On Syria, Obama’s record is disturbing in many ways. He indicated that he would attack the regime as punishment for crossing the “red line” he drew on the use of chemical weapons, but he flinched when the moment came to launch a strike. He has at times seemed disorganized and hesitant, and his critics — including me — saw him as vacillating.
Yet Assad, and his Russian sponsor, Vladimir Putin, both weighed the situation and came to the conclusion that the U.S. meant what it said. It is for this reason — and this reason alone — that Putin and Assad have agreed in principle to arrange for the removal of chemical weapons. Without Obama’s threat, the Assad regime would still be free to gas its people.
I don’t like the administration’s Syria policy — I wish it would work harder to remove the men who use chemical weapons, not just the weapons themselves, and I have almost no hope that the Putin-led plan will work — but Obama has managed, by threatening force, to buttress the international taboo on the use of poison gas. Again, this is a provisional and morally ambiguous victory, and it could easily come undone. But it was only Obama who forced what looks like modest progress on one core issue of the conflict.
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