OBAMA GIVES UP ON SYRIA, FOCUSES ON IRAN: A US JOURNALIST

         Washington , 19 Dzulhijjah 1434/24 October 2013 ( MINA ) – An American journalist, Jeffrey Mark Goldberg in his article published in an American media, Newsday, stated that the US President Barrack Obama gave up on Syria conflict and tried to focus on Iran relationship.

        There are only two issues in the Middle East that Obama considers to be profound national security challenges to the United States: The continued existence of al-Qaida, and the threat of a nuclear Iran.

        He has made it clear that he never considered the Syrian civil war, and even the use of chemical weapons by the Bashar Assad regime, to rise to the level of those threats, according to Newsday report quoted by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA).

       So his behavior during the Syria crisis – no matter how ambiguous, hesitant and disorganized it was (all documented in an excellent New York Times article this week) does not necessarily teach us much about what Obama will do if he reaches the conclusion that Iran is uninterested in serious compromise on the nuclear issue.

       ”We’re putting aside, for purposes of this discussion, the morality, or immorality, of this belief, although I suppose it is immoral even to put the discussion of immorality aside,”Obama stated.

       The son of Ellen H. and Daniel Goldberg also said if Barack Obama were today bogged down in Syria in some fashion, it seems extremely unlikely that he would possess the maneuverability, domestically or internationally, to launch strikes in yet another Muslim country.

          The likely outcome of those strikes, in particular strikes launched without congressional approval, would have been, in no particular order: — Syrian civilian casualties; — Images of a triumphant, and empowered, Assad emerging into sunlight after surviving what he would inevitably have cast as a ferocious and criminal attack.

          An even-more vengeful Syrian Army murdering large numbers of civilians, forcing the U.S. to contemplate escalation; — A demoralizing and debilitating attempt by some Congressional Republicans to impeach the president; — A more potent strain of isolationism coursing through an American population that had doubted the need for such strikes in the first place; — Possible terrorism against American targets, or targets belonging to America’s Middle East allies, resulting in new pressure on Obama to ramp up his anti-Assad campaign.

         Whether Syria would have become a quagmire for the U.S. is an interesting question, though I tend to doubt that it – if only because domestic American pressure against escalation would have been profound. The invasion of Iraq has made many Americans allergic to Middle East adventurism. This allergy means that any American president will have a difficult time making the case for a military intervention in Iran.

         Yet by keeping America out of Syria, President Obama may have preserved his ability to intervene in Iran.

         I believe that he does not want Iran to gain possession of a nuclear weapon; whether he can actually prevent this from happening is another story. But he has a greater chance of escaping that fate if he avoids over-extension in other parts of the Middle East.

         This is the view of many current Israeli policymakers, as well, and it is also the view of a large number of Arab officials, many of whom are in the throes of an extended conniption about what they see as Obama’s slow abandonment of his Middle East allies to the cruel fate of Iranian regional domination. It should go without saying that the more hawkish analysts and advocates in Washington foreign policy and defense circles also make this assumption. ( T/P04/E1).

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)