I know I’ve promised several posts which I have not delivered, but I’ve been unbelievably busy lately. As soon as I can get to them, I still think they’re all worthwhile.
In the meantime, I wanted to offer a quick thought on the “Invasion of Syria vs. Invasion of Iraq” comparisons which are going through the news cycle right now. Pseudo-liberal commentators are bending over backwards to prove that President Obama’s invasion of Syria would be completely different from President Bush’s 2002 invasion of Iraq. Conservative commentators are going out of their way to show how ridiculous that is. In my opinion, the pseudo-liberals are correct, it is very different. For example:
1) While the Syrian government may have used chemical weapons (the intelligence is not nearly as conclusive as the intelligence we had on Iraq), they have not invaded a foreign nation, as Iraq did in 1991.
2) We do not have a current military operation against Syria, as we did against Iraq in 2002 (we had been flying daily sorties for ten years to prevent Hussein’s use of unaccounted-for chemical weapons against civilian populations).
3) There is not currently a U.N. call for force against Syria, as there was against Iraq (UN Security Resolution 1441).
4) President Obama does not have an AUMF from Congress, as President Bush did against Iraq (this is really the most important one).
5) There is no coalition of forces to act against Syria–this is solely at the feet of President Obama (President Bush garnered a coalition of 40 nations which sent forces to Iraq).
6) There is no intelligence on a threat from Syria to the United States (the intelligence on a threat from Iraq was virtually conclusive), nor does Syria have any resource of interest to the United States.
7) The rebels we would be aiding are actually al’ Qaeda, the terrorist organization which carried out the 9/11 attacks and which is dedicated to the destruction of the United States.
Carry on.
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