by Ray McGovern, Lew Rockwell:
On the neocon list of ways to make the world safer for Israel, Iran originally occupied pride of place. “Real men go to Tehran!” was the muscular brag. But Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was persuaded to acquiesce in a less ambitious plan — to “do Iraq” and remove the “evil dictator” in Baghdad first.
As the invaders/occupiers got bogged down in Iraq, it seemed more sensible to “do Syria” next. With the help of “friendly services,” the neocons mounted a false-flag chemical attack outside Damascus in late August 2013, blaming it on President Bashar al-Assad, whom U.S. President Barack Obama had earlier said, “had to go.”
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Obama had called such a chemical attack a red line but, mirabile dictu, chose to honor the U.S. Constitution by asking Congress first. Worse still for the neocons, during the first days of September, Russian President Vladimir Putin pulled Obama’s chestnuts out of the fire by persuading Syria to destroy its chemical weapons under U.N. supervision.
Obama later admitted that virtually all of his advisers had wanted him to order Tomahawk cruise missiles into Syria.
Morose at CNN
I was lucky enough to observe, up-close and personal, the angry reaction of some of Israel’s top American supporters on Sept. 9, 2013, when the Russian-brokered deal for Syria to destroy its chemical weapons was announced.
After doing an interview in Washington on CNN International, I opened the studio door and almost knocked over a small fellow named Paul Wolfowitz, President George W. Bush’s former under-secretary of defense who in 2002-2003 had helped craft the fraudulent case for invading Iraq.
And there standing next to him was former Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut neocon who was a leading advocate for the Iraq War and pretty much every other potential war in the Middle East.
On the tube earlier, Anderson Cooper sought counsel from Ari Fleischer, former spokesman for Bush, and David Gergen, long-time White House PR guru.
Fleischer and Gergen were alternately downright furious over the Russian initiative to give peace a chance and disconsolate at seeing the prospect for U.S. military involvement in Syria disappear when we were oh so close.
The atmosphere on TV and in the large room was funereal. I had happened on a wake with somberly dressed folks (no loud pastel ties this time) grieving for a recently, dearly-departed war.
In his own interview, Lieberman expressed hope-against-hope that Obama would still commit troops to war without congressional authorization. I thought to myself, wow, here’s a fellow who was a senator for 24 years and almost our vice president, and he does not remember that the Founders gave Congress the sole power to declare war in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution.
The evening of Sept. 9 was a bad one for more war and for pundits who like to joke about “giving war a chance.”
Menendez: ‘I Almost Vomited’
The neocons would face another humiliation three days later when The New York Times published an op-ed by Putin, who wrote of growing trust between Russia and the U.S. and between Obama and himself, while warning against the notion that some countries are “exceptional.”
Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), then chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and an Israeli favorite, spoke for many Washington insiders when he said: “I was at dinner, and I almost wanted to vomit.”
Menendez had just cobbled together and forced through his committee a resolution, 10-to-7, to authorize the president to strike Syria with enough force to degrade Assad’s military. Now, at Obama’s request, the resolution was being shelved.
Cui Bono?
That the various groups trying to overthrow al-Assad had ample incentive to get the U.S. more deeply involved in support of that effort was clear. It was also quite clear that the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had equally powerful incentive to get Washington more deeply engaged in yet another war in the area — then, and now.
NYT reporter Judi Rudoren, writing from Jerusalem had the lead article on Sept. 6, 2013, addressing Israeli motivation in an uncommonly candid way. Her article, “Israel Backs Limited Strike Against Syria,” notes that the Israelis have argued, quietly, that the best outcome for Syria’s at the time two-and-a-half-year-old civil war, at least for the moment, was no outcome.
