Heavy Pressure Led to Decision by Obama on Syrian Arms
WASHINGTON — For two years, President Obama has resisted being drawn deeper into the civil war in Syria.
It was a miserable problem, he told aides, and not one he thought he
could solve. At most, it could be managed. And besides, he wanted to be
remembered for getting out of Middle East wars, not embarking on new
ones.
So
when Mr. Obama agreed this week for the first time to send small arms
and ammunition to Syrian rebel forces, he had to be almost dragged into
the decision at a time when critics, some advisers and even Bill Clinton
were pressing for more action. Coming so late into the conflict, Mr.
Obama expressed no confidence it would change the outcome, but privately
expressed hope it might buy time to bring about a negotiated
settlement.
His
ambivalence about the decision seemed evident even in the way it was
announced. Mr. Obama left it to a deputy national security adviser,
Benjamin J. Rhodes, to declare Thursday evening that the president’s “red line” on chemical weapons
had been crossed and that support to the opposition would be increased.
At the time, Mr. Obama was addressing a gay pride event in the East
Room. On Friday, as Mr. Rhodes was again dispatched to defend the move
at a briefing, the president was hosting a Father’s Day luncheon in the
State Dining Room.
Few
international problems have bedeviled Mr. Obama as much as Syria and
few have so challenged his desire to reduce the American footprint in
the world in order to focus energies instead on what he calls “nation
building here at home.” As much as he wants to avoid getting entangled
in what he regards as another quagmire, he finds himself confronted by a
conflict that is spilling over into the region and testing American
resolve.
“It
was a matter of time — the White House may not have wanted intervention
but intervention itself was chasing the administration,” said Emile
Hokayem, a Middle East-based analyst with the International Institute
for Strategic Studies. “The White House underestimated the potency of
this struggle and its profound implications for the region and its own
interests, and then found itself lacking space, strategic clarity and
momentum to do anything meaningful.”
While
an aide said Mr. Obama’s decision was made even before Mr. Clinton’s
comments this week endorsing more robust intervention, the president
ended up satisfying neither side in the Syrian debate. For those who
have pressed the White House to do more, the belated agreement to send
small arms after nearly 93,000 deaths
seems too little, too late. For those who warn that Syria could become
another Iraq or Libya, the latest move comes across as another step down
a slippery slope toward a messy outcome.
Anne-Marie
Slaughter, a former director of policy planning in Mr. Obama’s State
Department, said her onetime boss so clearly wanted to be a domestic
president and yet could not remain at a distance from the Syria conflict
because it could set the Middle East in flames. Already, she noted, it
has helped destabilize Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey and flooded refugees
into Jordan.
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“I
really worry this is going to be remembered as the United States
standing by and watching a Middle East war ignite,” said Ms. Slaughter,
who will become president of the New America Foundation in Washington in
September. “I fear the president thinks he can stand apart. He’s the
one who always says with power comes responsibility. That’s his line.”
But
White House aides on Friday again ruled out sending United States
troops and dismissed calls for a no-fly zone over Syria, calling it
“dramatically more difficult and dangerous and costly” than it had been
in Libya in 2011, as Mr. Rhodes put it. And there is little domestic
constituency for another American adventure abroad.
Zbigniew
Brzezinski, who was President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser,
said he was “baffled” by Mr. Obama’s decision to become more deeply
involved. “What exactly is our objective?” he asked. “It’s not clear to
me that every nondemocratic government in the world has to be removed by
force.”
The Syria war is a struggle for power, not democracy, he said. “Is that something we should be engaged in?”
The
president’s decision came just before he was to leave Sunday for a
summit meeting in Europe, where Syria may be a dominant issue. The
British government, which will host the annual Group of 8 gathering in
Northern Ireland, offered support Friday for Mr. Obama’s decision, while
the Russian government said it did not find the American intelligence
on chemical weapons use persuasive.
On
the sidelines of the summit meeting, Mr. Obama is scheduled to meet
with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who has rebuffed American
pressure to abandon President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. The Obama
administration sees Russia as the key to forcing peace negotiations even
as prospects for a Geneva conference fade.
Mr.
Obama came around to the idea of arming the rebels, at least modestly,
only months after rejecting it. In part, that was because of
confirmation by intelligence agencies that Mr. Assad’s forces had used
sarin gas against his people. If Mr. Obama did not respond in some
fashion, it would have been taken as a question of credibility since he
had previously said such a development would change his calculus.
But
the move also reflects nervousness in the White House about the
increased involvement of Iran and its proxy group, Hezbollah, in the
fight on Mr. Assad’s behalf. With the Syrian opposition on the
defensive, a victory by Mr. Assad would be a victory for Iran as well.
By providing limited arms, Mr. Obama hopes to bolster the rebels enough
to even the odds and give the Syrian leadership incentive to broker a
resolution.
“We
believe that we can make a difference,” Mr. Rhodes said Friday. The aid
will ensure that the rebels are “able to firm up their position” and
become more cohesive. “We still believe that there is not a scenario we
can foresee where Bashar al-Assad can remain in power in a country that
so clearly rejects his rule.”
Even
as he outlined those goals, though, Mr. Rhodes made clear the limits of
Mr. Obama’s willingness to achieve them. The president wants to avoid
sending “heavier weapons systems,” Mr. Rhodes said, recognizing that
they might fall into the hands of Al Nusra Front, an opposition group
affiliated with Al Qaeda. Sending American troops is “off the table,”
Mr. Rhodes added, citing the difficulties they faced stopping violence
during the Iraq war. And as for a no-fly zone, he said “we don’t at this
point believe that the U.S. has a national interest in pursuing a very
intense, open-ended military engagement through a no-fly zone in Syria.”
Senator
Bob Corker of Tennessee, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations
Committee, has urged the administration for months to arm the opposition
yet also opposes a no-fly zone. While he supported Mr. Obama’s latest
decision, he said the president had not articulated a long-term
strategy, but instead seemed to be responding in a “transactional, ad
hoc” basis, buffeted by competing views around him.
“As
I watch from the outside, I do think that it’s just very difficult for
them to come to a place and settle upon it,” Mr. Corker said. “There are
a lot of different voices, there’s a lot of agonizing.”
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.
A version of this article appears in print on June 15, 2013, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Heavy Pressure Led to Decision On Syrian Arms.
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