America’s Cash-for-Genocide Program in Syria

[TomSea]

America’s Cash-for-Genocide Program in Syria - Tablet Magazine
Lee Smith
TabletHeader

June 6, 2018 • 9:30 PM

Like the president he served, Ben Rhodes wanted to stop Bashar al-Assad from gassing little children. But it was complicated.

In an excerpt from his new book, The World As It Is, published in The Atlantic, Barack Obama’s former deputy national security adviser explains the decision-making that led Obama to choose against bombing Assad targets in late summer 2013. Among other issues, writes Rhodes, the White House didn’t know if it could trust the assessment coming from the American intelligence community claiming that Assad had used chemical weapons against his own people. U.S. spies got Iraq wrong. Obama was elected because he got Iraq right.

With that in mind, Obama told Rhodes that “it is too easy for a president to go to war.” Also, the White House could find no legal basis to strike Syria. The Europeans backed off at the last minute, and Senate Republicans like Marco Rubio, who talked a tough game, refused to vote for the authorization of military force.

Read more at: http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/263446/americas-cash-for-genocide-program-in-syria

Tablet Magazine is a Jewish publication.