Obama's Syrian Education 
Now that the U.N. has 'failed utterly,' will the President act?

July 22, 2012
WSJ
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444025204577542993398455980.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

It only took 17 months, and multiple Russian and Chinese vetoes, but the Obama Administration has finally concluded that the United Nations has failed on Syria. Failed utterly is how Susan Rice, the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., channelled John Bolton last week, even as the White House now whispers to its media favorites that it suddenly has all kinds of plans to oust Bashar Assad by force.
The Syrian opposition can be forgiven if it asks where the U.S. was when it really needed the help. Now that the opposition is getting arms from others, and has taken the fight to Damascus and the Assad inner circle, the Obama Administration is scrambling to get in front of the parade. If Assad falls, no doubt the President will declare it a triumph of his subtle statecraft of leading without appearing to lead.
The reality is that the U.S. abdication to the U.N. has produced a Syrian mess that will be harder to clean up than if a coalition of the willing had intervened. 
Without a haven safe from regime attacks in Syria, refugees are pouring into Turkey and Lebanon. The ferocity of the fighting for so many months will make Sunni revenge more likely against the Alawites who dominate the regime, and maybe against the minority Syrian Christians who have sided with the regime or stayed neutral. Jihadist elements among the opposition have had more time to organize and plot their attempt for post-Assad power. 
All of this might have been mitigated if the U.S. had worked from the start with Turkey, Europe, the Saudis and the Gulf states to assist, arm and organize the opposition. 
The same goes for Syria's chemical-weapons stockpile, a problem the Administration is busy leaking that it has under control. We can recall during the Bush years when CIA leakers, State Department drop-outs and some leading Democrats attacked Mr. Bolton, then a senior State Department official, for suggesting that Syria's WMD posed a regional threat. Now we're learning how right he was.
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Associated Press 
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice.
One problem with chemical arsenals is that they are relatively easy to disperse. Even Assad may not have the nerve to order their use against fellow Syrians, and his officers may not follow through if he does. But a bigger threat is if they fall into the hands of Hezbollah, Iran's military arm in Lebanon, or Iran's Quds Force. They could easily be used as a terror weapon against Israel. 
All of this illustrates the folly of the Obama worldview that the U.S. can act to check the world's rogues only if the U.N. first vouchsafes its approval. In Libya, the President also deferred to the U.N. for weeks despite pleas from France and even the Arab League. But Mr. Obama got lucky at the last minute as the prospect of a globally televised massacre in Benghazi caused the Russians to bend enough that NATO could drive a no-fly zone through a narrow U.N. Security Council resolution. 
In Syria, the massacres have mostly been off-camera, so the political pressure to act has been lower. The result has been that the U.S. has let Russia and Iran set the world's Syria policy, arming and propping up Assad while his troops shell civilian neighborhoods and his paramilitary operatives slit throats. 
The U.S. even acquiesced in the Russian-backed plan to send Kofi Annan, the former U.N. Secretary-General, as an envoy to negotiate a cease-fire between Assad and the opposition. Assad publicly endorsed the cease-fire and a troop withdrawal while continuing the killing. 
In what can only be called a self-parody, the Security Council agreed on Friday to Russia's desire to extend the Annan mission for another 30 days. Ambassador Rice voted for this farce even though a day earlier the Russians had vetoed the latest watered-down U.S. resolution to impose economic sanctions against Assad. By the way, Ms. Rice is a leading candidate to be Secretary of State in a second Obama term—lest anyone think this Obama worldview would change. 
If the U.S. really wants to avoid a greater Syrian disaster, it should move with dispatch to shape the outcome with allies outside the U.N. The Administration is leaking that it has unleashed the CIA to help the opposition, which is useful but not sufficient. 
A threat of additional military intervention, either by mobilizing a no-fly zone or raids to capture chemical stockpiles, might accelerate military defections from the regime. An internal coup of some kind could avoid a long and bloody siege of major cities and lead to talks for a real transition government. In the event, Mr. Annan shouldn't be allowed anywhere near that diplomatic effort. 
Even at this violent stage, genuine U.S. leadership could contribute to a better outcome in Syria. But Mr. Obama first has to shed his self-applied U.N. fetters. 


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