Even Tommy Vietor, the National Security Council spokesperson during the Obama administration, admits that Obama failed in Syria and left a "mess" for President Trump.
The "mess" that he refers to is what his former boss, Obama, called one of his proudest moments. Specifically, President Obama was most proud that he chose not to intervene after saying that use of chemical weapons by Syria would be "crossing a red line." Syria later used chemical weapons on his watch, and Obama refused to militarily intervene. In a 2016 interview with The Atlantic, Obama says he was satisfied with the result of his actions because it bucked the "Washington playbook" and he truly thought it was the right decision:
“I’m very proud of this moment. The overwhelming weight of conventional wisdom and the machinery of our national-security apparatus had gone fairly far. The perception was that my credibility was at stake, that America’s credibility was at stake. And so for me to press the pause button at that moment, I knew, would cost me politically. And the fact that I was able to pull back from the immediate pressures and think through in my own mind what was in America’s interest, not only with respect to Syria but also with respect to our democracy, was as tough a decision as I’ve made—and I believe ultimately it was the right decision to make.”
“Where am I controversial? When it comes to the use of military power. That is the source of the controversy. There’s a playbook in Washington that presidents are supposed to follow. It’s a playbook that comes out of the foreign-policy establishment. And the playbook prescribes responses to different events, and these responses tend to be militarized responses. Where America is directly threatened, the playbook works. But the playbook can also be a trap that can lead to bad decisions. In the midst of an international challenge like Syria, you get judged harshly if you don’t follow the playbook, even if there are good reasons why it does not apply.”
But, after that decision, Syria clearly never got rid of all their chemical weapons. As a result, President Trump is now stuck figuring out the "mess" he inherited from Obama. Something that Vietor admitted:
"Republicans and a very dumb columnist are resurfacing this tweet like it’s a gotcha. Shipping out 1300 metric tons of weapons-grade chemicals was a major development. Obviously they didn’t get it all. Chlorine wasn’t covered. Trump was handed a mess but also hasn’t deterred Assad," Vieta said.
No comments:
Post a Comment