Obama: Strikes on hold if Assad turns over weapons

[Cryptoad]

Source: Politico

President Barack Obama would put strikes against Syria on hold if Bashar Assad’s regime were to turn over control of its chemical weapons, he said Monday, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that he will wait to hear the president make his case to the nation Tuesday before holding an initial vote on military action.

The moves came at the tail end of a tumultuous day for a White House that appeared to be knocked off-message by Secretary of State John Kerry’s positive response to a question about whether the administration would consider a proposal that would allow Syria to avoid a military strike by turning over any stockpile of chemical weapons.



Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/obama-strikes-on-hold-if-assad-turns-over-weapons-96498.html?hp=t1_3

[onehandle]

1. No way. I heard he was just another Bush at Democratic Underground. nt

[another_liberal]

2. It takes a big man to take back a threat.

The President deserves a great deal of credit. He also deserves the heartfelt thanks of us all.

[jberryhill]

4. The purpose of a threat is to achieve an objective

[another_liberal]

6. The objective is seemingly on its way to being achieved. The threat is no longer needed.

With Russia and Syria both on board, only the rebels can screw things up. If they try, the whole World will fall down on their heads.

[jberryhill]

9. The threat is needed until the objective is obtained

Russia and Syria have offered words. Obtaining words is not the objective.

When the cops have the bank surrounded with the bank robber inside, they don't pack up and go home when the bank robber says, "Okay, I'm coming out." They go home after he comes out.

[another_liberal]

10. Don't tell me you still want a war with Syria?

Can't we enjoy this development without someone insisting, "We can't stop threatening. We still have to prepare to attack!"

[jberryhill]

11. Okay I won't tell you that

Because you are imputing to me an opinion I do not hold.

Absent a threat of an undesirable alternative, there will be no movement on today's proposal.

I don't want the cops to rush the bank and shoot the robber either. But he's not coming out without that as an alternative.

And if you are going to make baseless conclusions about what I want, I have already placed $100 on the proposition that force will not be used.

Here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3563501

So please refrain from making clearly ignorant comments about what I believe.

[another_liberal]

12. You analogy is utterly false.

This is not a bank robbery, it is a civil war. It is also a civil war taking place in a country which, despite how much we don't like them, is a sovereign member of the United Nations and the World community. Syria is not my country, and I doubt it is yours either. Their civil war is not for us to decide. The Assad regime has agreed to hand over their chemical weapons, so lighten up already.

We came close enough to a war which could have been disastrous for this country. Lets not be in a hurry to get right back to that point. Thanks.

[jberryhill]

14. You seem to be unable to comprehend a simple point

Did you go back and read the thread I linked?

Or do you just want to pretend I support a war?

Our interest is in deterring the use of chemical weapons. The fact that a civil war is going on is not relevant to that interest.

If the weapons are not eliminated, they will fall into the rebels hands if the rebels win. Additionally the rebels will know we will not respond if they, in turn, use those weapons on their next target.

You seem unable to comprehend why I was willing to put $100 on the proposition that force will not be necessary. You seem also unable to comprehend how the credible threat of force renders the actual use of force unnecessary.

[another_liberal]

19. All of one hundred dollars, eh?

What nonsense.

[jberryhill]

20. You want to raise it?

Okay, how much?

[jberryhill]

23. Spoken like a true peace lover

I wish people with your love of fellow humans were in charge of things. Think of how much peace and understanding would guide human affairs.

[Scootaloo]

3. Well, thank goodness for that!

[Doctor_J]

5. I am glad someone talked some sense into him

Now he should suggest spending the money on expanding head start and snap. You know, the peace dividend

[AgingAmerican]

7. Head start and peace?

You mean ponies?

[Doctor_J]

15. The 1% told us that when we "won" the Cold War, all of that military money would be spent inside

the US. That was supposed to be our "peace dividend". They lied about that too.

[geek tragedy]

25. I'm sure the House GOP will get right on that. nt

[Doctor_J]

27. Well, he managed to pull off this "Stroke Of Genius" without Congress

at least according to the fan club. So why not a few Dem initiatives? His stern countenance has Putin and Assad eating out of his hand. Time to apply some of that to Boner and McTurtle. Adjust the speech from the warnings of Assad gassing the entire world over to warnings of the horrific poverty in the US.

[blkmusclmachine]

8. Riiight

[MADem]

13. He probably encouraged Putin to get interested in helping to resolve this problem

by sharing a couple of targets with him---like, say, Assad's Mediterranean ports.

And perhaps, most particularly, the one that Putin has sunk billions into, in order to give the Russian Navy an outlet to the sea....

Pulverizing those would put Pootie's efforts to revive the moribund Russian Navy back a few notches. It would also make it difficult to move energy product (pipelined oil, or LNG) by sea, at least until those ports were repaired.

[jberryhill]

17. Putin wants the EU to stay married to Central Asian petroleum

[daleo]

16. I hope this is for real

It would be the best outcome we could hope for, given the circumstances. In some ways, this has reminded me of a mini-Cuban Missile Crisis. If so, there may have been more horse-trading going on behind the scenes than we know about right now.

[Celefin]

18. On hold - not canceled. Difference. -nt-

[arewenotdemo]

22. I definitely want to see this solution.

But Obama has to end his overt war against Syria, and I don't see that happening.

Whatever happens, he's already lost me and I imagine a good part of the left.

Whoever votes for his war will follow him off that cliff.

[jberryhill]

26. "Obama has to end his overt war against Syria"

The one which he hasn't started or prosecuted?

Just what, in your mind, are the necessary steps to "end his overt war against Syria"?

[arewenotdemo]

28. Well, it's only "covert" to 50% of this forum.

Heilbrunn: Here we are five years into the Obama administration, and you’re stating that the West is engaging in “mass propaganda.” Is Obama being drawn into Syria because he’s too weak to resist the status quo? What happened to President Obama that brought us here?

Brzezinski: I can’t engage either in psychoanalysis or any kind of historical revisionism. He obviously has a difficult problem on his hands, and there is a mysterious aspect to all of this. Just consider the timing. In late 2011 there are outbreaks in Syria produced by a drought and abetted by two well-known autocracies in the Middle East: Qatar and Saudi Arabia. He all of a sudden announces that Assad has to go—without, apparently, any real preparation for making that happen. Then in the spring of 2012, the election year here, the CIA under General Petraeus, according to The New York Times of March 24th of this year, a very revealing article, mounts a large-scale effort to assist the Qataris and the Saudis and link them somehow with the Turks in that effort. Was this a strategic position? Why did we all of a sudden decide that Syria had to be destabilized and its government overthrown?

http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/brzezinski-the-syria-crisis-8636

[Polibear]

24. Look

Sheldon Adelson to President Obama: 'I Would Be Willing to Help' on Syria


http://www.nationaljournal.com/national-security/sheldon-adelson-to-president-obama-i-would-be-willing-to-help-on-syria-20130910

[Doctor_J]

29. Great, Shelly. Grab a MAC-10 and a canteen. Job pays $2500/month.

You ship out monday AM