To intervene or not

I voted for Obama in both presidential elections. I'm not sorry that I did because I could have never supported either Republican candidate and their reactionary positions on issues crucial to tens of millions of Americans. Having said that, I'm deeply disappointed in the president for saying one thing in the campaign and doing another after being elected.

I've written about breaking campaign promises before and won't again, at least not in this week's column. But President Obama found that it's much easier to talk about change than it is to implement it, something many of us know about first hand. Obama's stump speech is still captivating, his decisions aren't.

Now he's wrestling with whether or not to bomb Syria and its dictator, Bashar al-Assad for its use of chemical weapons against the rebels they're fighting against. But we're not really sure who the rebels are. Are they the good guys or just more bad guys? In fact, we're not really sure there ARE any good guys in this conflict. The president and others on both sides of the aisle say that doesn't matter; that the use of chemical weapons is unconscionable and we must act militarily so that it doesn't happen again, even though it's been happening for more than two thousand years, dating back to when the Athenians poisoned the wells of the Spartans in 600 B.C.

And most people have either forgotten or never learned that Saddam Hussein, the primary reason we invaded Iraq under the first President Bush, enjoyed American support in his long war with Iran in the 1980s, even after Iraq repeatedly used chemical weapons. Iraq used mustard gas against the Iranians in 1983 with no objection from the Reagan administration.

Foreign Policy magazine reported last week that in 1987 the United States gave Saddam intelligence that an Iranian invasion was imminent at a hole in Iraq's defenses. "An Iranian victory is unacceptable," President Regan wrote on an intelligence report. In response to the U.S. warning, Saddam repeatedly attacked Iranian forces with sarin, killing more than 20,000 and injuring thousands more. He later used sarin to kill more than 5,000 Kurds to put down an uprising in northern Iraq. (The Week magazine)

So it appears that the inexcusable act of using chemical weapons is not so inexcusable after all if the right people use it for the right reasons in the right situations. Saddam Hussein was Reagan's ally and, just a decade later, George H.W. Bush's enemy.

What complicates this issue even further concerns the identity of the combatants on both sides. Foreign policy and military experts can't decide whether any of the warriors on either side are friendly and supportive of the United States and its policies. Perhaps in using air strikes against Assad and his military, we give the upper hand to an opposition that is even worse.

Sectarian and religious groups have been fighting each other in this part of the world for thousands of years and there's no reason to believe they're going to stop because we want them to.

We saw what happened in Egypt when a leader was elected democratically by popular vote and then overthrown less than a year later by the military.

Even though this is the definition of a coup, the U.S. did not call it one because of our military and economic interests with Egypt. This made me hold my nose at Obama as well because I learned a long time ago you can't trust anyone who talks out of both sides of their mouth.

I'm not an isolationist and believe there are times and circumstances when the most powerful country in the world must choose a side and support it militarily but I'm not sure that's the case here. And because I'm not, I think military intervention in Syria would be foolhardy.

A significant majority of the American people doesn't want it either and even though the majority is often wrong, in this case I side with them.

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it and we don't have to look very far back to be reminded of this. Our military incursions into Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan have not produced a significant change in those countries' make-up or outlook and it won't change the dynamic in Syria either.