'George W. Obama' and Syria's Use of Chemical Weapons

It’s like being struck by a feeling of déjà vu while watching a horror movie, one of those movies that upset you so much that you don’t ever want to watch it again. The turning point arrived after more than two years of civil war in Syria: after it seemed that the insurgents had left after having been defeated, while now the regime is on the offensive and is recapturing fallen cities; after diplomatic indecision between possible attempts at state intervention and fear of jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire, given that there are terrorist groups who have infiltrated the rebels. From the White House’s point of view, Assad has crossed the red line often conjured by Barack Obama: He used chemical weapons. The attacks were described as “… on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year,” according to Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser. Sarin gas has killed between 100 and 150 people, in a conflict that has claimed the lives of at least 93,000 victims. The American and European intelligence agencies are in agreement over these figures, according to The New York Times. Does this mean that a war will be fought against Syria’s regime and Assad will be captured, as Gadhafi was in Libya?

In reality, America’s two-facedness continues, hanging by a thread due to Russia’s reluctance to intervene in Syria. Obama announced, without going into specifics, “military support” for the insurgents, but has not decided whether he will institute a no-fly zone on the Syrian border, an area that would be safeguarded for refugees. In order to implement this without any risk, a series of hostile measures would have to be first carried out against Syria’s anti-aircraft defense. What comes to mind is Colin Powell’s speech at the U.N. convention on March 7, 2003: He had to provide evidence, to be presented on live TV to the Security Council and the entire world, that Iraq was in possession of weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq posed a threat to the planet. On that day, Powell buried any political credibility he had forever: He convinced only those that wanted to be convinced, while French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin’s question, “Why should we today engage in a war with Iraq?” was met with unanimous applause.

Less than three weeks later, during the night of March 19 to March 20, a hellish fireball was unleashed upon Baghdad. This will not happen to Damascus, even though Obama’s behavior over the past few days was worthy of Huffington Post’s malicious oxymoron “George W. Obama”: Obama is no longer closing Guantanamo Bay’s detention center and he has allowed the violation of human rights in the war of terror; he has approved telephone tapping and Internet spying, affirming that safety guarantees mean giving up a slice of privacy and, now, involvement in Syria. So really, why now? Is it because Assad used chemical weapons? Or is it because Obama has to shake off his trail of inaction? Bill Clinton called Obama’s unshakable lethargy “a folly.” Congress is worried. Certain world powers have taken similar stances to those taken in 2003: Germany has requested an urgent U.N. Security Council meeting; France has stated “not without the U.N.’s support”; Great Britain remains America’s ally; Russia is against interfering. When will the moment of truth be? Maybe it will be on Monday at the G-8 in Ulster, when Putin and Obama will discuss the situation together.