The Roll Call on today’s resolution arming Syrian rebels to fight ISIL. Which passed 273-156. 159 Republicans and 114 Democrats, including all the major leaders and committee chairs, voted for the resolution while 71 Republicans and 85 Democrats voted against it.
In our delegation Neal and Lynch voted for the resolution, while Clark, Capuano, Kennedy, McGovern, Tierney, and Tsongas voted against it.
Keating voted against the initial resolution, and for the amended continuing resolution containing the funding.
I personally have mixed feelings about how best to fight ISIS, but it seems that arming Syrian opposition groups is what helped create it in the first place. Kudos to our members who took the tough vote bucking the President on this contentious issue.
Here, is yet another reason, I won’t vote for Lynch. I don’t know if he has a Republican opponent, but I still will not vote for Lynch.
“we don’t whip these bills” so not sure if it’s about bucking the leadership. Maybe it just about guessing. If it’s really about ISIS we should arm Assad and get in bed with the Iranians. No winners here. Lots of stuff lately about what a monster Qaddafi was, but not sure geopolitically we did the right thing there. Really have come to hate the whole region.
My foreign police would ask the question ‘what would Andrew Bacevich do?’ and do it. And he basically has argued the same question. As has Brent Scowcroft.
We disarmed Libya diplomatically, and used it as an example of how to disarm a country without force, with the bargain that he would rejoin the international community. We then utilized force after he got rid of his WMDs, sending a terrible signal to Iran. At the time I backed it, it’s hard for me to argue that we should’ve kept him in power, but like Iraq, the cruel dictator was more stable than the alternative chaos, anarchy, and extremism that has filled the void. Tunis is the only country that had a democratic awakening after the Arab spring, and it happens to be the only one where the US didn’t involve itself.
We have to cut a grand bargain with Iran, recognizing their government and it’s right to rule in exchange for disarmament, ending support for Assad and Hezbollah, and cooperation against ISIL. We have to push the Saudis, Qatari’s, Emirates, and Kuwaitis to stop funding ISIL. And we have to reach some kind of detente with Assad that ends that war peacefully, disarms him of WMD, and utilizes his forces to fight ISIL.
None of this is nice or pretty, but I prefer Sissi to the Brotherhood, and am under no illusions he is a saint. Neither are the King of Jordan, the Emirs, or the Saudi royal family. But stability should be the goal of a President committed to a peaceful world order-this democratic expansionism of the liberal hawks and the neoconservative right has got to stop.
The Gulf States are normal Sunni’s mostly because of so much oil money.
Iran was crazy Shiite, but seems (hard to believe) a bit more moderate now.
11 years in, it seems the Iraqi Shiites are not that crazy.
Iraqi Sunnis are crazy.
Kurds seem pretty normal.
Syrian Sunnis are crazy.
Syrian non-Sunnis, with the exception that Assad is a brutal dictator, seem okay.
Egyptians seem about 2/3 normal, 1/3 crazy. Not sure exactly whose what. Seems like only a semi-brutal dictator can keep things together.
Palestinians seem about 2/3 crazy, 1/3 normal, with most of the people in Gaza crazy.
Note that these are my generalizations, but it’s not like our skilled State department has been doing a bang up job.
So….. If we are against crazy, and for normal, we need to re-align in the Middle East. Split Iraq and let Iran dominate the Shiite part. Try to figure out how we can have a civil relationship with Iran. Tell the Gulf States to stop helping rebels. Let Assad win. Don’t bother Egypt. Let the Sunni part of Iraq exist, and they’ll be fighting it our among each other. Make certain the Kurds are well armed and supported.
Then we can keep an eye on Libya which many believe will be the terrorist training ground of the future, and only a boat ride across the Med.
I think that is about right.
But though Iran may be slightly less crazy, they export crazy. To Lebanon (Hezbollah) and to Syria (Assad).
And to the Iraqi Shias, who were indeed crazy, but only with respect to Iraqi Sunnis, which is what opened the door to Sunni/ISIS revolt in the first place.
Iran, with an Iran-dominated wealthy portion of Iraq, would be a regional power of the first order. We essentially made them this by breaking their rival, Saddam’s Iraq. Reason #1 why that was an absurdly stupid idea. At this point we might as well acknowledge the reality and let them defend their own interests, which might actually make them REALLY less crazy.
I left out Lebanon because they’re not in the news, but you’re right there. Also funny your point about what our effect was in Iraq (which I said at the time as well) is hardly ever mentioned today. I saw an interview with some Iraqis and it was like “thanks for getting rid of Sunni Saddam and giving the country back to it’s rightful Shiite owners.” All we ever hear is some federalism pipe dream now. Weed apparently legal if you’re a high ranking State Dept official. Some of Iran’s crazy is trying to be acknowledged for what it is, a populous and powerful country. We have got to get them on board with stopping the nukes though.
Our foreign policy is based on stuff the policy makers are not going to tell us about. The stuff they tell us is its basis is bullshit. Here’s a little tidbit:
So if Qatar didn’t fund ISIS, that leaves our BFFs, the Saudis.
Of course, the House of Saud are really tight with the Bush family (remember W’s on-the-lips kisses of Saudi princes? 2, 3, etc.)
Sadly, our great hope, Obama, is marching steadfastly along the same path as his predecessor. More people are going to die as a result. It’s idiotic to pretend we can impose order or stability on the Mideast with our military. We thoroughly destabilized the whole region with our oil-obsessed foreign policy. We broke it, and we can’t put the pieces back together. We should do the right thing for a change, and let the people who live there sort it out.
…but should not be construed to suggest agreement with the final paragraph.
You left out Bill Keating of MA’s 9th. He voted against the war resolution but then voted for the continuing resolution (C.R.) to which it was amended.
I edited the post to reflect that fact, and that Pelosi didn’t whip.
Someone has to push back against them, preferably other Arabs/Muslims, but I’m not sure they can do it on their own. However, drawing us into direct conflict is exactly what ISIS wants and I’d prefer not to give that to them either.
This idea that it’s All About Us is a big part of the problem with our foreign policy. I seriously doubt that the ISIS leadership actually wants the US to intervene. This conflict is yet another installment of the ongoing Shiite vs. Sunni struggle. We’ve supported both sides of it in the past, and that’s always eventually come back to bite us. We should butt out. The Mideast as it exists is a Western invention, arbitrarily dividing up the remains of the Ottoman Empire after WW1. Don’t you believe in self-determination? ISIS is a faction trying to express that. If the other factions can effectively oppose it, then they get to do the determining. The only national interest we have in the area is oil. If we took the billions of dollars this new adventure is going to cost and invested it in alternative energy, that interest would evaporate like a splash of gasoline on hot concrete.
I am really tired of my country spending blood and money to prop up the oil industry, and I’m really tired of people who think they’re being incisive with their Realpolitik discussions.
We are already exporting oil and increasingly self sufficient. And in those areas that we aren’t we are importing a lot more from our friends like Mexico and Canada. So now the question becomes – we all know that the original reason we gave a damn about the middle east we oil. So now that we don’t need their oil, why do we still care?
USA is increasingly self-sufficient, but Europe is not. Their oil comes from Russia and the ME, and therefore the need ME oil in order to avoid being total hostages to Russia. And if the ME supply is disrupted then everyone’s prices surge because it is a worldwide market.
I am not sure what the point of murdering American and British hostages in a brutal and public manner designed to produce maximum outrage in the US and UK, other than to provoke a response, which seems like a good reason the be a little more careful about responding.
What would probably be best is to cordially invite Iran to defend the Shia side of the Shia Sunni conflict and otherwise stay the hell out of Dodge. I do not understand why we are volunteering to do their work for them.
Honestly, it is beginning to seem like the administration’s approach here is even less thought-out than the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 was, and that is saying something.
I thought sure I heard news reports to the effect that ISIS has basic said to the US, “Come and get us if you dare”, and that is why they are executing our journalists.
There are also humanitarian interests in terms of the genocide against the people they sieged on a mountaintop which should trump direct national interests IMO.
If your answer is no, than we aren’t going to be able to do much. Even our generals have started saying this. Short of a regional diplomatic effort to realign the alliances in the MidEast from a Sunni/Shia split to the stable/unstable split Merrimack guy discussed, we are not going to be able to extract ourselves short of a massive commitment of ground troops. Advisors, airstrikes, all of this smacks of mission creep. Then when the first plane is shot down, the next batch of journalists are beheaded, and the next wave of civilians are ethnically cleansed, the call will be for ground troops.
I have no idea how we simultaneously beat Assad AND beat ISIL without a significant commitment of time,treasure, and more American soldiers on the ground. And the rush to arm rebels when ISIL was a force we openly admit to arming and training in the past, gives me great pause.
We have to give up on the idea that we can remake the middle east in our neoliberal democratic image. We should instead favor stability first, an end to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and put pressure on the Gulf states to make incremental reforms that will let some air in and take away the jihadists recruitment power.
I think the President’s current strategy and methods are just about right. I’m not sure I want stability first; we’ve propped up some pretty nasty folks in the name of stability. Our policy should be to consistently support free and fair elections rather than violence and demonstrate a willingness to live with the results. I DID say this has to have an Arab/Muslim face.
because it is just plain incoherent.
All the fundamental problems remain: (1) There’s still an Iraqi government hostile to Iraqi Sunnis. (2) There’s still a Syrian government hostile to Syrian Sunnis. (3) There are still radicalized Sunnis in both countries. (4) The pitifully weak so-called moderate opposition in Syria is a politically fragmented mess of organizations rife with human rights violations and with ties to Islamist groups of various shades of extreme. There’s nothing in the President’s plan to endow either Iraq or Syria with better governments.
So after intervening in this calamity for a year, what will the result be? At best, ISIS will be demolished but wait a year or two and there’s a new ISIS (see items 1, 2, and 3 above).
There are also humanitarian interests…which should trump direct national interests IMO.
Oy.
This is the very essence of the neoconservative position that advocates for forceful demonstrations of US military power, almost everywhere. Topple Saddam, intervene in Syria, intervene in Libya, intervene in Iran. Yeesh I thought we were done with this horseshit. So we are going to commit our power and prestige to the destruction of this group, will get in bed with Iran and Assad, and will eventually have to have to send in the infantry to back up our big stupid mouths.
And this is President Freaking Obama, not President Cheney. Didn’t we elect him primarily not to do extremely stoopid things like this? Because if the only thing I got by voting for him was a shitty healthcare website and a hike in insurance premiums, then we done got ripped off.
Good grief.
Not sure if you’re reply was to me or Christopher CMD.
But to CMD:
My point is, let’s actually restore realism. Cheney is a neocon, not a realist. To him, and sadly to Hillary, it’s still possible to send in enough troops to destroy ISIL, destroy Assad, and destroy Iran. I am arguing, let’s cut some deals to bring some actual peace to the region. Get the Israeli’s to move on some long term thinking to stop the settlements and make a separate peace with Abbas, one of the best ways they can deflate Hamas rather than invading every three years when the rocket stockpile gets too high.
A peace with Iran that gets them to give up proxy wars via arming Assad,arming Hezbollah, and gives up nukes in exchange for permanent normal relations with Iran with iron clad pledges not to interfere in their internal affairs, and we have significant more stability already.
Shore up the Kurds, shore up the Turks, and maybe revisit a softer version of the Biden plan to split Iraq up so that sectarian fighting stops, and we got ourselves a nice stable region to GTFO of and leave alone.
Let the students and intellectuals see if they can create liberalism in a land that has never known it, they will only do so with their grassroots not with American boots. And certainly not with anymore American blood.
…given that he quoted my comment and jumped off from there. My foreign policy philosophy has always included a heavy dose of Wilsonian idealism, ie to make the world safe for democracy (and human rights).
Do you really think there is ANY military action the US can take that will “make the world safe for democracy (and human rights)”?
Don’t you think we might at least wait until the victims of our officially-sanctioned torture are removed from GITMO (or dead) before we begin another Middle East crusade for “human rights”?
…the World Wars did a fairly decent job pointing us in that direction. Yes, your second paragraph has a point. As I said in another comment we do need to be consistent to be credible. I don’t believe I have called your opinions on this delusional or certainly you personally for holding these opinions. That’s a lot more ad hominem than I’m comfortable with.
It sounds as though you are suggesting that a wholesale war against the Middle East, complete with air, naval, and ground attacks, followed by an extended occupation (and presumably Marshall Plan), is a viable option.
Is that really what you mean?
I was just pointing out that the previous two had laudable goals in both war and peace, though a Marshall Plan might not be the worst idea. It need not and should not be on the same scale and if we can make the world safe for democracy can be done economically or diplomatically so much the better.
I wasn’t asking about the laudable goals. WWI and WWII were called that because the participants literally threw everything they had their opponents.
I see ZERO evidence that any sort of smaller scale military action in the Middle East will do anything more than perpetuate the unsustainable present. Surely the most obvious lesson from our response to 9/11 MUST be that “limited” military responses such as you propose hurt us far more than the other side, and in fact advance the purposes of those we intend to change.
The Marshall Plan was possible ONLY because the Axis powers had been absolutely and convincingly defeated. They had NO ability to fight, NO ability to resist, NO military capability whatsoever, and NO economic capability to rebuild without Allied assistance.
There is no way to successfully repeat a Marshall Plan in the Middle East without first reducing the Middle East to the expanse of rubble and refugees that was Germany in 1945.
Just acknowledge that there is about zero leverage to get Iran to do anything that they aren’t good and ready to do anyway. We made them a regional power– they are going to be nuclear armed and they are going to exert influence in the region.
Anyway, I was directing that at christopher. I would have thought that the Wilsonian idealism would have been a little tarnished after the last 14 years.
I am still waiting for a revisionist history that finally casts Wilson as the villain and Lodge, LaFolette, Debs, and Wheeler as the good guys in the WWI/League of Nations debate. I may have to write it myself since it seems that Berg’s recent tome on Wilson was quite admiring. But that was a war we didn’t need to fight, many of them we have fought since have used similar logic to similarly vain ends.
Realism, particularly defensive realism and institutional realism, is not isolationism. It recognizes the need for strong alliances, for maintaining a balance of power, and for containing threats and isolating them regionally. It also recognizes the limits to the might of American power and the ability to make long term structural changes to foreign societies.
Iran is a theocracy, I feel terrible for the activists inside and outside of Iran who want it to be democratic. But, considering we took away their last democratically elected government and gave them a dictator in return-I don’t see the US as the right actor to bring about that change. Until then, let’s see if we can agree to disagree on the right form of government and agree to agree on staying out of one anothers internal affairs. We won’t destabilize their regime, and they will stop destabilizing the neighborhood via Hezbollah and Assad.
Ever since we put Khotami’s Iran into the Axis of Evil and destroyed their next door neighbor-they have sought to acquire nukes, utilized proxies to fight us and Israel, and have behaved badly as actors in the region creating this Sunni-Shia Cold War that is now becoming hotter and hotter with the Gulf States. Our allies who back ISIL financially and with arms. As Thomas Dewey once said of communism, you can’t shoot an idea with a gun. We can’t defeat Islamism militarily. We can isolate it, contain it, cut off it’s funding and allies amongst our own allies, and help create the structural reform using soft power and diplomacy that will enable an alternative to flourish.
Until then, let’s focus on stability through a realist assessment of our capabilities, our allies, and the limits to our power. Idealism has created the very instability that is bogging us down to a 14th year of armed conflict between our forces and Islamism in the Middle East.
Our memories are a bit too long and I think we foolishly missed an opportunity to grab the other end of the olive branch extended to us by President Khatami several years back.
There is a ton of leverage with Iran. Crippling sanctions have actually worked to hurt their economy, gas is incredibly expensive, and Iran is now isolated from former regional partners like the Turks-not just the United States. It’s greatest threat to stability in the region happens to be our greatest threat as well. Let’s actively work together, as we did after 9/11 against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, to coordinate intelligence and a response to cutting off ISIL finances. Once that mission occurs, there can be mutual trust established. If we back off of our official Congressionally sanctioned policy of toppling Assad and the Ayatollah from power, than maybe they can back off of arming Hezbollah, arming Assad, and acquiring nuclear weapons in exchange for full diplomatic recognition, trade, and a significant easing of sanctions.
This is what diplomacy used to look like, and if a hard core anti-communist like Nixon could shake Mao’s hand and cut a deal, surely Obama or Clinton or Kerry can do the same with the comparatively less threatening Iranian regime.
…do not necessarily make the underlying philosophy bad. For the record I opposed the post 9/11 invasion of Iraq on the grounds that we should have been laser-focused on Afghanistan.
I don’t even pretend to have a modicum of insight as to how this horrific, de-stabilizing and de-humanizing terrorist element can be defeated or even neutralized without the Hydra growing another head when one threat is diminished (al-Qaeda’s containment was perhaps the spawn of ISIS….)
It is a sick and global toxic situation. I don’t see a winning outcome.
However, I would trust McGovern’s vote over Neal and Lynch any day.
Mike is a great Congressman.
Juan Cole points out that large parts of the “moderate” opposition have heavy involvement by the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that that the governments of Saudi Arabia and, even more, Egypt oppose. So that’s going to be rather awkward.
There’s also the problem of the Al-Nusra Front and other Islamist groups who oppose the Islamic State of Syria and the Levant (ISIL) but who are not in any way moderate themselves. There have been occasions where the Islamist groups have come to the rescue of the moderates and so it’s not as if the moderates — to the extent that word applies at all — are some kind of neatly demarcated faction whom one can support in isolation.
Great piece on that from the Times recently: “U.S. Pins Hopes on Syrian Rebels with Loyalties All Over the Map“
Someone should ask Moulton how he would’ve voted. I would be curious to hear his take on it as a vet himself.