PREFACE: This post is a sequel to
Thoughts on the Syria Dilemma, where I responded to Byron Wong of bigWOWO's question, "I was just dropping in to check if you had an opinion on Syria." In the discussion that ensued at Byron's
blog post, I expounded that President Bush's conscientious approach as Commander in Chief after 9/11 reinforced the Constitutional rule of law for war by reintegrating the legislative-executive process that President Clinton often skirted as Commander in Chief. However, the Democrats' false narrative of the Iraq intervention and President Obama's sloppy regressive approach as Commander in Chief have degraded the Constitutional rule of law for war that had been upgraded by President Bush.
Selected from the discussion thread at bigWOWO:
Byron: “I don’t know if “rule of law” really applies to war in general.”
It does apply to US military action, but not in the way that a lot of people have been led to believe by the false narrative that was promulgated against the Iraq mission and President Bush.
I was surprised by Kaufman’s analysis, too. I had assumed there was a stronger statutory and policy basis in place for President Obama’s proposed action. It is normal for the US to act to enforce an “international norm”, but it’s also normal for the US to develop a legal-rational foundation for that action. Obama simply neglected to build the legal-rational foundation to act on Syria. I’ll talk more about that below.
Your presumption is correct that the US President is not restrained on a short leash as Commander in Chief. It’s a short list, of course, but President Clinton is the exemplar of a post-Cold War US President who deployed the US military in a piecemeal, ad hoc, creatively (Russians say il-) legal manner. Clinton was my CinC and I can expound on why his deployments were unpopular within the military, but suffice to say that the changing character of world affairs since the Cold War compelled Presidential deployment of the US military to become more fluid.
Before 9/11, Bush intended to rein in the mission creep he inherited from Clinton. Reducing the global US military footprint was corporate-trained, famously clinical Secretary Rumsfeld’s primary project. But 9/11 upended Bush’s initial agenda and altered his worldview. Most notably, 9/11 replaced Bush’s pre-9/11 IR realist assessment that the Iraq problem was ‘contained’ with Clinton’s liberal assessment that the situation with Saddam was a “clear and present danger to the stability of the Persian Gulf and the safety of people everywhere.”
Bush’s clearest repudiation of his pre-9/11 IR realist worldview also affirmed his post-9/11 liberal worldview: “For decades, free nations tolerated oppression in the Middle East for the sake of stability. In practice, this approach brought little stability, and much oppression. So I have changed this policy.”
Which brings me to the point of the Kaufman citation.
Although Bush came around to Clinton’s liberal worldview after 9/11 and built upon what Clinton did right, such as Clinton’s Iraq and counter-terror policies, Bush also tried to redress Clinton’s two most criticized faults as Commander-in-Chief. One Clinton fault was deploying the military for justifiable reasons, at least from a liberal point of view, but with politically based limits that curtailed their real effectiveness. In contrast, after 9/11, Bush attempted to rationally match means to achieve the ends of American liberal foreign policy.
More relevant to this discussion, the other Clinton fault was Clinton’s legal creativity in stretching the Presidential authority to deploy the US military. Clinton’s ad hoc approach to foreign affairs can be justified by the seismic shift in the world that was happening rapidly on his watch; Clinton was reacting, and he ultimately proved unable or incapable of moving American leadership ahead of evolving world affairs. The hope of the ‘Washington Consensus’ that excited liberals around the world at the end of the Cold War was largely eroded during the Clinton presidency. The global questioning of the US ‘hyperpower’ didn’t start with Bush after 9/11; it started with Clinton.
In contrast, Bush, perhaps due to his business and governing background, was conscientious about the process of the chief executive working with the ‘Board’, whether that be a corporate board or government legislature. What struck me most about Bush after 9/11 was that he sought Congressional and UN certifications even when he could have – and I argue should have – simply relied on Clinton’s precedents. Moreover, with the Iraq intervention, the new certifications sought by Bush did not substantially change the policy, US statutes, and UNSC resolutions on Iraq that were already operative via Clinton.
Was Bush simply a more ethically conscientious President than Clinton? Yes, but I think the answer is also pragmatic.
Clinton treated the legislative-executive process as a necessary hindrance to his authority as Commander-in-Chief. He was right; it is, by checks-and-balances design. In contrast, Bush moved to reaffirm the legislative-executive process in his authority as Commander-in-Chief. After 9/11, Bush understood that the global confrontation that was heralded on 9/11 started long before 9/11 and would last long past 9/11. He understood that Clinton’s ad hoc method of deploying the US military, while it worked in the near term, was a politically unhealthy way for the government of a liberal democratic nation to conduct a long, full-spectrum struggle. So, although Bush could have – and I argue should have – relied on Clinton’s precedents, Bush tried to reboot the system after Clinton’s ad hoc approach by reintegrating the legislative-executive process in Bush’s authority as Commander-in-Chief.
It’s sad and unfortunate that rather than work with Bush to prepare the US government for a long-term leadership challenge, the Democrats decided to prioritize their immediate parochial partisan interests, instead.
To clarify, the UN has zero sovereign authority over any US military deployment. Every US military deployment can only be authorized under US sovereign authority. As any libertarian can explain, no international norm nor even agreement contains the higher authority either to compel the US to deploy our military or to stand down our military. Whatever enforcement power exists in international law is based on the participation of sovereign national authorities, most notably to this point, the US.
However, the US has been the hegemon of a particularly styled group of independent nations – the ‘free world’ – and that carries with it leadership responsibilities, if not compulsive duties. While international law has no power over the US in and of itself, the soft, fuzzy, and gray area of international law provides us an organizing framework for international relations with the attendant leverages.
Wrapping up this comment regarding Kaufman’s analysis and Obama’s proposed action, the key is that a US military action must be based on a legal-rational foundation with US sovereign authority in order to be legal. While the original Constitutional concept of a Congressional ‘declaration of war’ became impractical sometime in the 19th century as the US evolved as a permanent global presence, Congress has adapted by providing certifications that generally empower, within limits, the US President to take military action without impractical legislative micromanagement, adjusted by various War Powers Acts. Since WW2, beginning with President Truman in Korea, US Presidents have at times deployed the US military ahead of Congressional certification as a practical matter and then returned to Congress as soon as practical for the normal legislative-executive certification process. But those deployments always took place with existing legal-rational chained links to US sovereign authority, such as Congressionally certified SEATO treaty, NATO treaty, UN covenant. Even Clinton’s Balkans deployment that set a very controversial precedent by bypassing Congress and the UNSC was legally, if creatively, tethered to Congressional prior approval by the NATO treaty.
As with other of Bush’s hard-won gains as Commander-in-Chief, Obama has undone Bush’s reintegration of the legislative-executive process and, instead, returned to Clinton’s ad hoc approach.
The practical advantage of Clinton’s ad hoc approach is more flexibility to act free of legislative interference. The practical disadvantage of Clinton’s ad hoc approach is less ability to order an effective action should the needs of the mission exceed the resources available to the vested authority of the US President. Indeed, Clinton acted freely but often ineffectively as Commander-in-Chief, whereas Congress often interfered with Bush’s foreign affairs to detrimental effect, but also provided the resources when the needs of the mission exceeded the resources available to the US President. Obama has followed Clinton’s lead by acting more freely but also more ineffectively compared to Bush.
Clinton operated on the outer limit of Presidential authority and we became accustomed to it. However, Kaufman’s analysis shows that when Obama failed to acquire the partnership of NATO, UN, or another chained link to prior Congressional approval, Obama’s initial impulse to order an attack on Syria failed to meet the minimum threshold of US sovereign authority.
The head-shaking aspect of Obama’s political mess on Syria is it was an easily avoidable mistake. Obama has talked about the Syria problem for long enough. At the same time he was talking about it, he simply needed to lay a normal legal-rational foundation to act. He neglected to do so. Separate from the wisdom of a US military action that knowingly assists al Qaeda, Obama’s belated decision to go to Congress for certification should provide the missing legal-rational link.
I won’t ever say my fellow Columbia alumnus is stupid. The President is not stupid. He’s just not as conscientious in his duties as Bush. But Obama did make an obvious, stupid, unnecessary, humiliating mistake on the world’s center stage that has real consequences. Congress now is compelled to help Obama try to clean up the mess he made for us. I believe Obama’s reliance on charismatic authority (I recommend you view the link I provided) caused him to blur in his mind even Clinton’s creative stretching of Presidential military authority.
The false narrative of the Iraq mission and slander of President Bush has metastasized from a sociopathic partisan grab at domestic political power into principles that are actually guiding – and harming – our foreign affairs. In order to restore rational decision-making to our liberal American foreign policy, the first necessary step for conscientious liberals is a mea culpa in which we admit openly that Bush was right. Without that baseline admission and cognitive reset by liberals, we’ll keep going the wrong way and not understand why. ...
Add: I don’t believe Senator McCain realizes that President Obama neglected to lay a basic legal-rational foundation for US military action on Syria. Other than Jean Kaufman, it doesn’t seem like anyone else has caught the oversight, either. It’ll be made a moot point if and when Congress certifies. But if Congress doesn’t certify, Obama fails to acquire any other chained link to prior Congressional approval, and the President attacks Syria only on the isolated basis of his own authority, it will be an unConstitutional action. Perhaps no legal action will ever be brought against Obama for it, but I guess some anti-American lawfare activist somewhere would catch it. ...
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Byron,
I am serious about the comparison.
To repeat, the point I’m making is that Clinton set a practical precedent for Commander-in-Chief that reduced the legislative-executive process in the Presidential military authority.
In addition, because Clinton had already laid an operative legal-rational foundation with his counter-terror and Iraq policy, it was not actually necessary for Bush to engage the legislative-executive process – at all – to respond to 9/11 or on Iraq. For updates to Clinton’s legal-rational foundation, Bush simply could have used the executive administrative process.
In other words, before Bush went to Congress, military action was already certified by US sovereign authority. Bush and Clinton were authorized to put boots on the ground in Afghanistan years before 9/11. Clinton established the preemption doctrine that Bush was later attacked on. In fact, Clinton had bombed Afghanistan, which means, as was the case for Iraq, Clinton had already laid the foundation and set the stage for ground invasion.
In the wake of 9/11 with great pressure to respond quickly and decisively, it would have been justified, easier, and even sensible for a military operation, for Bush to adopt Clinton’s ad hoc approach as Commander-in-Chief. Unlike Obama’s proposed attack on Syria, the foundation was already properly laid to attack Afghanistan.
Would anyone have seriously protested if Bush had used Clinton’s established, quicker ad hoc approach to respond to 9/11? If so, they would have had no legal leg to stand on. And, as you point out, there was no political need to go to Congress. Congress would have backed Bush and opened the purse to attack al Qaeda and their Taliban hosts, regardless.
Yet Bush didn’t take the quicker, easier, and – I argue – more sensible ad hoc approach that Clinton had set up. Instead, Bush scrupulously reintegrated the legislative-executive process in his authority as Commander-in-Chief. It wasn’t necessary. It was a reset of Presidential approach.
One could say Bush’s sense of ethics as President was naïve, and one would have been proven right in so saying, but Bush also understood that ad hoc efficiency in the short run breaks down in the long run as a governing approach in a legal-rational system . . . as Obama is finding out with his Syria mess.
My point is that Obama had a choice of legislative-executive approaches as Commander-in-Chief: the pre-9/11 ad hoc approach that Bush inherited from Clinton and the post-9/11 reintegrated approach that Obama inherited from Bush. Obama opted for Clinton’s easier ad hoc approach despite that 9/11 had rendered the Clinton doctrine (as distinct from his policies) obsolete.
This isn’t a novel concept for political scientists, by the way. Again, I recommend you view the link I provided on Weber’s charismatic authority type, which describes Obama.
The legality of Obama’s proposed action on Syria is more than a serious question, it’s a consequential question. The mistake you’re making, Byron, is conflating the general prohibition on NBC use with the legal-rational procedure to act to enforce it. A law without an actionable law enforcement procedure is just an opinion. You’re a parent and an executive with management responsibility, both professionally and with activist organizations, right? If so, then you understand the concept. Normally, the two go hand in hand; Obama’s failure to lay a proper legal-rational foundation is abnormal. The point of Kaufman’s analysis doesn’t show that NBC use is not prohibited, but rather that Obama made the incredible error of moving on the world’s center stage to act *with military action* to enforce the prohibition while lacking a sufficient legal-rational foundation to act.
Obama didn’t just let other nations off the hook on Syria; he neglected to nail up the enforcement hook to begin with, which has made it easy for the international community to decline the President’s invitation to help attack Syria. In contrast, the enforcement hook on Saddam had been nailed up by Bush Senior and upgraded by Clinton continually since 1990-1991.
Especially with the practical considerations that Assad has an effective web of sponsors, Obama is proposing a course with Syria that knowingly and obviously strengthens the position of Islamic terrorists – as though Obama’s post-9/11 historical conclusion is that our limited aid in the 1980s to the Mujahedeen fighting the Soviets didn’t go nearly far enough –[,] and Obama lacks a Bush-level preparation to mitigate the potential consequences, he needed to have his legal-rational Ps and Qs in impeccable order from the beginning.
He didn’t. Now Obama is sloppily backtracking, trying to fill in the legal-rational gap after already making a mess of it on the world stage, and begging Congress to clean it up for him.
I agree with you that the world retreating from Obama’s red line on Syrian NBC use is a failure of principle. But it’s also a failure of American leadership. The independent, self-interested nations of the ‘free world’ have always relied on America, specifically the US President, leading strong from the front for their solidarity. From the start, the international community as an effective enforcement entity has always been an illusion kept alive by American leadership, from the moment that Truman sent Task Force Smith into Korea on a suicide mission to validate the UN.
The anti-Bush notion that America could, instead, follow the international community or ‘lead from behind’ was always a lie but it was a tolerable lie as long as it was limited to domestic partisan politics. But Obama’s actual incorporation of the lie as a guiding principle in our foreign affairs has caused an anomic breakdown of the international community.
Byron, consider the Presidency as a hereditary course rather than unrelated episodes. Yes, Bush did face different conditions with the 9/11 attacks than Obama is facing with his Syria mess. That’s ordinary – Eisenhower faced different conditions than Truman. Yet Eisenhower didn’t need to refight WW2 or the Korean War because he built on the gains of his predecessors and adapted the Presidential course he inherited from Truman at the dawn of the Cold War.
Bush conscientiously laid a foundation for effective American leadership after 9/11. If Obama and the Democrats had properly supported Bush in solidarity, today’s breakdown of American leadership would have been prevented. But if the Democrats had supported Bush, they risked not winning the White House and Congressional seats, which they needed to advance their domestic agenda. That was the trade-off.
President Obama is dealing with the consequences of the Democrats poisoning the well of American government against his predecessor. Even so, when Obama assumed office, he held the power to clean the well of American government that he had helped poison. If President Obama had simply claimed solidarity with President Bush at the start of his Presidency, adapted Bush’s course, and built on Bush’s gains – especially since Obama retained Bush’s liberal foreign policy goals – American leadership would be healthy now. ...
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Regarding your point on the economy, I’m a poli sci guy, not a finance guy nor an economist, and the issue is tangential to the Syria intervention discussion. But it seems to me as a layman that the cause of the stunning and sudden economic collapse – ie, the cascade effect of risky loans insured by federal law then bundled as financial products that exponentially multiplied the effect of an otherwise ordinary real-estate downturn – didn’t originate with the Bush administration and had inputs from both sides. My understanding is that during the Clinton administration the Democrats warped the mortgage market by encouraging and insuring loans to high-risk borrowers while the Republicans advocated for looser market controls, although there was bipartisan cooperation on both factors. The financial market adapted to the high-risk loans and the course of the economic collapse was thus set. In the short term, the freer financial flows artificially boosted the economy during the Clinton administration. But, in the long term, we paid the price for the fundamental flaws in the financial model that had facilitated impressive short-term growth in the Clinton years, and the problem became manifest as the shock at the tail end of the Bush administration. If I recall correctly, Bush responded with stimulus packages that presaged Obama’s stimulus packages. The Clinton through pre-collapse Bush economy was raised on a bubble and should not be viewed as a success model. The larger, more complicated challenge we face is correcting the fundaments of our economy, whether by centralized organization or a Smithian market correction that is swept clean of warping effects like government-insured high-risk loans. But I’m just a poli sci guy, so what do I know. You’re finance, right? Did I get the basics right, at least?
I repeat the point that Obama should have adapted Bush’s course and built on Bush’s gains as Commander-in-Chief just as Eisenhower did with Truman. Recall that Truman left office as one of the most unpopular Presidents in American history and Ike actually campaigned on the platform he would end the Korean War. Yet Ike didn’t pull out of Korea nor Asia nor Europe at a point where our Cold War foreign policy was only taking shape but had not yet been set in stone, very similar to the 9/11-era conditions inherited by Obama. The difference is Ike had a serious long view of the liberal American role in the dawning Cold War just as Bush had a serious long view of the liberal American role after 9/11. Unlike Bush, it doesn’t appear that Obama is serious about long-term liberal American leadership in the world.
Clinton
explains the greater American leadership context for taking military action against Saddam:
In the century we’re leaving, America has often made the difference between chaos and community; fear and hope. Now, in a new century, we’ll have a remarkable opportunity to shape a future more peaceful than the past — but only if we stand strong against the enemies of peace.
As you know, the only alternatives to decisively confronting Saddam was an indefinite ad hoc crumbling, provocative, and harmful status quo that had no solution in its concept, or freeing a noncompliant Saddam. You know that the US and UN had no burden of proof on Iraq’s WMD and the entire burden of proof was on Saddam. You know Saddam was both established and presumed guilty on WMD as the basis for the Gulf War ceasefire and UNSC resolutions enforced by Bush Senior, Clinton, and Bush. You know that, by procedure, our intelligence on Iraq’s WMD could not trigger military enforcement and only Saddam’s failure to comply with the weapons, humanitarian, and the other operative UNSC resolutions could trigger military enforcement. You know the same standard for compliance triggered Clinton’s Op Desert Fox and Bush’s Op Iraqi Freedom. You also know the false notion that Saddam was innocent on WMD (which he wasn’t) ran counter to the foundational premises, the course, and history of the Iraq mission that Bush inherited from Clinton.
You know all of this. Why do you insist on pretending you don’t?
Put yourself in Bush’s shoes and make your choice:
If you believed Saddam had rehabilitated his regime in secret, on his own, and was actually innocent (which he wasn’t), then you advocated for freeing a noncompliant Saddam from the ‘containment’ *despite* that he had again failed a “last chance” opportunity granted by a US President to meet his burden of proof on WMD, and setting aside the weapons resolutions, Saddam had made no move to resolve the UN’s operative humanitarian and terrorism prohibitions on Iraq. Correct?
Or, you advocated, instead, for indefinitely maintaining the ad hoc crumbling, provocative, and harmful status quo with Iraq with no solution *despite* your belief that Saddam was innocent on WMD. Is that correct?
Byron, it’s not your fault the Democrats duped you with a false narrative that caused your misunderstanding of the Iraq mission. You’re not the only American who the Democrats bamboozled. But your misunderstanding doesn’t change the Iraq problem that Bush inherited as President, the price and danger of the status quo with Iraq, nor the procedure to solve the Iraq problem that Clinton had developed and passed on to Bush.
As far as the relationship between the Iraq problem and 9/11, it’s not a main part of my explanation of the Iraq mission since the Iraq problem was fully mature before 9/11. But Clinton did explain the relationship best. ...
The link between 9/11 and Iraq is not a major part of my take on the issue because the Iraq problem, including Saddam’s guilt on terrorism, and procedures to resolve the problem were mature by the close of the Clinton administration, before 9/11. President Bush’s implementation of the preemptive doctrine in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks was an extension of President Clinton’s preemptive doctrine in response to the escalating Islamic terrorist campaign that culminated in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The Bush administration did not claim Saddam was behind the 9/11 attacks. However, the 9/11 attacks did significantly boost the urgency and political will to resolve the Iraq problem expeditiously. President Clinton
explained the link between 9/11 and Iraq:
Noting that Bush had to be "reeling" in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001, Clinton said Bush's first priority was to keep al Qaeda and other terrorist networks from obtaining "chemical and biological weapons or small amounts of fissile material."
"That's why I supported the Iraq thing. There was a lot of stuff unaccounted for," Clinton said in reference to Iraq and the fact that U.N. weapons inspectors left the country in 1998.
"So I thought the president had an absolute responsibility to go to the U.N. and say, 'Look, guys, after 9/11, you have got to demand that Saddam Hussein lets us finish the inspection process.' You couldn't responsibly ignore [the possibility that] a tyrant had these stocks," Clinton said.
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As far as my opinion on the legality of Obama bombing Syria without Congressional approval, I’ll restate. For the President to order military action outside of a threat to the US, which can include US holdings outside the homeland – eg, an attack on a US embassy or a US flagged cargo ship – there needs to be a link to US sovereign authority via Congressional certification.
Since the US became a permanent global presence, the original legislative-executive process of Congress declaring war has become impractical. Thus, we’ve resorted to chained links to US sovereign authority and general authorizations for the US President to deploy the military, with Congress retaining various controls and limits.
The US military can be and has been used to enforce international norms. But there still needs to be a link, however Clintonian-creatively stretched, to Congressional certification.
The basic difference between the Syria and Iraq problems, other than the thick stack of Congressional certifications that Bush inherited from Clinton and Bush Senior, is that Iraq threatened regional allies and US interests. Therefore, underlying the equally thick stack of international norms enforced in Iraq by Bush and the humanitarian scope of our post-war mission in Iraq was a foundation of traditional US security interests.
(Interesting Clinton trick: Clinton made sure to include Saddam’s firing on US aircraft enforcing the no-fly zone as a trigger for military enforcement. Presumably, if Saddam had proven compliance on the weapons resolutions, which of course he didn’t, the no-fly zone would still need to be maintained because it was enforcing the humanitarian resolutions, not the weapons resolutions. And, of course, Saddam considered the no-fly zone to be an illegal infringement of Iraq’s sovereignty. In other words, Clinton had set up a wide range of triggers so that once a US President decided to give Saddam his next “last chance” to comply, the US was going to invade Iraq one way or the other short of Saddam totally changing his regime. Clinton had shaped the Iraq problem as Saddam’s regime itself, so that Iraq’s behavior – ie, across-the-board compliance – was the central issue, not Iraq’s demonstrable possession of WMD. The Democrats knew this, yet misrepresented the Iraq problem anyway.)
The Syria problem – as large, horrifying, and crying out for effective humanitarian intervention as it is – is an internal conflict, and that changes the calculus by stripping away the usual Congressional certifications contained in traditional US security interests. Therefore, another Congressional certification needs to be found for Obama to order a military strike if Congress fails to approve his proposal. According to Kaufman’s analysis, no such certification exists in the international ‘laws’ related to NBC use and current Congressional statements on the Syria conflict.
The only Congressional certification I can think to apply is the 2001 AUMF if Obama can draw a cognizable link between Syria’s NBC use and terrorism. Although Assad is fighting terrorists, he is also a sponsor of terrorism and is being aided by a terrorist sponsor with its cadre of terrorist groups. Therefore, although the alleged NBC use at bar was not a terrorist act, it’s plausible Obama can make a Clintonian-creative legal argument that stretches the authority of the 2001 AUMF to military action against Syria. To that end, Obama did include a terrorism element in his recent public argument for military action against Syria.
Of course, Senator McCain may know an applicable Congressional certification that Kaufman doesn’t know. ...
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My last, thematic thought for today on your blog related to the Syria dilemma:
Byron, as a liberal, as long as you block yourself from understanding everything that Bush did right after 9/11 as a liberal American President, you will block yourself from understanding everything that Obama has done wrong by the liberal standard.
You’re fighting it because it challenges your basic political worldview, but you need to accept that the Democrats lied to you. The Democrats have been corrupted; they’re not genuine liberals anymore. You have kids. ... If you want your kids to grow up to inherit a liberal world, you need to let go of your partisan mental blocks and figure out who is genuinely and effectively fighting for the liberal world you want for them. Until you do, we’ll keep going the wrong way and you won’t understand why. ...
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Byron,
Except you were wrong and Bush was right by the liberal standard, most of all with the Iraq mission correctly understood. The liberal foreign policy choices you say you support are effective by that standard. As long as you refuse to admit your mistake and accept Bush was right, your deviation from Bush will continue to sabotage your advocacy of liberal foreign policy.
Stipulated about our recent economic history, although I don't recall that Bush's statement about maintaining general economic activity was a radical call to action that fomented an extreme nation-wide spike of loan-shark credit and mindless wanton spending that toppled our economy. We weren't coming off the Great Depression on 9/11; our current consumer and debt culture started in the 80s and escalated in the 90s. If there is a latter-day root cause, it was the bipartisan market-warping promotion of unaffordable home ownership, not eating out and shopping at Walmart.
Be that as it may, the economy didn't compel Obama to order our troops home from Iraq (until he bungled the SOFA negotiation) nor stop him from plussing up in Afghanistan. The economy didn't make Obama shut down Gitmo, stop him from dramatically increasing drone assassinations or bombing Libya on the pretense of R2P until regime change, and it's not stopping Obama from trying to bomb Syria. Obama is still spending mountains of tax dollars as Commander-in-Chief. Which means the Presidential practical areas of (military affairs) foreign policy and domestic economy are still distinct at this point of American history, at least outside of partisan conflations made for parochial political purposes.
Again, I'm not talking about episodic partisan climate as far as Bush's legislative-executive approach as Commander-in-Chief after 9/11. He set a baseline for how to do the CinC job in the 9/11 era. Although Clinton's pre-9/11 ad hoc approach would have been easier, quicker, and - I argue - more sensible for a President at war, Bush understood that reintegrating the legislative-executive process as CinC was a healthier approach for a legal-rational system for the long difficult challenge we entered on 9/11.
In other words, Bush did the heavy lifting in setting up a healthier legislative-executive SOP for Obama. Obama simply had to claim his solidarity with Bush and follow Bush's lead. Instead, he set back Bush's progress by opting for Clinton's pre-9/11 ad hoc approach. Obama's choice makes sense for a Weberian charismatic authority type.
The type of liberal foreign policy you've advocated on your blog falls within the liberal interventionist or liberal internationalist or neo-liberal or neo-conservative school. I'm disappointed that you stubbornly cling to the Democrats' false narrative on Iraq even though it undermines the liberal foreign policy you advocate.
Our intervention in Iraq enforced all the international norms you believe in. After 11 years of Saddam refusing to comply with the Gulf War ceasefire and UNSC resolutions, the exhaustion of every measure short of our last credible military threat to compel Saddam's compliance, Bush acted decisively to bring Iraq into compliance in order to restore credibility to the enforcement of international norms for the 9/11 era. It was up to Saddam to dispel the credible military threat simply by complying to standard, which he should have done immediately in 1991, let alone 2002-2003.
However, at the same time that Bush was trying to fix the international enforcement of international norms, the Democrats were doing their best to break it in order to gain an upper hand in domestic politics. When the Democrats - full of passionate intensity - lied to you, America, and the world about our Iraq mission, they also undermined the enforcement of all the international norms and humanitarian peace-building objectives that were intrinsic to the Iraq mission.
You blame partisan politics for Obama's difficulty over his Syria proposal. In fact, Obama's difficulty is a direct consequence of the long-term damage caused by the Democrats' propaganda against the Iraq mission to the political process and public perception necessary for the enforcement of international norms.
Excerpt from
10 year anniversary of the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom: thoughts:
I also said this to Professor Nacos:
What's called neo-conservatism is just the progressive (interventionalist) liberalism of Wilson, FDR, and Truman, renamed. The bashing of neo-conservatism by self-described Western liberals, therefore, has led to the frustrating, self-defeating spectacle of influential people speaking liberal platitudes but quixotically opposing our definitively liberal strategy in the War on Terror. The effect of these liberals' tragic hypocrisy has been the degradation of the Western liberalizing influence on the illiberal regions of the world.
By the same token, an equally damaging effect of the attacks by self-described liberals on our liberal strategy has been the degradation within Western societies of the domestic understanding and support we need to adequately sustain the war/peace-building strategy endorsed by Presidents Bush and Obama. Therefore, a critical task of President Obama is to fix the deep damage done to his and Bush's foreign policy goals by Senator/Candidate Obama and other Bush critics.
Related comments from a CNN
discussion thread, not the bigWOWO discussion thread:
The following exchange from other users was removed by moderation. That's odd, there's nothing inflammatory in it, and it's more thoughtful than 99.7% of the usual internet spew.
"The plan for Syria's chemical weapons can be a success - if 'success' is defined correctly. With Iraq, President Bush faithfully and successfully followed the procedure to resolve the Iraq problem that he inherited from President Clinton. What did that include? Regime change mandate. A credible military threat that was the next step up from Op Desert Fox’s penultimate bombing – ie, ground invasion. A very high and strict standard of proof for Saddam to meet regarding Iraq's "unaccounted for" proscribed weapons that had been elevated during the Cllinton administration in response to Saddam’s belligerence, resistance, and exposed evasions. A broad spectrum of requirements for Iraq under the UNSC resolutions, covering issues such as Iraq's humanitarian and terrorism problems,
that extended beyond proscribed weapons. So how can President Obama succeed with Syria where Presidents Bush Senior, Clinton, and Bush ‘failed’ with Iraq? (… said for sake of argument. We actually succeeded resolving the Iraq problem under Bush by achieving every requirement set forth by Clinton - ie, Iraq in compliance, Iraq no longer a threat, and regime change.) Simple – by making
Syria’s test easier and more limited than Iraq’s test. Lower the proof standard. Narrow the requirements for Syria, eg, studiously ignore the humanitarian and terrorism problems with Syria that were bases for strict requirements for Iraq. Avoid placing too heavy a proof burden and presumption of guilt on Syria. Essentially, Obama can succeed with Syria's chemical weapons by adopting the position of Saddam’s defenders in 2002-2003, which I guess Obama has done by ceding the lead on Syria to Russia.
AcidRed
Eric
an hour ago
If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with BS? Must have been Clinton's fault, right?
Reply
Eric
AcidRed
37 minutes ag
The Iraq problem? Clearly, that was Saddam's fault, not the fault of any American President. Saddam could and should have complied with the Gulf War ceasefire and UNSC resolutions in 1991 - before Clinton was elected President - let alone fail repeatedly during the Clinton administration, thus compelling a stricter standard of proof, and then fail again to meet Iraq's burden of proof in 2002-2003. Saddam's behavior compelled Clinton to classify the situation with Iraq "a clear and present danger to the stability of the Persian Gulf and the safety of people everywhere" and to establish US policy on Iraq that "The hard fact is that so long as Saddam remains in power, he threatens the well-being of his people, the peace of his region, the security of the world. The best way to end that threat once and for all is with the new Iraqi government, a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people."
It can certainly be argued that since Clinton set the bar for resolving the Iraq problem that Bush followed faithfully, then Clinton should have resolved the Iraq problem on his watch rather than kick the can. But to Clinton's credit (not "fault"), he established the laws, policy, precedent, and procedure necessary for his successor to resolve the Iraq problem. The Iraq problem was made by Saddam. But to resolve the Iraq problem, Bush followed the prescription made by Clinton.
Related thought from my 05JUL13 thoughts of the day:
Related to "Defining the problem frames the solution", one of my basic leadership principles, the ends do justify the means. Saying the ends don't justify the means is as silly as saying that how you play the game matters more than winning or losing. Means should be rationally matched to the ends. However, in a multi-dimensional competitive arena, there are simultaneous different ends. They may conflict. The means that are necessary to achieve one end may undermine another end. For example, in a rules-bound arena, cheating may garner near-term victories that are necessary, but also cause long-term defeat when the cheating is uncovered and punished. It comes down to smart rational trade-offs and making mitigations and compensations. Ethics must be weighed rationally as a factor of varying weight depending on the contours of the competition. In the ultimate judgement, the concrete gains from victory are what count, but the competitor must be clear about his ends and the definition of victory in order to choose his means rationally. Thought inspired by this
documentary on the Soviet defeat of the Japanese in Manchuria.
Related:
Apply the Saddam precedent to "finish the job and free Iran" (Lisa Daftari),
Correct the Iraq War "story" to constructively "shape American foreign policy for years to come" (Jonah Goldberg),
Answer and solutions for Mark Hertling's "Tell Me How the Iran War Ends: What are we fighting for?",
Cure the Iraq Syndrome to win America back from postliberals and leftists (Thomas Howes),
The facts show Edward Feser was right on Iraq in the first place and changed his mind based on misinformation,
Jakub Grygiel's "The Iran War and the Coming Global Struggle" comes of the Iraq Syndrome,
The apt UN-based international law solution for Iran is the Gulf War ceasefire formula of the Saddam precedent (Richard Epstein, John Yoo),
The apt Iraq comparison for the Iran intervention is the Gulf War ceasefire enforcement, not Desert Storm (Jonathan Allen), and
The Forward Party should reconceive the Iran issue with the premise that we were right on Iraq, which is the truth.
