First off, inbetween the amazingly awesome May weather the early March temperatures of the great outdoors, folks probably want to keep an eye on this:
Moving or using large quantities of chemical weapons would cross a “red line” and “change my calculus,” the president declared in response to a question at a news conference, to the surprise of some of the advisers who had attended the weekend meetings and wondered where the “red line” came from. With such an evocative phrase, the president had defined his policy in a way some advisers wish they could take back.
“The idea was to put a chill into the Assad regime without actually trapping the president into any predetermined action,” said one senior official, who, like others, discussed the internal debate on the condition of anonymity. But “what the president said in August was unscripted,” another official said. Mr. Obama was thinking of a chemical attack that would cause mass fatalities, not relatively small-scale episodes like those now being investigated, except the “nuance got completely dropped.”
As a result, the president seems to be moving closer to providing lethal assistance to the Syrian rebels, even though he rejected such a policy just months ago. American officials have even discussed with European allies the prospect of airstrikes to take out Syrian air defenses, airplanes and missile delivery systems, if government use of chemical weapons is confirmed.
Oddly enough, the Weekly Standard quote that is getting everyone’s attention:
“How can we attack another country unless it’s in self-defense and with no Security Council resolution?” an unnamed Obama administration official tells the paper. “If he drops sarin on his own people, what’s that got to do with us?”
…is no where to be found in the New York Times article.
Interesting.
…and though Americans may not be willing to die for oil, are we looking at a far different ball of wax when the target is Israel — an indispensable ally in the region.
Which raises the question: to what limits do the objections to neoconservatism extend?
All this having been said, one can only speculate on the wailing and bemoaning coming from the Democratic Party were this Bush’s war. Perhaps now, the Obama administration is beginning to realize that Islamic radicalization poses a very real danger not only to our allies in the region, but to Americans at home.
