No more red lines

Whatever Obama does on Syria, he should make sure that he doesn’t say anything that he’s not prepared to act on. “As president of the United States, I don’t bluff,” he famously said with regard to U.S. policy toward Tehran. It’s just as good advice when it comes to America’s approach to Damascus.

U.S. street cred is already at all time low in the Middle East. We don’t need what remains of U.S. credibility to be lost in the gap between the president’s words and his deeds.

This has obvious implications for that other famous red line on Iran. First, there’s a huge problem with defining where that line lies: Israel says Iran must be denied a nuclear capacity, and has put percentages on the danger zone for enrichment (see Bibi’s cartoon bomb); Obama says Iran must be denied a nuclear weapon. That gap is already enormous enough even before we consider the issue of how to enforce any red lines, which have a way of turning pink when states reach the moment of truth. The broader point is: Who’s going to take any U.S. red line on Iran seriously if the president isn’t prepared to enforce his red line on Syria?