US-UK "Special Relationship" dead?... Hardly, since British Prime Minister David Cameron gave President Obama a gift that keeps on giving by letting Parliament decide if the UK would or wouldn't join America in attacking Syria. How's that a gift?
It has allowed the b.s. prone Obama to have a way-out of staging an attack resoundingly unpopular with the US electorate...but one in which he said was an almost certainty. Taking a lesson from Cameron, the Pres now will let Congress decide if his punishment strike is okay. "Thanks for the tip Dave."
Obama's red line has long been breached and his stern words of warning have backed him into a corner. He has to attack, even though a limited strike probably wouldn't affect the war and already seems to have made things worse. Syrians in their hundreds have been streaming into Lebanon to get away from the expected US attack.
Yet, many experts are advising against such a move considering the risks involved of expanding the civil war into a regional conflict. Then there's the US sensitive relationship with Russia. President Putin is dead set against any attack on its ally Syria.
Obama's threat to use force is based on moral grounds...the repugnant idea of using weapons of mass destruction against civilians. But the reality is his outrage is aimed at the home audience. It naively overlooks the complications of such action and ignores other international travesties against humanity...why only Syria?
On one hand he castigates the Syrian regime for its crimes against humanity. Yet, on the other he maintains the US isn't interested in regime change or changing the course of the war. It apparently is the President's view that launching a few cruise missiles at Syrian targets will satisfy the moral outrage of America.
This is nonsense. If the President is so outraged by gas attacks used by Syria, said to number more than a dozen, how can he think anything other than regime change will change anything?
Yet, the Iraq debacle keeps popping up as the reason to fear action in Syria. This is also nonsense. Iraq wasn't in the middle of civil war when we began a war there. NATO forces, mainly American, were responsible for most of the carnage. You could say they are having a civil war there now because we left.
Syria resembles the Libyan revolution more than Iraq. And what we did there was enact a NATO no fly zone over the country which seemed to help the rebels overthrow the government and create near anarchy today.
Now, however, with the sight of Israel bringing tank units up on the Golan Heights and gas masks give to the population, hearing that Russia has sent two warships into the region and noting the fear among ordinary Syrians about the impending US attack, Obama may be thanking Cameron for giving him a face saving way back from his red line. Let's do it democratically....just as the British did.
Then, if Congress backs his stance, whatever happens will be the shared responsibility of the American people. If they reject him Obama still can launch a strike, but one that will be solely off his bat.