Learning from Mistakes...

Amy Davidson at the New Yorker online:

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Humiliation is tied to pride. Parliament’s anger had a great deal to do with process; as John Cassidy has written, it took a small rebellion on the part of the public to remind the Prime Minister that he couldn’t just rush off to war, shouting vague explanations over his shoulder as he went. Cameron’s government had first approached Parliament with the sense that the decision had been made, that they were there just to approve, that there was no need to wait for the inspectors, just for the Prime Minister to get off the phone with Obama; in his speech to the House of Commons before the vote, Cameron said that he’d had to explain to Obama why he had even called them back at all. (He said he’d told the President that it was because of “the damage done to public confidence by Iraq.”)

Worse, Cameron and his government suggested that asking hard questions about evidence, international law, and what exactly a military attack could accomplish—the sort of inquiry missing before Iraq—was a cowardly, morally inferior response to the horrible pictures from Syria, even a complicit one: “A lot of the arguments over this could give succor to the régime,” a spokesman for Cameron said. That didn’t go over well.

After the vote, American Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said that the White House didn’t need Britain: it could act on its own, or maybe with France. But does alone also mean without Congress and the American public? That would be a mistake built on a mistake. (I’ve written so before.) Around the time that British Defense Secretary Philip Hammond—who probably didn’t help matters by accidentally calling Assad “Saddam Hussein” on the BBC —was confirming that his country wouldn’t be part of any military action, the Administration was holding a conference call with key members of Congress. That’s not enough.

Cameron’s failure in Parliament makes getting a vote from Congress more necessary—precisely because it might fail. The British vote removes any plausible claim that the Administration can assume consent—that the proper reaction to the horror in Syria is so obvious, so rooted in “norms” that one needn’t even ask.

The grounds in international law for military action are shaky, though. Neither the Arab League nor the Security Council are giving legal cover. Now there is not even an ersatz consensus of allies. That isn’t to say that lone, noble stands are never right; but it should preclude a half-thought-out military action with little public support that dodges America’s political processes and institutions.

Cameron, speaking to Parliament, said that bombing Syria wouldn’t be about “taking sides,” or régime change,” or “even about working more closely with the opposition”—just “our response to a war crime—nothing else.” Neither he nor Obama has explained how to enforce that “nothing else” clause. What’s the next step, when Assad reacts, and the next after that? Obama, if anything, was more vague in an interview on PBS:

And if, in fact, we can take limited, tailored approaches, not getting drawn into a long conflict, not a repetition of, you know, Iraq, which I know a lot of people are worried about - but if we are saying in a clear and decisive but very limited way, we send a shot across the bow saying, stop doing this, that can have a positive impact on our national security over the long term, and may have a positive impact on our national security over the long term and may have a positive impact in the sense that chemical weapons are not used again on innocent civilians.

“Tailored approaches” seems to be the new “surgical strikes” (the worst euphemisms are those that involve bombs). As for that “shot across the bow”—where is it meant to land?

Obama may take the British vote as proof that he can’t risk putting himself in Cameron’s position. But facing Congress after things don’t go according to plan—if there even is a plan—would be all the more humiliating. Obama can’t win this the way that Cameron lost it: by talking as though he is the only one acting according to principle, and that those who disagree just haven’t seen enough pictures of the effects of chemical weapons.
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