Regarding your editorial “A Serious Bombing Strategy” (Aug. 30): Given President Obama’s year-ago establishment of a “red line” policy for Syria’s use of chemical weapons, what meaningful consideration was given to what would be done if Syria crossed that line? Should the red line be breached, what other countries could be enlisted to support our military choices to impose “consequences” on Syria? What strategic purpose is served by ordering a pinprick punitive action against Syria? Is the pinprick primarily justified by a short-term Obama political rehabilitation given his ill-advised red-line threat of consequences? What time frame for “success” should be expected? And by what measurement? What costs will be tolerated as measured in Israeli (and other allies) lives if war spreads, as promised by Iran and Syria? What contingency plans exist if the war spreads? If the administration has any answers to these questions, why has it waited so long to share them with Congress? With the American people?
George Launey
How about an “orange line”? Bashar al-Assad, give us all of your chemical weapons. “Us” would ideally be the U.N. under U.S. and Russian oversight. Not so ideal would be to have the U.S. administer this alone. Failure to agree would result in an immediate full-court U.S. policy of regime change. Your choice, Mr. Assad. You have 48 hours to decide.
I. Mizraki
It has been a decade since former President George W. Bush was mocked for assembling a “coalition of the willing” to launch a war against Saddam Hussein. President Bush’s critics delightfully lampooned the coalition as evidence of the president’s ineffective leadership. Apparently, however, the world is even less enthused about our current president who tends to lead from behind. Perhaps some fear being shot in the back.
If the “coalition of the willing” was an embarrassment, how should we feel about our new coalition of one? Where are Tonga and Moldova when we need them? Mr. Obama’s promised restoration of respect for America is MIA.
Pat Evans
It is apparent from the empty response to Syrian gas attacks that neither Israel nor Saudi Arabia can rely on this administration to confront Iran. Neither the Obama White House nor the Clinton or Kerry State Departments had prepared options for the U.S. before or even after the first use of gas weeks ago.
For how many other potential crises are we currently without a plan?
David Eisenberg
Regarding your editorial “Leading From Behind Congress” (Sept. 3): John Kerry has at last answered Hillary Clinton’s infamous question about the U.S.’s choice to look the other way when Americans were under attack in Benghazi. To her question, “What difference does it make?,” he has responded: “What is the risk of doing nothing?” I believe the Syrian regime saw an America so afraid and unwilling to protect its own citizens abroad that it understood that inhumane attacks on citizens of any other nationality would be similarly ignored. What difference did it make, Hillary? This is the difference it made.
Yafa Liberman
Kimberley Strassel suggests (“The Politics of the Obama Delay on Syria,”op-ed, Sept. 3) that the president has put Republican members of Congress in a difficult position as they try to determine how to vote on punishment for Syria. It need not be. Republicans in Congress should take a page from the playbook of Barack Obama and vote “present” on the proposed resolution.
Harvey C. Barragar
President Obama’s friends around the world neither trust him, nor will they follow him. His enemies do not fear him, nor are they concerned about him.
Jack R. Wahlquist
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