The American people have spoken. Only 10% favor going to war in Syria. Even if the Obama administration finds out beyond a reasonable doubt that Syria's government has engaged in the use of chemical weapons, that number only climbs to 27%. The problem is that too many people still remember the kind of disaster that the "dumb war" in Iraq was and don't want a repeat.
Foreign Policy has an extensive article on why we should not go to war in Syria. Among other things, they talk about the evidence used to justify the attacks against the alleged chemical weapons plant in Sudan -- evidence that turned out to be false.
A small group of senior Clinton administration officials debated a military response, which included five targets in Khartoum nominated by the CIA. Eventually, those five were whittled down to two and then to one. On August 20, two U.S. Navy warships launched 13 cruise missiles -- extra missiles were added to assure all the toxins would be incinerated -- at El-Shifa, destroying it and killing its night watchman. When it quickly became apparent that bin Laden had no controlling interest in El-Shifa, Clinton administration officials settled on the single soil sample as being the strongest evidence to justify the attack. Six weeks later, President Clinton told historian Taylor Branch that the supporting intelligence included "soil samples, connecting an element in nerve gas found there and in Afghanistan at similarly high concentrations."
The American people remember much more than we give them credit for. Yet the politicians in Washington along with their allies in the corporate media are ignoring the wishes of the American people and beating the drums to war even though the logistics of such an effort are much more difficult than Iraq.
We know this because Mother Jones reports that even some of the relentless war cheerleaders of Iraq are hesitant when advocating what to do in Syria:
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), while fervently urging military intervention, agreed no US troops should intrude upon Syrian territory. He called for an international force that would locate and secure chemical weapons in Syria. "There are a number of caches of these chemical weapons," he said. "They cannot fail into the hands of the jihadists." He repeated his proposal for establishing a no-fly zone and providing arms to the rebels, who already have been receiving weapons from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which are each eager to back the Sunni opposition fighting the Alawites of Bashar al-Assad's regime. McCain, though, did caution against placing US "boots on the ground in Syria," contending "that would turn the people against us." Even neocon favorite John Bolton, in a Wall Street Journal article slamming Obama for, yes, foreign policy fecklessness, pointed out that military action aimed at Syrian chemical weapons is an iffy propsect: "[T]he humanitarian costs of chemical-weapons use inside Syria are potentially high, but so are the risks to American and allied forces trying to destroy or seize chemical weapons, given the dangers and complexities involved." (He also noted "the unpleasant fact that the opposition is thick with terrorists—including al Qaeda—and radical Islamicists.")
John McCain, we recall, called for the bombing of Iran and 50 years of warfare in Iraq. The only people who are unequivocally for a full-scale war are the Neocons like Perle.
The reason that the politicians are obsessed with the Middle East instead of Middle America, besides the fact that many of them are in the pockets of the Military Industrial Complex, is that it is a lot easier to pontificate over what should be done in the Middle East than it is to advocate for constructive solutions for rebuilding Middle America. But taking the easy way out is for losers. It is a lot easier to lose a basketball game than it is to win one -- just stand aside and let the other team make layups.
Assad may very well be a bad man who uses violence against his own civilians. But if we had gone to war based on principle, we would have gone to war with China a long time ago over their treatment of the Tibetans or South Africa over their apartheid state. The reality is that we can't be in every place at once; even Superman was not capable of that. The US can facilitate peace talks, but ultimately, a solution to this crisis has to rest with the Syrian people.
The worst case scenario is that a proxy war with Russia (already the case given that Russia is openly sympathetic with Syria and is arming Assad with "defensive" weapons) could turn into a third world war, which is exactly what we have been trying to prevent all these years. A slight risk, to be sure. But even the slightest chance that our actions could create a third world war should be avoided.
Even the Bush administration used the UN to create the appearance of legitimacy to its war of choice and revenge with Iraq. To bypass the UN, as certain Neocons are advocating, would simply make the US into a rogue state which shows blatant disregard of international law.
And another consideration is, how are we going to pay for such a war, even if we don't put boots on the ground? Raise taxes? Out of the question. And the politicians and their allies in the corporate media are ignoring the elephant in the room, namely, the sequester. There are a few things, such as reviving the economy, which justify deficit spending. However, fighting a war in which there is no clear and present danger to the US and in which we have no clear international mandate to do so and in which we have no clear national interest is unconscionable given the sequester cuts that the nation is dealing with. It may be argued that we should not put a price on human life. But if we are wrong about Syria and chemical weapons (like we were wrong about Bin Laden having a chemical weapons factory in Sudan and wrong about Iraq having WMD's), then we would wind up killing more lives than we would have wound up saving through not getting involved.
Given the booming economy that we got following the Second World War, we were told that going to war in the Middle East would be good for the economy and that oil prices would drop to $20 per barrel. After all, we would have all these jobs for the GI's who came home and we would have access to all this cheap oil. We know the end results of these "predictions."