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| Fri., Mar. 22, 2013 |
| Syria Puts Obama's PR Skills on the Line |
| By Kevin McCauley |
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President Obama is escalating his rhetoric against the Syrian regime in the aftermath of a dubious report of a chemical attack. It's going to take a long more than tough talk from the president to rally U.S. public support for another military adventure in the Middle East.
Americans, still stung by the misadventure in Iraq and the continued agony of Afghanistan, are solidly against arming the motley crew of rebels who are trying to overthrow the country’s butcher, Bashar al-Assad.
A poll conducted in the U.K. and U.S. for YouGov-Cambridge and reported in today’s Guardian found 46 percent of Americas are against arming the Syrian freedom fighters. A telling figure: 52 percent of Republicans (perhaps a lesson learned from Iraq) don’t want to give guns to the good guys. Only 16 percent of those polled want to weaponize Assad’s enemies.
When it comes to military intervention, America loudly says "no thanks." Forty-two percent are against sending troops to enforce regime change.
Only 16 percent are supportive. The country is even hesitant about sending troops to protect civilians by a 33 percent to 27 percent margin.
Whether he likes it or not, Syria is the responsibility of our newly re-elected president. Does he stand idle with more than 70K Syrians dead so far? At the very least, will the president back a no-fly zone over Syria as advocated by hawks like John McCain of Arizona? You-Gov finds half of Americans support that option.
The only certainty: Obama will need to expend a lot of PR to convince Americans of the need to face up to its moral responsibilities in Syria. He'll also need to convince Syria's wealthy Arab neighbors about their obligations to finance the U.S. intervention, send their own legions into the fray and serve as peacekeepers to allow American troops to quickly exit once Assad is history.
The whole world is watching our president. |
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| Category:
Public Affairs Commentary |
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| Responses: |
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arthursolomon4pr@juno.com (Mar. 25, 2013):
Kevin -- No doubt that Obama has the skills. He just showed his skills by arranging for the Israel and Turkish leaders to speak to each other and agree to renew relations just before Obama's plane left Israel. But, of course,the Republicans will say nothing significantly happened during the Obama trip. If I remember quickly, the last venture of the GOP in that section of the world was the Iraq war. But most Republican mouth pieces don't like to speak about that. |
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Joe Honick, GMA International Ltd (Mar. 25, 2013):
Arming the Syriasn rebels would be one more debacle like the Libyan misadventure where we also did not and still do not know what and whom we investe in thst could cost lives, money and ebndless entanglements.
No one questions whether Assad is a nice guy or not, but, then we are tied in with countries like the Saudis where they still cut heads off for crimes.
It's time we permit countries to resolve their difficulties and only enter when our national interests are at risk. we permitted our meh, women and money to fight for Kuwait when Kuwait would not, and we're doing much the same in Afghanistan where we're even being told off by their president.
Note how the Chinese and the Russians have not suffered at sll by their standing back.
The only MIddle East country that has not asked for single American to fight for her and has backed the US without fail in the UN is Israel who does her own defending. Despite that reality, she has been held as the missing lynch pin for peace, |
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