Алистер Смит - The Spoils of War - Greed, Power, and the Conflicts That Made Our Greatest Presidents

Obama’s decision to withdraw from Iraq must have begun to instruct Vladimir Putin, then Russia’s prime minister and shortly to resume his old place as its president, about his potential future leverage with the US president. In particular, he is likely to have recognized that Obama was constrained by the wishes of his core constituents. In turn, Putin likely believed he could take actions to advance his—and his core backers’—interests, without fear of any countermaneuvers that would contradict the interests of President Obama’s core political constituency. To put matters plainly, Obama had promised less fighting, not more, so Putin became aggressive.

By the end of Obama’s first term, his constituents saw action—troop withdrawals—that pleased them. Putin and his constituents saw early indications of new opportunities that they might be able to exploit. Now we run the clock forward just a few months from the October 2011 announcement of the complete withdrawal of US troops from Iraq and the beginning of troop withdrawals from Afghanistan. In March 2012 President Obama whispered to the lame-duck Russian president Dimitri Medvedev to pass on to Russia’s then president-elect, Vladimir Putin, that this “is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.”5 Obama was referring to his future flexibility on the big questions that shaped relations between the governments of the United States and Russia, relations he was trying to “reset” after a period of deterioration during the presidency of George W. Bush. Well aware that public statements are heard by everyone, Obama tried to keep his whispered statement to Medvedev for just the ears of Russia’s leaders, but surely to his regret, a microphone picked up the message. It became the whisper heard round the world. The message essentially was, “We won’t be so tough on you after our election, so give me some space.” Fine enough; message sent, delivered, and, alas for Obama, overheard.

Now let’s run the clock forward one more year to March 2013. President Obama, having defeated Mitt Romney and being firmly ensconced in his second term, spoke in Jerusalem. He used the occasion to shore up his relationship with Israel’s leaders and its people. There were severe tensions, indeed rebellion, in Israel’s neighboring state of Syria. The rebellion in Syria was a matter of great concern to both Israel and America. Obama declared that if he discovered that chemical weapons were used in Syria (or really anywhere else) by Bashar al-Assad’s government, that would be a “game changer.”6 The implied message was, “American constituents, Israeli friends, Syrian rebels, President Assad, I am speaking publicly, loud and clear: Assad: Don’t force me to stop the use of chemical weapons; don’t you dare use them! Israeli and US backers: I will not allow Syria’s president to use unconventional weapons against our friends in the anti-Assad resistance. Vladimir Putin and any other allies of Assad’s regime: There is a line beyond which I will be compelled to act—don’t let your friend Assad cross that line.”

A tough message? Maybe! Or maybe it was a cheap threat with nothing to back it up. Time would tell. Putin already knew that the first-term President Obama had made decisions regarding Iraq and Afghanistan that ran against the advice of top US military commanders but that were pleasing to American voters, at least those who supported Obama. Now Putin needed to see whether the “game changer” message was really serious or whether it was just intended to mollify the Israelis.

On September 16, 2013, the world learned that “U.N. inspectors said Monday there is ‘clear and convincing evidence’ that chemical weapons were used on a relatively large scale in an attack last month in Syria that killed hundreds of people.”7 All involved parties were on notice; here was Obama’s “game changer.” Now the question was, how had the game changed? What were the consequences of Assad’s apparent use of chemical weapons—we say “apparent” because the UN did not determine who had used chemical weapons, only that they had been used. Still, only Assad’s forces had the capability to deliver such weapons, as they were delivered by rocket. As President Obama stated, “We do not believe that, given the delivery systems, using rockets, that the opposition could have carried out these attacks. We have concluded that the Syrian government in fact carried these out.”8 The ball was now in Obama’s court. He now had to reveal to all the ears that were listening whether his earlier statement was sincere or bluff.

In hindsight it seems that Obama thought that his vague message—“game changer”—would be sufficient to deter Assad; now he and the world knew it was not. Apparently uncertain about how to proceed, he asked Congress to decide what course of action they could and would approve. As evidence mounted that Congress would not approve strong action, concern grew at home that to save face Obama would have to act under his authority as commander in chief. At the proverbial last minute, Putin, one of Assad’s most critical allies (along with Iran), stepped in with a way out, a strategy that would push Syria to the back burner for Obama and, of course, for Putin as well. Here is where everything gets interesting and begins to tie in to what happened earlier in Iraq and later in Ukraine.

In early September, before the United Nations report, President Putin suggested that the way forward was for Assad to turn over his chemical weapons to be destroyed by the United Nations. Just about everyone grabbed hold of the idea as a way to solve the “game changer” problem while avoiding military intervention in Syria. Here, indeed, was a solution that Obama’s key backers could support. What is more, Assad, who had previously denied he had any chemical weapons, proved agreeable to the idea. But he left no doubt about his reasoning: “Syria is placing its chemical weapons under international control because of Russia. The US threats did not influence the decision,” Assad said.9 Of course, whether anyone believed Assad’s message or not was beside the point. A way seemed to have been found to avoid an escalating confrontation that could easily have morphed into military intervention and war.

The solution seemed simple and with all the principal parties on board, it seemed as if the crisis over chemical weapons use had turned a corner. But could Assad be trusted to do as he’d promised?

French president François Hollande suggested a brilliant, straightforward means to hold Assad’s feet to the fire. He proposed that the UN Security Council pass a resolution that would establish a timetable for Syrian compliance—everyone was happy with that. He then suggested that the resolution should stipulate that if Assad failed to comply with the agreed upon timetable, the Security Council resolution will have authorized the use of force. He went even further, asking the five permanent members of the Security Council (Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States) to renounce their right to exercise their veto in the Security Council in the case of crimes against humanity, which, of course, includes the use of chemical weapons on civilians.10 This proposal not only backed up Obama’s threats against Assad, it also forced Putin to reveal whether he was sincere about helping enforce the deal.

Because of the contingent nature of the French government’s proposed Security Council resolution, the issue of using force would be moot as long as Assad complied with the timetable that, after all, he had already agreed to. So, really all the French proposal was seeking to learn was whether Assad and his Russian ally were truly committed to abiding by the terms to which they said they agreed. This was a clever way to establish whether they, like Adolf Hitler in 1938, were pretending to be compliant when they were not or whether, instead, they were prepared to pay a heavy price if they reneged on the promised elimination of the chemical weapons capability in Syria.