The gaffe that changed the world
by digby
Well, it looks like Kerry’s loose lips may have changed the course of history:
Syria confirmed it would accept a Russian-brokered deal to hand over its chemical weapons Tuesday, but the White House said President Barack Obama would still ask Congress to approve the use of military force against Damascus.
Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem told NBC News in Moscow that he hoped acceptance of the “peaceful solution” would “put an end to the war.”
He was speaking hours after France announced it would seek a U.N. Security Council resolution along similar lines. That added to the international momentum behind the proposal, which has already been endorsed by Iran and China and cautiously welcomed by Britain and Germany.
The bad news is that the administration is still seeking a congressional authorization to use force and will now use the excuse that it’s just for “leverage.”
Perhaps you’ll recall John Kerry’s speech of September 2003 at Drake University explaining his vote to authorize force in Iraq:
I believed then – and I believe now – authorizing force was the only way to get inspectors in, and the only way ultimately to enforce Saddam Hussein’s compliance with the mandate he had agreed to, knowing that as a last resort war could become the ultimate weapons inspections enforcement mechanism.
And I also believe that those who doubted whether Iraq or the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein, and those who believe we are not safer with his capture don’t have the judgment to be President – or the credibility to be elected President.
A year and a half ago, as this campaign was starting, I argued that for Democrats to win America’s votes we must first convince the voters that we will keep America safe.
I believed then and I believe now that Americans deserve better than a false choice between force without diplomacy and diplomacy without force.
(Hillary Clinton said the same thing, FWIW.) How’d that work out for them? For us? To quote the great American orator George W. Bush, “fool me once, fool me twice … won’t get fooled again.”
However, the deal itself is a very good development. We get our norms against chemical weapons use and for international institutions upheld (however tattered and hypocritical those norms are at the moment) and we prevent the US from unilaterally joining a civil war in the middle east. Perhaps most importantly, it gets the Russians to put their credibility on the line, arguably much more important since Syria is their ally and they have a stake in ensuring that they don’t get burned. If the Syrian government uses chemical weapons their Russian sponsors will not be happy. This is real leverage. If Kerry is an accidental diplomatic genius, more power to him.
This truly is the best outcome we can hope for at the moment. The tragedy in Syria isn’t going to be stopped by anything we’ve been proposing so far but at least we are not going to add to it by blowing things up. But I think the president would be wise to withdraw the request for authorization. Even if it’s sold as being just for “leverage” as all the Democrats ludicrously insisted back in 2003, politicians are rightfully wary of being on the hook for a war vote: they could get hit from both the right and the left in the next election.
Also too: I don’t think President Obama really wants to do this. If that’s correct, he should withdraw the request now because if something goes wrong with this deal authorization will push him into immediate military action, perhaps prematurely. He should have the request still pending as a backstop to allow some breathing room, just in case.
Update: Ed Kilgore has more on this. Like me, he’s for withdrawing the request for a vote.