CSotD: Hamlet in the Oval Office
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Whatever you think of the situation in Syria, and what the US response should be, and whether you think the US should respond at all, there's almost certainly a cartoon somewhere on the topic that you'll agree with. The gang is all over the place on this one.
I'm leading off with Drew Sheneman's offering, because I suspect Obama knows that he's facing a no-win situation and I'm glad I'm not saddled with the decision.
The Nobel Peace Prize has become much like the Grammies in recent years, seemingly awarded because it's time for the awards rather than because there is anything particularly wonderful to be recognized, and, while the group plainly wanted to encourage a new direction for US international policy, they probably did more to embarrass Obama — who downplayed the award and donated the money to charity — than to assist his stated goals, given the grief he has taken over the whole thing.
Still, the Prize remains a reminder of the those goals and, quite specifically, of the Cairo speech. As the committee said, "he called for a new start to relations between the Muslim
world and the West based on common interests and mutual understanding
and respect."
Yeah, well, he also invited a Republican to join his cabinet, based on common interests and mutual understanding and respect. That seems to have worked out equally well, as Jimmy Margulies notes.
There is something in Obama that makes me think of poor old LBJ, in whose legacy his civil rights triumphs were dwarfed by the war in Vietnam, the chief difference being that the chants of "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" were coming from the streets and not from the Republican party.
For all that he had to contend with the unpopularity of the war, Johnson at least had the advantage of serving in an era when there was such a thing as a "loyal opposition" and we operated, as a people, with the understanding that government should be "based on common interests and mutual understanding and respect."
Not to mention some modicum of consistency: The same people who insisted, in the run-up to Iraq, that the President must be respected and supported, have suddenly had a conversion experience and no longer believe that old-fashioned notion.
And many of those who criticized him for not moving quickly and decisively to rain down fire on Benghazi have now become pacifists. I guess the reason they all rushed out to the airport as soon as Congress adjourned was to sell flowers.
Benghazi and Syria are further linked in that, apparently, the reason for conflicting accounts in the early hours of the attack on the "consulate" was because it was actually a CIA spook shop from which we were surreptiously arming whatever groups of Syrian rebels we could determine were not al Qaeda.
So maybe his Congressional critics, though publicly denouncing his lack of action, were actually trying to advance their belief that we should do nothing in Syria.
Despite their simultaneous calls to do something in Syria, which were of course part of their cunning plan to maintain secrecy over what was actually going on.
In any case, as Scott Stantis notes, it's not easy to distinguish the Good Guys from the Bad Guys in this one, what with Hezbollah linked to the regime and al Qaeda linked to the rebels and, well …
The Washington Post's Max Fisher borrowed this handy chart from The Big Pharaoh, then added some additional clarification at the bottom of his analysis, all of which I was alerted to by Ann Telnaes.
Hat tips all around, and wouldn't it be sweet if it were all as simple as most of the paid and amateur pundits try to make it sound?
Strange bedfellows indeed, as South African cartoonist Wilson Mgobhozi notes.
It's not simple, and even the pacifists who aren't just leaping at one more opportunity to dump on B. Hussein Obama are strangely silent on what to do about the use of chemical weapons, while also declining to make any distinction between Bush's all-out invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and Clinton's quick, surgical intervention in Bosnia.
And I guess there isn't one, if you truly are a pacifist, which I would estimate probably accounts for about five percent of the opposition to "declaring war (sic) on Syria."
The rest should — assuming that brown people's lives matter as much as white people's lives — offer an alternative, and let me add that I don't think boycotting Syrian cotton is going to save very many innocent civilians from being shelled, shot or gassed.
Besides, cotton is vital to our economy.
I like the lack of specificity in John Cole's take. (I also like his use of the map of Syria as an angular, damaged-looking hornets' nest.)
But, of course, it does leave unanswered the question of what in the world we could possibly do — or not do — at this stage that would make us any more enemies in the Middle East?
You've got to admit, the hornets seem pretty pissed off already, don't they? I'm pretty sure that giving'em another whack is not going to make them like us, but d'you really think it will worsen their mood?
I started by comparing Obama's can't-win situation with President Lyndon B. Johnson's sad legacy, so let's end with the legacy of non-President George B. McClellan, who, as commander of the Army of the Potomac, famously dithered for months, waiting for just the right moment to attack the rebel army, then, having been relieved of his command, ran against Lincoln in the '64 elections.
There are historians who say it's unfair to judge McClellan as an ineffectual ditherer, but, to paraphrase the famous explanation of a much more decisive political figure, when you go down in history, you go with the legacy you have, not the legacy you might wish to have at a later time.
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