The battle over Syria now involves so many world powers that it increasingly looks like a brewing world war. But not to worry: President Obama says his decisive alliance will win it.
He won’t lead that alliance, though. He’s too busy healing other global ills, like changing weather patterns.
So as more and more kids play in the Syrian sandlot with no hint of adult supervision, clashes like Tuesday’s downing of a Russian Su-24 fighter jet by Turkey are inevitable. (Perhaps the Russians aren’t exactly children — but they’re certainly not providing adult supervision.)
ISIS is attacking in Paris and around the world? Americans are worried that it’ll soon hit here? There’s a solution: A vast array of world leaders will gather in Paris to solve climate change. As Obama said Tuesday: “What a powerful rebuke to the terrorists it will be.”
Meanwhile, Syria’s murderous president, Bashar al-Assad, is holding on to power even though, per Obama, his continuous presence hinders any political solution there. Problem? Nah — 65 countries oppose Assad, while only two, Russia and Iran, are on his side.
As Obama put it, “We’ve got a coalition organized. Russia is the outlier.”
Organizing a community of allies, in other words, is Obama’s secret weapon in the battle of our time. He now even has someone to lead behind: his Tuesday guest at the White House, French President François Hollande. Next, our new world leader meets Germany’s Angela Merkel, and then flies to Moscow to powwow with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Yes, coordination is needed more than ever. But Hollande doesn’t exactly command the world’s top military power, and on Tuesday he vowed that, like Obama (unlike Russia or Iran), France won’t commit ground troops to Syria.
Never mind. Obama keeps talking about how “we” are united, even echoing Ronald Reagan by promising that “our way of life” is the reason that “we will win, and groups like ISIL will lose.”
But who’s “we”? It isn’t America; it’s his leaderless coalition. And key members of that coalition have interests that don’t always coincide with ours.
The downed Russian Sukhoi jet flew over a Turkish-Syrian border area where an Ankara-allied Turkmen militia is trying to unseat Assad, while Russia’s propping Assad up. The Syria war now threatens Moscow’s extensive relations with Turkey, as Putin urges Russian tourists to avoid popular Turkish resorts. And will Russia’s heating-gas supply to Turkey be interrupted next, just as winter approaches?
While the behavior of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan increasingly resembles Putin’s, their aims in Syria clash: Erdogan hates Assad. Putin’s his BFF. And ISIS doesn’t top the target list of either one of them.
Nor is it the top target of other allies: The Saudis and other Sunni Gulf countries are mostly worried about Iran. If ISIS can keep Iran occupied, why not? Israel reportedly bombed an arms delivery this week, showing once more that its top worries include Hezbollah and the Iranian presence on the Golan border with Syria — while Islamist terrorists in Syria, so far, have been careful not to mess with Jerusalem’s red lines.
On the other side of the equation, Iran constantly ups the ante by sending troops and allied militias to support Assad. Tehran, too, is more concerned about growing its Persian clout in the region than about defeating the scourge of Islamist terrorism. (Iran, after all, did a lot to develop such terrorism as a tool of war.)
Meanwhile, the allies that do share our concern about ISIS — from France to Luxembourg and everyone in between — are committing the minimal amount of firepower. Like us, they bomb just enough to say we’re doing something.
If a coalition with members whose interests clash is ever to work, it must have a credible power that will lead and unify the agenda. But with no serious skin in the game, no one will see Obama (or Hollande) as that leader.
Obama treats the war in Syria as a side show, secondary to his war on Republicans, income inequality and the weather — I mean climate.
Syria? Obama follows Mother Mary’s whispered words of wisdom: “Let It Be.” Except it increasingly resembles another golden age of rock album, the Rolling Stones’ much darker “Let It Bleed.”
And that’s how world wars begin.