The Wall Street Journal has an article this morning “U.S. Deploys Tech Firms to Win Syrian Allies” in which it explains how the US State Department keeps trying to figure out ways to woo Assad away from Iran. Jay Solomon is brilliant at choosing the right mixtures of words, his and others, to project a sixth sense to his pieces.
Apparently, some in the US State Department, still to this day, remain committed to pursuing Assad to peel him away from Iran. Three Secretaries of State and seven years of sticks and carrots are not enough. They keep re-inventing ways and means to fail again and again. The reason being is that they are not held accountable by the US Congress the way others are using much lower testing standards. When a policy of appeasement fails, newspapers do not write about it. It’s not newsworthy enough. Congress never investigates US bureaucrats for failures until a disaster happens.
In other words, failures for trying are applauded and do not get the same scrutiny as failing to try. Actual success no longer figures on anyone’s agenda, not Congress and not the Executive Branch. Any wonder why people are tired of Washington?
Instead of asking “What can we do to peel Assad away”, I believe, for once, we should ask “What can the US do with its military might to force Assad to behave in America’s best interests”? The Syrian people best interests? With some diplomats, pleasing others and managing one’s duties seem to overlap all the times. It must be all the cocktail parties they go to.
As Ammar Abdul Hamid said in the piece: “I think the administration is fooling itself it believes that this type of engagement will bring about a more democratic Syria, .. Assad has shown absolutely no signs of loosening his grip on society, and in many ways he’s gotten worse.”
But then, this is not really about democracy. This is about mining one’s job and harvesting ideas to fill holes in one’s resume with failures spun as successes if only Assad can cooperate a bit with them. Just a bit, PLEASE!!!
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