The Great Smoky Mountain Journal

OUR VIEW

Posted: Tuesday, January 01, 2019 02:45 PM

OUR VIEW: Syrian Situation Is More Than Cowboys and Indians, It's A Dangerous Crossroads In The Middle East

We spoke with Theo Padnos this week who feels it's the Syrian rebels fighting against the Assad regime who are responsible, not the government.

Assad’s action killed more than 40 people and possibly close to 100, according to anti-Assad forces. Again, these are reports that need to be 100% verified before we play this game of cowboys and Indians in the Middle East.

As Fox News reported, the president’s tweet followed reports that Russia's ambassador to Lebanon told a TV station there that Russia will shoot down any American missiles fired at Syrian government targets.

President Trump tweeted Wednesday: “Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and ‘smart!’ You shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!”

Assad may very well be just that.

What is bothering me in this mess is two questions. One, why would the leader of any nation, no matter how evil he may be, gas his own people? What would be the end game? What would be the reason?

The second question is even more disturbing and one no one has asked. Where did these chemical weapons come from in the first place? To this day no one has been able to pinpoint where Assad and his forces obtained them. Was it Russia? Was it Iran? Were these the chemical weapons the United States and her allies were looking for in 2003 when we invaded Iraq. Saddam had stockpiles of these weapons we know. What the world has never found out in over 15 years is what he did with them?

The late dictator claimed he destroyed them before the Iraq war, but can we believe someone who, like the Syrian President, had a history of gassing HIS own people as well in the late 1980s before the first Gulf War.

I have a feeling the Kurds in the northern parts of Iraq, who lost thousands to Saddam's sick brutality, would scream to you "NO!"

Syrian leaders are continuing to deny responsibility for the chemical attack just like Saddam claimed he had destroyed his chemical weapons prior to the US invasion in 2003. What are we to believe?

This is the dilemma for the United States concerning Syria.

A U.S. attack on Syria will definitely send a second loud and clear message to the Assad regime and to other nations: America will not tolerate the use of chemical weapons or any other weapon of mass destruction on either armed combatants or civilians.

Sending such a message is enormously important because it will give pause to any other nation that wants to follow in Syria’s path – and hopefully will act as a deterrent. Or at least we hope.

If Syria suffers no consequences for using deadly chemical weapons banned under international agreements, chances are that other nations will inevitably do the same under desperate circumstances.

And the more chemical weapons are used by some nations, the greater pressure there would be on other nations to use them as well. This is a truly nightmarish scenario that could claim many lives in conflicts around the world.

On that basis alone I support a U.S. attack on Syria because of its deterrent effect against the use of chemical weapons and also because our strikes against Syria will almost certainly be limited in scope and duration – but will most likely greatly limit Assad’s ability to kill his own people with chemical weapons.

The crazy thing is one would have thought Assad would have gotten the message from the punishment President Trump delivered with missile strikes in 2017. Apparently he did not.

One thing is for sure. Assad never was scared of former President Barrack Obama, who foolishly drew a "red line" in the sand daring Syria to use such weapons. They did. We did nothing. Obama's presidency and foreign policy summed up in those two sentences.

It's strange thinking that back in the summer of 2013 many conservatives were opposed a U.S. attack on Syria in response to Assad’s first slaughter of innocent men, women and children with chemical weapons.

Most thought a U.S. attack would drag us into a war where America had no clear national interest and only pull Washington into another regime- change disaster.  If this happened, the U.S. would once again shoulder the heavy burden of rebuilding a society we knew nothing about that had been destroyed by years of war – with a price tag in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

Since Assad’s last mass attack in 2013, using Sarin gas to kill over 1,400 people, events in Syria and around the globe prove why President Trump is right to make a stand against Syria’s use of chemical weapons.

Despite claims that the Assad regime gave up its chemical weapons in a process brokered by Russia during the Obama administration, Assad has clearly reconstituted his chemical weapons' capabilities, thanks to help from North Korea.

At least that's what we think.  It's still very uncertain now how many chemical weapons Assad actually ever destroyed under the Russian backed agreement. Relying on Russia to monitor chemical weapons destruction by its close ally Syria is like an arsonist being in charge of the fire department.

The Syrian regime has launched numerous attacks using chlorine-based weapons that many times get very little media attention. The scale the most recent attack by Assad’s forces – a clear crime against humanity – only proves that the promise of Assad to abandon chemical weapons was worthless.

It doesn’t take much of an imagination to envision other rogue regimes following Syria’s example in turning to chemical weapons.

North Korea, for example – in what should be considered a terror attack – has already used the highly lethal chemical VX in the targeted assassination of dictator Kim Jong Un’s half-brother.

Sadly, the international community, already reeling from Pyongyang’s other provocative actions of 2017 – specifically, testing missiles and nuclear weapon – did very little in responding to this brazen violation of international law, further eroding what should be a clear norm that such weapons should never be used.

And then there are Russia’s most recent actions, using chemical weapons on British soil, in an attempt to assassinate dissidents in what could be considered an act of war. While Moscow offers the most brazen of denials, it seems clear that the regime of President Vladimir Putin – seeing other nations’ usage of chemical weapons bringing no punishment – thought it would get away with such an act.

Yet some Americans argue passionately and with conviction that we must avoid attacking the Assad regime at all costs. They say a U.S. attack on Syria would show we are determined to launch a long and costly war of regime change – possibly putting America in a direct conflict with Russia and further destabilizing the already unstable Middle East.

Under any other President than Donald J. Trump, I'd be more concerned about that.

Precision American missile strikes, with the clear goal of eliminating Assad’s chemical weapons capabilities – targeting his air force, artillery and anything else that can launch chemical weapons – does not constitute regime change.

While I have no love for the Syrian government and would be happy to see its demise, history tells us that forcing Assad out of power would only make the collective problems of the Syrian people and the wider Middle East far worse. Also, removing Assad can’t be accomplished by missiles and bombs from the air alone, but only by U.S. troops – perhaps as many as hundreds of thousands of them.

Such an action would change the bar not only in Syria, but in the Middle East.  It would be a total war. And as history clearly proves, such a war would risk creating a zone of instability from the shores of the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf – as happened when we forced regime change in Iraq. And that's not even beginning to describe what happened when the Obama idiots, led by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, instigated regime change in Egypt and Libya.

A protracted U.S. war against Syria would also guarantee deaths and injuries to U.S. forces and could tie us down in Syria for years, at the cost of many billions of dollars.

As for a potential clash with Russia and/or Iran if we hit Syria, we must state clearly to both Moscow and Tehran our intent. If they want to cooperate great. If they don't, then let them know in no uncertain terms they would be wise to get out of the America's way while we confront the "Gassing Animal" as President Trump described Assad.

While we don't have a desire for armed conflict with Russia or Iran, we cannot ignore the fact that this entire Syrian mess is largely because of them both.  Both nations' clear fueling of a civil war in Syria has claimed roughly 400,000 lives.

It was Russia that decided to intervene, en masse, in the current crisis in Syria back in 2015. And Russia has done nothing to restrain or eliminate Assad’s rebuilt or hidden chemical weapons capability – something it claimed it was trying to eliminate. i guess we should give Russia some slack since former Secretary of State John Kerry and National Security Adviser Susan Rice gave a U.S. nod in approval of such. Just a quick thought on that. Does that represent collusion? I'm not holding my breath on Rod Rosenstein appointing a special counsel to investigate that.
 

The intangible in all of this is ISIS. One of the things that struck me from our interview with Theo Padnos is that he felt that ISIS is the one possibly behind this whole ordeal seeking to draw both Russia AND America into the Syrian battle fields to wage an all out war against both.

In their sick minds, ISIS believes if they can destroy America and Russia, then they will have an open door to their caliphate in the Middle East with little resistance. They want to draw our troops into an open theater in Syria and kill as many American soldiers as they can in their jihad against Israel and the West.

While a pipe dream of donkey riding terrorists, make no mistake. They are a player in this. They are not the junior varsity team and they are not to be taken likely. These people are killers and only respect strength and power. Let's continue through the leadership of Mad Dog Defense Secretary James Mattis to put them on a neat display shall we.

The other intangible is Israel. Israel is not going to sit idly by and let Syria keep amassing weapons of mass destruction without taking action. The entire world knows that and so does Syria.

I believe President Trump has seen America's mistakes in our past and will make sure that a limited strike will not turn into a long war in Syria. He campaigned against America being in useless and foolish wars. He gets it, even though others like Lindsay Grahamesty and Democrat John Establishment McCain don't.

Clearly, no one, including President Trump, wants to see another conflict widen in the Middle East. In fact, if anything, the president’s determination to leave Syria makes it clear he will not embroil America in another war for regime change in that part of the world. Some have scratched their head why he announced that publicly but here's the thing. If there is one thing I've learned about our President this past year is he is a businessman at heart and NOTHING he does has not been thought out and calculated in his mind often before he does or says anything. I have faith the reason why he did it was good because I have faith in him as our leader unlike any I've had faith in ever!

What he has done with his comments is now placed a clear line in the sand that the use of such weapons of mass destruction constitutes a crime against humanity. And for that reason alone confronting Syria, even if it's a short term blast of American power is truly the right thing to do and as such America needs to support our president with our prayers and thoughts.

Christopher McDonald, Publisher, Editor in Charge

Great Smoky Mountain Journal