Did Obama Really Do Nothing In Syria? Lets Debunk This Stupid Right-Wing Myth

[CousinIT]

In reality, Obama’s response to Syria’s use of chemical weapons was considerably more potent than many probably realized. That point is driven home by the fact that Assad didn’t use sarin again until after President Obama left office, waiting for the weaker, more feeble-minded Trump to take office before throwing those dice.

So what are conservatives talking about when they bring up this “line in the sand” thing? Did Obama really back down in Syria or fail to fulfill his promises? Let’s take a look at this right-wing myth… and then debunk the ever-loving Hell out of it, of course.

. . .

So no, Obama didn’t “draw a line in the sand.” What Obama did say is that he was monitoring the Syrian situation and would adjust his strategy accordingly if they discovered that the Assad regime was using chemical weapons, or preparing to do so. He was hardly laying down the gauntlet.

Fast-forward one year and one day. On August 21st of 2013, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad ordered a chemical attack using deadly Sarin nerve gas in Ghouta, Syria that took as many as 1,729 lives, with over 3,600 people wounded and unknown long-term causalities.

President Obama could’ve done in 2013 what Donald Trump just did this week, firing Tomahawk cruise missiles at a symbolic airbase — an airbase which, by the way, was fully operational again within 24 hours of Trump’s attack — but instead, he chose a path that completely shut down Syria’s use of chemical weapons for nearly four years.

http://reverbpress.com/politics/did-obama-really-do-nothing-in-syria-lets-debunk-this-stupid-right-wing-myth/

[yallerdawg]

1. The Congressional Republicans stipulated...

if Obama acted unilaterally and atacked the Syria regime it was most likely an illegal and impeachable act.

Many of these same Republicans now defy all logic and praise the Liar-in-Chief for his strength and fortitude in teaching Assad - and 'others' - a lesson with "a new sheriff in town."

A different standard if there ever was one!

[Wellstone ruled]

2. Yup,under threat of Impeachment.

[Kittycow]

3. How do they live with themselves :*(

It's incomprehensible to me.

[Wellstone ruled]

10. All about the Politics.

Democrats are people centric and Republicans are Corporate centic and tend to be isolationist .

[Initech]

8. It was a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

This party is so fucking disgusting on every level. Sure, it's OK if their side does it, but not OK if our side does it. Fuck off, GOP and stop playing this game.

[MyOwnPeace]

11. Their hypocrisy.......

just blows my mind - and people BELIEVE it!

If that is so, how will we EVER get a sane AMERICA again?

[Initech]

12. It's mind blowing and it knows no boundaries.

It's all AM hate radio's fault. 100% of the division in this country comes from AM hate radio hosts like Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage, Jones, Ingraham and Coulter. They just think republicans can do no wrong and we liberals do everything wrong when that's not true. It's quite the opposite.

One thing I hope is that with Trump in power and him getting a blank check to do whatever he wants that it's waking people up to how dangerous the GOP's agenda is. And the thing is people like Mitch McConnell will eventually die and a new, younger generation will take over. Hopefully that younger generation will learn from this generation's mistakes.

[Bettie]

4. The key point here

is that Assad did not use chemical weapons while Obama was in office.

He knew that Agent Orange is a wholly owned property of his buddy Putin and that any response would include a long enough lead time for him to get his valuables out of the way.

[karynnj]

5. The problem is that it is not just the right wing saying that -- many mainstream sources

are buying the lie that Obama/Kerry were wrong in speaking of Syria giving up all their known (declared) chemical weapons.

1300 TONS of chemical weapons like sarin gas were turned over by Syria and destroyed by the US. It seems likely that Assad hid some portion of his weapons -- or was able to get a new supply. However, in any extended conversation, Obama, Kerry, Rice etc always answered that it was possible that he would do this. In addition, it was Russia who had the responsibility of pushing Assad to get rid of all of his weapons.

What you have are many neo con leaning people, who never wanted that deal ... they wanted a strike ... and had Obama done the strike that he and the military had planned .. they would have wanted more. (Had Obama done just what Trump did, they would have wanted more.) Their anger was that Obama would not do what was needed to get regime change as they wanted.

If the goal was to make Assad rethink using CW, it did -- this is the first time that he has used sarin since 2013. So, either he had none to use in that time frame -- meaning Obama DID get rid of all the CW, or it changed his calculus on using it while Obama was President. Either way, Obama's deal worked.

Not to mention the BIG HUMONGOUS elephant in the room -- 1300 tons of deadly chemical weapons were taken out of unstable Syria - meaning ISIS and Al Nusra could not get them as they overran areas in Syria.

[CousinIT]

6. Yea I heard talking heads on NPR saying the same. They all parrot the same meme

Media & ConservaTurds.

It's not true of course, but no one is talking about that.

[karynnj]

9. To me it is completely weird that there is no one saying something - like this is crazy

It is nuts to think that taking 1300 tons of chemical weapons out of an unstable country was not an amazingly useful thing to do.

I suspect that this is all ideology driven. They wanted Obama to help the Sunni rebels, backed by our allies in the Gulf like Saudi Arabia, defeat Assad, who has the backing of Iran. The fact that no matter how hard the administration worked and how much they warned the moderates that they HAD TO SEPARATE from Al Nusra -- which is AQ -- they didn't. Why? Their enemy was Assad and Al Nusra was the strongest force fighting them.

As far as I can understand it, some neo cons (including possibly the 51 State Department dissenters) thought that IF the US was seen as their strongest backer fighting Assad, they would rethink the way they joined with Al Nusra at various times. To me, the obvious question is why - even if we helped them gain power - they would not rejoin with Al Nusra.

[treestar]

7. Great memory refresher

[former9thward]

13. Alt history.

Obama drew a red line. Assad crossed it. The U.S. ignored it.