The Buck Stops here,” said the famous sign on Harry S Truman’s desk, encapsulating the lonely dilemmas power presents to US presidents, one of which now confronts Barack Obama over Syria.
Obama is trapped in a conundrum, partly of his own making, after Syria apparently called his bluff by using chemical weapons in an escalation of an vicious civil war — and in the process, challenged a US “red line.”
Unless he can find wiggle room, the president may have to reconcile the conflict between a need to prove his personal credibility with a desire to avoid being dragged into another Middle Eastern war.
Obama mused on the humbling demands on the modern president when he honored George W. Bush in Texas last week. “There are moments where you make mistakes. There are times where you wish you could turn back the clock,” he said.
Obama might have been reflecting on the moment last August when, in the heat of his re-election bid, he warned President Bashar Assad that using or moving chemical weapons would change his “calculus” on Syria. That comment came back to haunt him last week, when news broke that US intelligence believes Syrian forces did use chemical weapons.
The size of the action, its human toll and whether it was designed as a deliberate test of Obama’s limits or to draw America into a new quagmire were unclear.
But the revelation sparked heat on Obama to live up to his threats, creating a messy political problem, as calls mounted for him to arm anti-Assad fighters, pummel Syria with air power or establish a no-fly zone.
“The president did say that there’s a red line, and once the United States lays out a red line, some action has to be taken,” said Peter King, a congressman from New York on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Obama’s predicament laid bare the risk in laying down “red lines” on key national security crises: Sooner or later someone might cross them.
It is for this reason Obama, unlike Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is reluctant to pinpoint the moment when Washington might strike to thwart any Iranian breakout toward nuclear weapons.
Another problem with the Syria “red line,” according to Republican Senator John McCain, is that it convinced Assad any atrocity short of using chemical weapons would not rouse Washington.
“The president drew a red line on chemical weapons, thereby giving a green light to (Assad) to do anything short of that, including Scud missiles and helicopter gun ships and air attack strikes and mass executions,” he said. Obama’s actions on Syria will be closely watched — especially in Tehran.
“It’s no longer a question of just Syria. It has a lot to do with his personal credibility,” former Middle East peace negotiator Aaron David Miller said.
“Everyone says no to the United States these days without cost or consequence. So how he comports himself with respect to Syria will be read, interpreted, by the Iranians and others with great significance.”
His media team’s linguistic contortions reveal the tricky ground Obama is on.
