A Mediterranean Battlefield - Syria

[Magda Hassan]

Pentagon Shoots Down Kerry's Syria Airstrike Plan

ByJeffrey GoldbergJun 19, 2013 5:40 AM ET
Twenty years ago, in a debate overthe war in Bosnia, Madeleine Albright, then the U.S. ambassadorto the United Nations, issued a challenge to the chairman of theJoint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell. Albright wanted theU.S. to confront an aggressive Serbia; Powell and the Pentagonwere hesitant. Albright grew frustrated: "What's the point ofhaving this superb military that you're always talking about ifwe can't use it?" Albright asked. Powell later said that hethought Albright was going to give him an aneurysm.

Flash-forward to this past Wednesday. At a principalsmeeting in the White House situation room, Secretary of StateJohn Kerry began arguing, vociferously, for immediate U.S.airstrikes against airfields under the control of Bashar al-Assad's Syrian regime -- specifically, those fields it has usedto launch chemical weapons raids against rebel forces.
At this point that the current chairman of the JointChiefs of Staff, the usually mild-mannered Army General Martin Dempsey, spoke up, loudly. According to several sources, Dempseythrew a series of brushback pitches at Kerry, demanding to knowjust exactly what the post-strike plan would be and pointing outthat the State Department didn't fully grasp the complexity ofsuch an operation.

Dempsey informed Kerry that the Air Force could not simplydrop a few bombs, or fire a few missiles, at targets insideSyria: To be safe, the U.S. would have to neutralize Syria'sintegrated air-defense system, an operation that would require700 or more sorties. At a time when the U.S. military isexhausted, and when sequestration is ripping into the Pentagonbudget, Dempsey is said to have argued that a demand by theState Department for precipitous military action in a murkycivil war wasn't welcome.

Military Wariness

Officials with knowledge of the meeting say that Kerry gaveas good as he got, and that the discussion didn't reachaneurysm-producing levels. But it was, in diplomatic parlance, afull and frank vetting of the profound differences between Stateand Defense on Syria. Dempsey was adamant: Without much of anentrance strategy, without anything resembling an exit strategy,and without even a clear-eyed understanding of the consequencesof an American airstrike, the Pentagon would be extremelyreluctant to get behind Kerry's plan.
As we know now, the Pentagon's position is in sync with President Barack Obama's. The outcome of the meeting last weekwas to formalize a decision made weeks ago to supply the moremoderate elements of the Syrian opposition with small arms andammunition. The assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies thatAssad had used chemical weapons against small pockets of rebels-- confirming those made several months earlier by theintelligence agencies of U.S. friends in Europe and the MiddleEast -- forced the administration to make a gesture of supportfor the opposition.
Members of the White House national security team, who tendto be more hawkish than Obama or Dempsey (though not as quite asmilitant as Kerry), had been arguing that, in the words of Tony Blinken, the deputy national security adviser, "superpowers don't bluff." Once Obama had drawn a red linearound chemical weapons, the White House had no choice but totake some sort of action.
Blinken was clever to use the word "bluff" in hisarguments to the president, implicitly linking his posture onSyria to his position on Iran's nuclear program. Last year, inan interview with me on the subject of Iran, Obama said, "Aspresident of the United States, I don't bluff." On Iran, he haslived up to his words, but he was in danger -- and remains indanger -- of being seen as a bluffer on Syria.

No Bluffing

What is so odd about Dempsey's adamant opposition toKerry's aggressive proposals is that it hasn't previously beenmade public. Obama told Charlie Rose this week that he isworried about sliding down the slippery slope toward greaterintervention in Syria. Having Dempsey openly in his corner wouldbe useful to him, but the administration hasn't made hay overthe Pentagon's opposition to airstrikes. (When I asked thePentagon for official comment, Dempsey's spokesman would onlysay that he would not "discuss classified internaldeliberations," though he went on to say that the NationalSecurity Council principals "routinely debate a wide range ofoptions to include how the military can and should support acomprehensive, regional approach to this conflict.")
One senior administration official explained it this way:The White House doesn't want Dempsey to make an enthusiasticcase on "Meet the Press" against intervention, just in caseObama one day decides to follow Kerry's advice and get moredeeply involved. At that point, Dempsey's arguments againstgreater involvement could come back to haunt the administration.
The decision to provide small arms to the Syrian oppositionhas made no one happy -- not the rebels, who understand thatthese quite-possibly ineffective weapons will take many monthsto reach them; not Kerry, who, while arguing that theseshipments may become a "force multiplier" in the conflict,thinks that only a show of American air power will convinceAssad and his Hezbollah allies that the U.S. is making a seriousattempt to level a playing field that has been tilting their wayfor some time; and not the Pentagon, which thinks that Obama,despite saying that he is wary of the slippery slope, might bepushed down that slope anyway, by interventionists on his teamor by events on the ground.
It is possible, even for those of us who have been inclinedtoward intervention, to have a great deal of sympathy forDempsey's position. There are those in the Pentagon who thinkthat the State Department has romanticized the Syrianopposition. What diplomats see as a civil war featuring bands ofpoorly armed moderates struggling to free themselves from thegrip of an evil dictator, the generals see as a religious warbetween Hezbollah and al-Qaeda. Why would the U.S. risk takingsides in a battle between two loathed terror organizations?Memories of Iraq, too, are fresh in the minds of Dempsey and hiscolleagues.
On the other hand, a Kerry partisan told me, U.S.intervention in Syria would not necessarily have to look likeU.S. intervention in Iraq. When I mentioned the Albright-Powellexchange of 20 years ago, he pointed out something obviousresident Bill Clinton eventually decided to use air power inthe Balkans. And it brought the Serbian government to its knees.
(Jeffrey Goldberg is a Bloomberg View columnist.)
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-18...-plan.html