How US Grand Strategy in Syria led to the idea of Missile Strikes

[unhappycamper]

http://www.juancole.com/2013/09/strategy-missile-strikes.html

How US Grand Strategy in Syria led to the idea of Missile Strikes
Posted on 09/09/2013 by Juan Cole

Are there any grand strategy considerations behind the Obama administration’s desire to bomb Syria? Yes, though they rest on doubtful premises.

The increasing importance of al-Qaeda-linked radical Sunni fundamentalist groups to the civil war in the north of Syria has posed a dilemma for the Obama administration, which began calling for the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad in late spring of 2011.

The US now doesn’t want the regime to fall relatively quickly as in Libya, because the al-Qaeda affiliates have become too powerful and could well take over Damascus. Highly undesirable. The US does not want that outcome, and neither do Israel or Saudi Arabia, the two pillars of US policy in the region.

So US policy is to join with Saudi Arabia and Jordan to encourage a second front at Deraa with anti-al-Qaeda fighters a la sons of Iraq and limiting access for heavy weapons to Jabhat al-Nusra at the northern front by intercepting them in Turkey. Turkey and Qatar are upset with this policy and both try to subvert it, undisturbed by the al-Qaeda tendencies of their allies.



unhappycamper comment: In addition to killing more people, burning off a coupla billion dollars, we can order new Tomahawks and take our war machine out for another spin. And best of all, we no longer look 'weak'.