Obama’s Birthday Gift to McCain: War with Syria

Military strikes against Syria could apparently begin as soon as Thursday, 29 August, which is coincidentally John McCain’s 77th birthday… “Happy Birthday, I gotcha that war you’ve been wanting?”

“Sending a message” through “limited” strikes might seem to satisfy war-weary Americans desire to perhaps maybe do something, but certainly not much of something, but it could be a superbly terrible idea.

There is a very important question that hasn’t been answered yet: Would the Assad’s regime reaction to an American attack be “limited” as well?  Is that a gamble we should be willing to take?

Let’s not forget the intimate relationship the Assad Regime has with Hezbollah, a full spectrum terrorist entity with a history of attacking the United States and its allies.  We should expect more of a reaction than Assad’s hackers messing with the New York Times.

Additionally, “sending a message” through strategic bombing hasn’t worked too well in the past.  Rolling Thunder which failed to accomplish “Strategic Persuasion” of any sort.  And what message was sent when cruise missiles leveled a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan in 1998?  Are we ready to accept that more errors will occur, and that dropping things that explode from the sky is never as “surgical” as advertised?

John Thorne is a senior consultant at Diligent Innovations, a defense and national security strategy consulting firm in Washington, DC.

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