May 9, 2013--Tea Party in Syria

I suppose, flushed with the delusion of success in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the two senatorial amigos, John McCain and Lindsey Graham, have been turning up the heat on Barack Obama to get militarily involved in the civil war in Syria.

Even the justification is the same--as with Saddam, it is being trumpeted, Syrian president Basha al-Assad, possess weapons of mass distruction (WMDs) that he is deploying against his own people. They should recall that after we toppled Hussein, we found none and it may be that the evidence in Syria is just as ambiguous--yes, chemical weapons appear to have been employed but maybe not by Assad. It is emerging that it might have been the Syrian rebels who used them on themselves, perhaps to incite war mongers such as McCain and Graham, and to impel President Obama to too casually talk about how their use would be a "game changer" that crossed a "red line." Meaning . . . meaning, I am not sure what. And it sadly appears that Obama himself didn't have a clear plan in mind when he uttered these macho clichés.

McCain and Graham are on Senate committees that provide access to information about what is actually going on in Syria, and it is not a pretty picture. But just from reading a decent newspaper--if they don't have time to do their committee homework (after all it takes up hours and hours to appear on TV every day)--they would see that in addition to the hideous bloodshed, al Qaeda forces are taking more and more control of the fighting, and to arm them would only provide these jihadists with weapons to turn against us and our allies after they inevitably take over. Another lesson from Afghanistan--when we armed the Mujahdeen who were resisting the Russian occupation of their country, after Russia lost (a further lesson) they used those weapons, are now using them, against U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

The French ambassador to Afghanistan soberly said recently that as soon  as the western presence is further reduced (by 2014) things there will revert to Taliban control and girls and women will once again be forced to wear burkas. No wonder, then, that President Hamid Karzai desires to see the suitcases of CIA-supplied cash continue to be delivered so he and his family can sock away their blood money in Abu Dhabi. The good news for the Karzais--they have been assured by the U.S. government that these bribes will keep on flowing. One less thing for them to have to worry about.

Meanwhile, in McCain-Graham's other favorite Middle Eastern conflict, Iraq, we are seeing evidence of an incipient civil war. In this case, as in many other parts of the region, the roots of the conflict are religious and cultural, with faction pitted against faction.

In Iraq it continues, as it has for many centuries, to be Shiites versus Sunnis. Saddam's regime was run largely by the minority Sunni community through the Baath Party. When he was taken down, in spite of our efforts to see a diverse, democratic government replace his brutal dictatorship (at the time it was called "nation-building"), this policy pipe dream lasted for just a few years because all the while the majority Shia, having taken control, slowly and deliberately squeezed out the remaining Baathists.

So what in response have the displaced and discriminated against Iraqi Sunnis been up to? As we see in Egypt and Syria, they are turning for support to the most extreme Islamist elements who, if left to their own devices, would turn the entire region into a series of Islamic republics.

Let us not be naive about this agenda. Over time we will see the Muslim Brotherhood here; al Qaeda there. Jordan could be next and, who knows, maybe even Saudi Arabia after that, where the ruling dynasty has been paying off Osama bin Laden's Wahhabis in order to keep them from overthrowing the the House of Saud.

But the trajectory in this extremest direction is clear. And unwittingly we have been helpful in encouraging it by the very fact of our involvement After all, how would we feel, what would we do, where would we turn if a powerful outside force invaded and occupied our country? Don't you think that extremist elements in our own country--in the NRA or Tea Party, for example--would attempt to take control of the situation? I suspect the militias and dead-enders would be more effective in grabbing power than our political and economic elites.

If all else fails for McCain and Graham, there's always Benghazi. Who would have thought I'd be missing their third amigo, old Joe Lieberman.