stood for. It is largely forgotten now that Syria and Iran were the two regimes in the Greater Middle East that Obama had promised to “engage.”
Back when he was redeemer in chief, Obama had been certain that the regime in Damascus would yield to his powers of persuasion. He cut Damascus a wide swath, stepped aside when the Syrian regime all but laid to waste the gains of the 2005 Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, assassinating and terrorizing its way back into its smaller neighbor.
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My Comment: I could not have said it any better .... kudos to Fouad Ajami for always seeing the 'big picture' when it comes to U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.
As to what is my take on Syria and it's future .....
The conflict in Syria is now a full scale civil war, with a huge segment of the population clearly determined to overthrow the Assad regime and his supporters regardless of the cost. This is now also a sectarian conflict in the form that US military commanders were always afraid would engulf Iraq during the American occupation .... but instead is now engulfing Syria.
We will soon have daily casualty reports in the range of 200+ killed, and even more wounded. Outside forces will intervene directly or indirectly .... Turkish, Russian, Iranian, Israeli, NATO, Gulf states, Arab Jihadists, etc. .... providing military supplies, intelligence, humanitarian aid, fighters, and diplomatic support. And when this civil war is over .... Assad and his family will either be dead or in some other country, 100,000 - 200,000 Syrians will be dead, a million plus refugees in need of immediate care, and the Alawite community that has been a part of Syria for centuries now fleeing for their lives from the retribution of the Sunni community.
Update: On a historical side note .... there is an article by Seymour Hersh from the New Yorker magazine in 2009 that looks into U.S. efforts to open relations with Syria. In it he talks about President Obama's engagement with Syria, his use of Sen John Kerry (and others) to open doors with the Syrian regime, and why they differed with President Bush when it came to dealing with President Assad. The article was written in 2009 and it is a puff piece for President Obama and his approach to the Syrian regime .... and a critique of President Bush's policy towards Syria. But here is the kicker .... when you have finished reading the article .... you end up realizing that Seymour Hersh, John Kerry, and everyone else including President Obama were completely wrong in their analysis of Syrian President Assad .... and how right President Bush was in assessing the Syrian strongman.