Take that, D.C. gasbags!: How angry Americans may stop a disaster

[MNBrewer]

http://www.salon.com/2013/09/10/take_that_dc_gasbags_how_angry_americans_may_stop_a_disaster/

As President Obama apparently submits to domestic and international pressure to back off his plan for an immediate war with Syria, prepare to hear the standard Multidimensional Chess™ talking point.

You’ve heard this one before — it’s the one from partisans that pretends every good idea their preferred politician opposed but is then forced to embrace was always that politician’s idea all along. As the Atlantic’s James Fallows put it, it portrays Obama as “a chess master who always sees several moves ahead of his opponents.” In that chess game, seemingly stupid moves are actually brilliant calculations designed to create a chain reaction. We are thus asked by these partisans to believe that every dumb, corrupt or misguided position their preferred politician takes is really just a secretly brilliant plot to achieve that politician’s real goal of driving the policy debate to a better place.

On Syria, this narrative began in earnest in advance of the president’s scheduled Oval Office address tonight. A day before the speech, as the Russia/U.N. plan emerged, Obama’s chief spinmeister David Axelrod took to twitter to ask “If POTUS hadn’t threatened credible military response, does anyone believe Russia and Syria would be coming forward now? No time to falter.”

In this most absurd version of the Multidimensional Chess story, the president proposed a war with Syria not because he wanted a war with Syria, but because he always wanted to prevent a war with Syria. More specifically, his administration cited World War II and made a full-court press in Congress for war not to actually start a war, but merely to prompt Russia to intervene to prevent a war. You see, it was an antiwar play all along!

[leftstreet]

1. Is this like proposing chained CPI, because you don't want it?

DURec

[MNBrewer]

3. You tell me

[forestpath]

14. I'd say it's exactly like it.

[Avalux]

2. Whatever. Obama and Putin confirm this has been in the works for awhile.

I'm not saying public pressure didn't make a difference, but then you'd have to assumethat Obama is Bush in disguise - a 'decider' who would have bombed regardless. This article is vitriolic anti-Obama rhetoric.

[MNBrewer]

4. Since Obama's first inauguration, I imagine.

[Avalux]

6. I'd say before that - probably when he was president of the Harvard Law Review.

Do you realize how silly you sound?

[MNBrewer]

11. wow, good point

Thanks for carrying the banner, Avalux!

His Peace Be Upon Us!

[Bluenorthwest]

7. If both sides were in on such a deal, why indulge in illegal behavior by threatening

force? It is not diplomacy to threaten violence if conditions are not met, it is forbidden by international law and it is a callous exploitation of fear imposed on people who are already under great duress. Why invoke WW2 and Hitler and every bit of rhetoric under the sun?
If some deal is in the works and you still wander around threatening massive retaliation, that is really not being an honest broker to say the least. Your contention is that discussions were underway while Kerry claimed the second party to those discussions is like Nazi Germany. Hard to buy into that.

[Little Star]

9. +1

[Bluenorthwest]

13. I'm being nice about it. If I have a deal cooking and yet I claim to other parties with

valid interest that I don't have a deal because the other side is psychotic, this would be called theatrics to make the announced deal seem all the more fantastical. Cheap theatrics, illegal cheap theatrics.

[VanillaRhapsody]

5. They seriously want to think that Assad backed down

because he heard them? Is that what they are trying to say? They are huge narcissists if they truly think this didn't happen because THEY were loud. THEY were part of the whole plan....DirkWhatsHisFace is still trying to call him a warmonger by saying he got his war taken away from him even....I love how they are trying so hard to twist this into some kind of pretzel logic that this is not another foreign policy win for Obama. As if Obama is having a sad that the war didn't happen. It's sick...

[Hell Hath No Fury]

10. Russia has more play with Syria --

then all our bombs. I have no doubt that al-Assad would have taken the military hit from the US had Russia decided to have their back. And I am still not sure there isn't a side deal with Russia to provide more conventional weapons to make up for any lost chem stockpiles.

[VanillaRhapsody]

12. but he would loose those chemical weapons either way...

Putin wants Assad NOT to build that pipeline through Syria to supply EU with natural gas. Secondarily he also didnt want al queda to get their hands on chemical weapons.

Assad was in a no win situation...he backed down to save his reign.

[Little Star]

8. Ouch!! The last paragraph, double ouch!

Forwarding the fantasy that recent decisions about Syria were solely dictated by the all-knowing Dear Leader forwards the idea that antiwar opposition was not important. That Multidimensional Chess argument, in turn, suggests to opponents of future wars that their opposition is futile — even though as this week shows, the success of that opposition was absolutely critical. Indeed, the opposition — not some fantastical Multidimensional Chess move by a monarch — is why there now seems to be a possibility of avoiding yet another war in the Middle East.

Note: Bolding is mine.

[Zorra]

15. Oh, for chrissake, they really need to start teaching history in schools again.

Big Stick Ideology

Big Stick ideology, Big Stick diplomacy, or Big Stick policy refers to U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt’s foreign policy: "speak softly, and carry a big stick." Roosevelt attributed the term to a West African proverb, "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far," but the claim that it originated in West Africa has been disputed.[1] The idea of negotiating peacefully, simultaneously threatening with the "big stick", or the military, ties in heavily with the idea of Realpolitik, which implies a pursuit of political power that resembles Machiavellian ideals.[2] Roosevelt first used the phrase in a speech at the Minnesota State Fair on September 2, 1901,[3] four days before the assassination of President William McKinley who died eight days later, which subsequently thrust Roosevelt into the presidency. Roosevelt referred to the phrase earlier (January 26, 1900) in a letter to Henry W. Sprague of the Union League Club, mentioning his liking of the phrase in a bout of happiness after forcing New York's Republican committee to pull support away from a corrupt financial adviser. Roosevelt attributed the term as "a West African proverb", and was seen at the time as evidence of Roosevelt’s "prolific" reading habits.[4][5] Roosevelt described his style of foreign policy as "the exercise of intelligent forethought and of decisive action sufficiently far in advance of any likely crisis".[6] However, it is also rumored that Roosevelt himself first made the phrase publicly known,[1] and that he meant it was West African proverb only metaphorically.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Stick_ideology

Roosevelt described his style of foreign policy as "the exercise of intelligent forethought and of decisive action sufficiently far in advance of any likely crisis"

It's not multi-dimensional magical chess. It's not even anything fucking close to brilliant. It's very simple:

"the exercise of intelligent forethought and of decisive action sufficiently far in advance of any likely crisis"

Not. Rocket. Science.

[NuclearDem]

16. Imperialistic dogma for an imperialist president

Maybe read up on Roosevelt's application of that policy internationally, and see if you're still proud of using it today.

[Zorra]

17. That's not the point. That's a strawman. I did not say the strategy is always used for good

purposes.

The point is that the strategy is an old strategy, and has been used effectively in the past. Sometimes for good purposes, with very positive results.

It is not magical thinking multi-dimensional chess.

It is simply "the exercise of intelligent forethought and of decisive action sufficiently far in advance of any likely crisis".

[xfundy]

18. Regardless

From five years of experience he knows he can get nothing, nothing, through congress. So he tried to get it through congress, while also demanding they do their damned job to rule on violent action in other nations.