Oped by Anne-Marie Slaughter on Obama's ISIS strategy - is this the neo liberal position?

[karynnj]

Basically, after some rather weak praise, her view is that Obama's efforts will fail because we are NOT simultaneously attacking Assad and not pushing Iran harder on the nuclear issue. Though she positions this as countering a fear that Muslims could "that the world hears Obama saying is that the U.S. will use force to avenge the deaths of two American journalists, but will stand by while 200,000 Syrians are slaughtered, this is really just another attempt to make the case for fighting Assad.

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Commentary/2014/Sep-27/272160-one-omission-may-yet-defeat-obamas-plan-to-defeat-isis.ashx#ixzz3EWt4BVEH

Slaughter was an Undersecretary of State under Clinton who - as she says in her oped has been strongly against Obama's Syrian policy for two and a half years. (Note that she left the State Department in February 2011 - after two years about three and a half years ago - which Wikipedia says was because Princeton, where she returned only allows 2 year breaks. Two and a half years is almost precisely the amount of time that has passed since Hillary left the State Department and Kerry started. )

Other than being better spoken and less emotional, her position now seems to be not that different than McCain's - where his questioning of Kerry in the SFRC was posted all over DU. Wikipedia noted that she was still a consultant to the State Department. As she has been a critic for 2 and 1/2 years, I would guess that her consulting may have ended when HRC left.

[leftstreet]

1. Pretty much

They want to believe that governments can and should be 'in control' of conflict, for the 'humanitarian' implementation of Teh Mighty Unicorn Capitalism. They refuse to accept that conflict arises from the class tensions caused by capitalism

Thanks for posting

[TwilightGardener]

2. There is a huge faction of neocons/neoliberals who were absolutely convinced

that funneling large amounts of weapons to basically unvetted, untrained "moderates" was going to work in the early days. I read over and over again, well, if Obama had simply listened to Hillary, the Syrian civil war would be over, Syria would be free, and ISIS would never have happened. It's a complete joke. We had no idea who was who, and the weaker forces would have just lost out to the more crazily aggressive terrorist/AQ/ISIS forces sooner, or would have aligned with them sooner. Even now, there's shifting allegiances and unreliable actors within the "moderates", and we've been trying to get a handle on them during at least a year or two of CIA vetting and arming (in Jordan). The State Dept., the Pentagon, and all the think tanks are full of holdovers from both Bush days and Clinton days. These are the people who consistently get everything wrong, and yet are supposedly still credible, and are the loudest voices. It's frustrating.

[TwilightGardener]

3. By the way, I think we were funneling arms from Libya to Syrian rebels, it just hasn't

been admitted publicly yet. There's a reason Hillary is such good "buds" with Petraeus, and of course she had her lackey Panetta helping her, both in the CIA and the Pentagon.

[karynnj]

5. The really tricky thing to think of here is - whether it was with Obama's ok or not

The timing was when he was distracted by running for re-election. His public comments always showed far more caution on this than did his first term national security team. In fact, one observation I had was that while Congress repeatedly approved help, when you looked at what really reached the rebels, there were no heavy weapons.

The other thing that was always disconcerting is that much of the media has often reported things giving more weight to the US being more aggressive than to the cautious voices suggesting hat was not where we were. (One glaring example is that Josh Rogin reported in fall 2013 that Kerry had agreed with Graham and McCain on the need to arm the rebels. Within the article, Chris Murphy who was also there denied it as did Jen Psaki, who was there, and who said it was the Republicans assuming he said what they did -- when he didn't. What is strange is that not only was the headline, but that Rogin has used that article (as a hyper link) to state what the State Department denied.

I suspect the story may not be true - and its sourcing is RW , the scariest thing is if the Secretaries of Defense and State colluded with the CIA to do something NOT approved by the President. This would put Obama in a very tricky position. He has always been in a tricky position with the Clintons - and if anything that is more true now than ever. At this point, he still needs them for 2014 -- then, he could well be obligated because she is the nominee not to say anything that could harm her. The really tricky situation is if others have proof that it happened. (If Obama had Bill Clinton's persona, I would not think the situation as tricky as he would protect himself (especially if true). It does though have the same double edged sword that Reagan had on Iran/Contra without the Alzheimers. It is very bad for other reasons if he did not know.

It is my firm hope - for Obama, Clinton and the Democratic party - that it is simply RW CT.

[TwilightGardener]

7. It's my suspicion that Petraeus was conducting this operation, that Hillary and

Panetta knew about it, and that Benghazi was related--and that the security situation in Benghazi was compromised because Stevens was doing CIA-directed stuff, the CIA was more in charge of his safety at that time, and we didn't get him out of Libya or make him stay in the better-secured embassy in Tripoli (while other countries were evacuating their people) because of it. Wasn't he meeting with people from Turkey that day, according to the long NYT account? I believe when Obama found out about all this, Petraeus had to go--affair or no affair (but the affair was a nice excuse). Hillary was already leaving, and Panetta with her (because really, Panetta was her guy--why would he stay in the administration when she was gone?)--Obama wasn't going to publicly berate them. I don't believe he knew about any of it. I don't think he had that much control over the Pentagon, the CIA, and the State Dept. But he could never admit that, for obvious reasons. This is all just a hunch on my part, we'll see if it ever proves to be true.

[cali]

4. she may get her wish. the administration is considering a no-fly zone

and that would entail airstrikes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/27/world/middleeast/us-considers-a-no-fly-zone-to-protect-civilians-from-airstrikes-by-syria-.html

[karynnj]

6. Given that the rebels are fleeing ISIS, the question might be whether

there is a way to diplomatically get them a buffer zone at the border without destroying the Syrian air defenses in areas controlled by Syria. (I believe we are destroying such things in ISIS controlled areas.)

Read between the lines in this oped - http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/world/middleeast/clashing-goals-in-syria-strikes-put-us-in-fix.html?action=click&contentCollection=Middle%20East&module=RelatedCoverage&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article

The article is clearly coming from the same mind set as the one in the op, but note that - unlike DU, they argue that Obama has NOT really engaged on the side of the rebels. It is also weird, when Obama has always been against Al Nusra, that they seem surprised they were struck as well as ISIS. Could it be the neo liberals (including most of the NYT) are again assigning their priorities to Obama? Could it be that degrading AL Nusra, ISIS and other terrorists, that would leave the Assad people and the "moderates" and the two MIGHT be able to form a unity government (without Assad possibly) where neither side wins or loses?

[ladjf]

8. Here's my stop ISIS strategy.

As far as I can tell, ISIS moves about the Country in pickup trucks. If that's true, where are they parking them at night when they aren't in use. Locate the parking lots, go by air and blow up every single truck. How are they going to wage their war without them?

They are a marauding horde riding pickup trucks instead of horses or camels. Wipe out their transportation and they all become pedestrians.