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A Slight Imprecision?
Charlie Rose begins the "mulligan" segment with the suggestion that Morell might have slightly misspoken: "Tell me what you wanted to say so we understand it ... Tell me what you meant to say ... perhaps you did not speak as precisely as you should have or I didn't ask the right questions."
Morell responded, "No, no, Charlie, you always ask the right questions," and then he presented his killing plan as a route to peace, albeit one in which the United States dictates "regime change" in Syria: "So there's not a military solution to this, there is only a political solution. ... And that political solution is, in my view, a transition of power from Assad to a, a, a transitional government that represents all of the Syrian people.
"That is only going to happen if Assad wants it to happen, if Russia wants it to happen, if Iran wants it to happen. So ... we need to increase our leverage over those ... three people and countries, in order to get them more interested in having a conversation about a transition to a new government.
"And sometimes you use military force for military ends. Sometimes you use military force to give you political leverage. ... So what I tried to say was, Look, we need to find some ways to put some pressure on Assad, or put some pressure on Russia, and put some pressure on Iran. Now, with regard to Russia and Iran, what I said was, what I wanted to say was: Look, the moderate opposition, which the United States is supporting (everybody knows that, right?), the moderate opposition is already fighting the Syrian government, and they're already fighting Russians and Iranians. ...
"So ... the Syrian military, supported by Russia and the Iranians, is fighting the moderate opposition. And the moderate opposition is already killing Iranians and Syrians. What, what I said is that's an okay thing, right, because it puts pressure on Iran and Russia to try to see some value in ending this thing politically. And what I said is that we should encourage the moderate opposition to continue to do that and perhaps get a lot more aggressive." (Emphasis added)
Rose: "You weren't suggesting that the United States should do that, but the moderate forces on the ground."
Morell: "And I think I came across as saying U.S. Special Forces should go in there and start killing Iranians and Russians. I did not say that. ...
"So that's Russia and Iran. Now, Assad. How do you put some pressure on Assad, right? And here I did argue, Charlie, that the U.S. military itself should take some action, and what I would see as valuable is limited, very, very, very limited U.S. airstrikes against those assets that are extremely important to Assad personally. So, in the middle of the night you destroy one of his offices; you don't kill anybody, right, zero collateral. ... You do this with the same rules of engagement we use against terrorists. ... (Emphasis added)
"You take out his presidential aircraft, his presidential helicopters, in the middle of the night, right, just to send him a message and get his attention that, that maybe your days are numbered here, just to put some pressure on him to think about maybe, maybe the need to think about a way out of this.
"Now these issues that I'm talking about here, right, are talked about in the sit room. They're talked about in national security circles all the time, right. These are debates that people have, and I certainly understand that there are people on the other side of the argument from me, right. But I wasn't talking about the U.S. starting a major war with Iran and Russia, and I think that was the way people interpreted it."
Acts of Illegal War
Not to put too fine a point on this, but everything that Morell is advocating here violates international law, the rules that -- in other circumstances, i.e., when another government is involved -- the U.S. government condemns as "aggression" or as an "invasion" or as "terrorism."
Remember, after the U.S.-backed coup in Ukraine in February 2014, when Russia intervened to allow Crimea to hold a referendum on splitting away from the new regime in Kiev and rejoining Russia, the U.S. government insisted that there was no excuse for President Vladimir Putin not respecting the sovereignty of the coup regime even if it had illegally ousted an elected president.
However, regarding Syria, the United States and its various "allies," including Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Israel, have intervened directly and indirectly in supporting various armed groups, including Al Qaeda's Nusra Front, seeking the violent overthrow of Syria's government.
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