US takes another step into morass of Mideast

Opinion: June 24, 2013 at 12:00a.m.

A generation ago, it took many years for most Americans to recognize that Vietnam was a bottomless pit where no amount of U.S. blood and treasure could prevent the inevitable tide of Asian nationalism.

But news travels much faster now, and opinions form more quickly. So even as President Barack Obama reluctantly sticks an American toe into the bloody morass that Syria has become, the American people are pretty certain it’s a bad idea.

And so apparently is Obama. That may explain why word that the United States was abandoning its reluctance to become involved in Syria was delivered not by the president but by the deputy national security adviser.

Stating that Syria’s government crossed what Obama had called a “red line” by deploying chemical weapons against opposition groups, Ben Rhodes told reporters the president has decided to increase “military support” to the Supreme Military Council, the main opposition group.

A LACK OF CLARITY

But neither Rhodes nor an unidentified government official who spoke to some reporters gave specifics, and confusion remains about what the administration’s policy really is. Obama hardly clarified matters in last week’s interview with Charlie Rose on PBS.

“I’ve not specified exactly what we’re doing, and I won’t do so on this show,” Obama said, stressing the complexity of the considerations and expressing doubts about such widely discussed possibilities as a no-fly zone or providing anti-helicopter and anti-tank weapons to rebel forces.

“Unless you’ve been involved in those conversations, then it’s kind of hard for you to understand the complexities of the situation and how we have to not rush into one more war in the Middle East,” he added.

Reaction was as disparate as U.S. policy. Some analysts suggested it was already too little, too late to make a difference in a civil war that recently has seen Syrian President Bashar al-Assad gain the upper hand.

Others think the U.S. hopes less to make a military difference than to spur additional moves by its allies, such as a no-fly zone. Still others speculated it was designed to discourage Russia from expanding military support to Assad.

And some said it reflected increasing domestic political pressure, especially former President Bill Clinton’s statement urging an expanded American military effort.

At a closed forum with Sen. John McCain, Clinton said he agrees with the Arizona Republican, a strong Syria critic. “Some people say, ’OK, see what a big mess it is? Stay out.’ I think that’s a big mistake,” he said. “Sometimes it’s just best to get caught trying, as long as you don’t over-commit.”

Clinton also said that if you ever attribute lack of action because “there was a poll in the morning paper that said 80 percent of you were against it ... you’d look like a total wuss. And you would be.”

“I don’t mean that a leader should go out of his way or her way to do the unpopular thing,” he added. “I simply mean, when people are telling you ‘no’ in these situations, very often what they’re doing is flashing a giant yellow light and saying, ‘For God’s sakes, be careful.”

AMERICANS OPPOSE INVOLVEMENT

But domestic pressure for an expanded American role in Syria is almost nonexistent, except from McCain and several close Senate allies. Polls show strong public opposition to the very moves being considered.

A Pew poll last Monday showed that 70 percent oppose the U.S. sending weapons and military supplies to opposition groups in Syria; 20 percent favor it. In response to another question, 68 percent of the 1,512 adults polled say the U.S. is too over-committed to get involved in another conflict.

A Gallup poll showed a similar result, though the margin was smaller.

In case Obama lacks sufficient warnings against getting too involved, National Journal’s Michael Hirsh quoted Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma, declaring that, “In a sense, Obama owns Syria now.”

He doesn’t yet and surely doesn’t want to.

But bigger steps down the road he has started are less likely to produce stability in Syria than to enmesh the United States in one more unwinnable mess in a region likely to see more turmoil in more countries before it achieves the fading promise of the Arab Spring.

Carl P. Leubsdorf is the former Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News. Distributed by MCT Information Services.