The UN should verify the use of chemical weapons before unilateral action is considered and/or taken.
This article has several givens: First, the main document/source of information by which to judge the Syrian Chemical Weapons issue will be the August Rose Garden Speech given to the public by President Obama. This speech is available to be read at CNN.com by clicking HERE. Also, the video will be embedded below for your convenience. Why is the speech alone going to be the document by which to judge the situation? During his August 31st speech, President Obama wanted congressional and public support for US intervention in Syria, his arguments and evidence alone should be convincing enough for the US public and the legislative branch of our government to support his idea.
Second, any equivocation or political maneuverings made by the President and/or other political entities regarding this issue after the August 31st speech will be disregarded. This article is discussing the logic and rhetorical value of the August 31st speech singularly.
What is the primary goal of the speech?
During the August 31st speech, President Obama expressed that he wanted the US Military to intervene against the Assad regime in Syria. This intervention was brought up primarily but not singularly due to the highly-probable use of chemical weapons against the Syrian population.
What does he want?
President Obama wanted a military intervention without, “boots on the ground.”
Analysis:
The facts as presented by the Augusts 31st speech include but are not limited to:
1. Intelligence points to the fact that civilian casualties are mounting in Syria. These casualties include young children which are showing symptoms of chemical attacks.
2. Sources in the region point that a chemical attack did in fact take place.
To begin, President Obama’s primary argument revolves around the chemical weapon usage. He says that the use of chemical weapons is a violation of international law. He is completely correct in that analysis.
Also, by using the term, “boots on the ground,” the President is ruling out a ground invasion. So what is left? Our Navy has the ability to block ports…and our cruisers have the technology to launch airstrikes and also deploy drones. Drones, blockade of Mediterranean seaports and/or missile strikes are the most common Non-Boots-on-Ground forms of modern military actions.
What should we do? Is the President right in wanting to use US Military force against the Assad regime?
Since President Obama’s argument is pinned to the chemical weapons attack, we must dig further into the logic used to create this argument.
First and foremost, international law should be enforced, internationally. International laws are created to decrease the level of anarchy in the international system. For one country such as the United States to intervene in what is obviously a coup or a type of civil war and/or unrest….that is a contradiction to the purpose for the UN Security Council.
The UN Security Council is made up of the victors of WWII as well as secondary rotating countries. The primary purpose of the UN Security Council is to…make decisions regarding the enforcement of international law.
Quite conveniently, in the transcript, you will read that President Obama clearly points out the fact that the UN Security Council is too, “paralyzed” to do anything to stop the bloodshed in Syria.
But wait a minute, if the enforcement of International Law is the primary job of the UN Security Council, then shouldn’t the focus of the United States be on rectifying the paralysis in the UN Security Council?
Of course, Russia has interests with Syria and there is undoubtedly several layers of economic and political intrigue which justify this paralysis. Yet the inefficacy of the Security Council is not in of itself a justification for unilateral action. In fact, if the UN Security Council is not effectively diagnosing the chemical weapons situation in Syria, then this entire speech should have been about rectifying the problems with the UN Security Council through diplomatic and/or economic channels. This line of thinking is then quickly brushed aside by a sub-argument regarding the escalation of future threats which violate international law. Bioweapons in the hands of terrorists and other scenarios are brought up as methods to show the listener how we are on a slippery slope when International Law is ignored.
The problem with the argument that bioweapons can get into the hands of terrorists, that chemical weapons will be used more often in the future and genocide will be more prevalent as a result of US inaction against the Assad regime is this: President Obama provides at least some evidence that chemical weapons are being used in Syria. Yet in his August 31st speech, he provides absolutely no evidence that any terrorist group will become emboldened to use bioweapons by the outcome of events in Syria. He provides no evidence that chemical weapons are being considered in other civil unrest situations in the global scene today. And President Obama provides no evidence that any groups are contemplating changing their plans to either commit or not commit genocide as a result of what happens in Syria. Therefore, President Obama’s secondary argument regarding International Law Violation Proliferation is slippery-slope conjecture at best.
From an argument analysis standpoint, President Obama attempted to mix two arguments into one consolidated message. The quick and dirty is that first: Chemical Weapons are illegal and we should do something about it. And secondly, if we don’t do something about it now…it will come back to haunt us later.
Unfortunately, the first part of the argument is flawed. Chemical Weapons are illegal, but we shouldn’t do anything about it. The UN Security Council has the authority, and responsibility to create coalitions and interventions against violations of International Law. An example of a logical coalition against this kind of problem would be the first Iraq War: Desert Storm. The kind of intervention President Obama is recommending is more in line with the political logic of the Second Iraq War…with decisions being based on words like, “Our intelligence shows…”
Quite simply Mr. President, our intelligence shows lots of things. International Law shows another.
So if upholding international law isn’t the point of our intervention in Syria…then what is it about anyway?
To answer that, one must examine what the United States has to gain from intervention in Syria. As we already know, US Intervention in the Middle East rarely has a stabilizing effect on the region. So this probably doesn’t have to do with United States security.
As we revisit a key statement mentioned earlier, “boots on the ground.” It becomes apparent that President Obama wants the US population to know that not a single human soldier will be stationed in Syria. So what’s Obama going to do? Will we lob a few cruise missiles into Assad’s territory and hope he is deterred from future chemical attack ambitions? This is unlikely, besides, judging from history, if President Obama was going to simply launch cruise missiles, he would have done so already. From a historical perspective, President Clintion in the 1990’s launched cruise missiles as retribution for attacks against US Embassies. It’s doubtful that President Obama will simply replicate a fire-and-forget scenario. This is especially unlikely when we factor in all the pomp and rhetoric regarding upholding international law. So we can rule out missiles.
The idea of a blockade doesn’t make much sense either. Syria’s Mediterranean coastline is important but it isn’t nearly as important to the civil war effort as the land routes to the East. Also, the United States public got extremely shaky when words like, “Naval Blockade” were thrown around during the Iran tensions over a year ago. So a bootless blockade is out.
That leaves us with one, final scenario.
Drones.
All this rhetoric, all this talk is most likely a way to test second-generation drones in an intense combat situation with “chemical weapon” environmental factors. Besides, drones don’t wear boots. That’s why this article argues the military is poised to intervene “at the President’s command” and there is no rush to make a hasty decision. A chemical weapon combat scenario for drone testing would yield invaluable statistical data. Also, a successful mission by drone technology against any targets deep within Syrian territory would justify billions of dollars of University drone research over the past 5 years…and would help to procure billions more.
Tyler Stansfield Jaggers is an amateur Actionscript 3.0 programmer and the owner of Overidon.com. He is a graduate of San Francisco State University with a B.A. in International Relations.