Under pressure to "do something" in Syria, Obama apparently bought into the dangerous idea that by ratcheting up the military pressure on Syria's President Bashar al-Assad by giving TOWs to groups like Ahrah ash-Sham that the jihadists would inflict enough damage on the Syrian military to force Assad to accept "regime change" in Damascus.
The risk in this calculation is that such political-military calibrations are never perfect because a little too much pressure could lead to the collapse of the Syrian army and a victory for the Army of Conquest and/or the Islamic State. Once in Damascus, who's to say that Ahrah ash-Sham won't return to its Al Qaeda roots or won't share power with its allies, Al Qaeda's Nusra?
And, it deserves remembering that the Islamic State (also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh) was originally "Al Qaeda in Iraq" -- and broke off from Al Qaeda Central over the tactical question of whether it makes sense to start the Islamist caliphate now (the ISIS position) or focus instead on mounting terrorist attacks against the West (Al Qaeda's position).
Kroft may not have known how entwined Obama, the Saudis and the Israelis are in assisting these Al Qaeda-connected movements (Israel has helped the Nusra Front near the Golan Heights), but he could have raised the question about exactly whom the Obama administration is assisting. Instead, he chose to lament that Putin is "bombing the people that we are supporting."
Kroft could have provided an important service to the American people if he had drawn Obama into his thoughts about the complexity of the Syrian thicket and asked whether the President thinks that -- except for ISIS -- Al Qaeda's other affiliates and spinoffs are no longer "terrorists."
Or, Kroft could have pressed Obama on whether the U.S. government or the Syrian people should get to decide whether "Assad must go!" Obama insists that the vast majority of Syrians are joining him in that demand, but why not test it in an election.
If Obama and Putin could cooperate on bringing Assad's representatives together with U.S.-backed "moderate" Sunni politicians -- with a stern mandate to work out a power-sharing unity government -- then a stabilized Syria could hold elections for leaders who reflect the public will. If such difficult arrangements were possible in Lebanon to resolve the sectarian conflict there, why couldn't a similar approach work in Syria?
The Narrow Frame
But these questions don't get asked in the narrow frame permitted by the mainstream media, which has presented a remarkably one-sided account of the Syrian conflict as well as other international crises, including the New Cold War hotspot, Ukraine. As much as American leaders boast about the diversity and pluralism in the U.S. media, there is little room for genuine independence and dissent at least from the side of seeking compromise and peace.
Indeed, suppressing such alternative analyses has become a prime purpose of the mainstream media. Remember how skeptics of the Iraq War were treated in 2002-03, either ignored or browbeaten by the likes of CNN's Wolf Blitzer and other media stars. Not even someone like former Vice President Al Gore, who defeated George W. Bush in the national popular vote in 2000, was allowed to make the case against the Iraq War to the broad TV public.
Then, during Campaign 2008, Sen. Barack Obama was pummeled over his opposition to the Iraq War "surge," which -- according to the then-popular "group think" -- had achieved "victory at last." Media stars, such as CBS News' Katie Couric and ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, demanded that Obama admit he was wrong to oppose the "surge" and that his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, was right to support it.
Obama's more nuanced explanation -- that a number of developments had temporarily brought the Iraq casualty rates down -- was correct, but he eventually caved in and confessed to his heresy in an interview with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly. A chastened Obama gushed that the "surge" had "succeeded beyond our wildest dreams." [See Consortiumnews.com's "Reviving the Successful Surge Myth."]
In a way, Kroft's interview was a bookend to that earlier experience for Obama getting schooled in the ways of Official Washington: a "group think" takes shape and the mainstream media enforces it with the intellectual standards of a junior-high in-crowd making fun of the poor kids' clothing.
Americans can expect something similar when CNN hosts the first Democratic presidential debate. The network has assigned four mainstream CNN correspondents to do the questioning while excluding any progressive voice in contrast to CNN's inclusion of a right-wing representative for its Republican debate.
If there were some gutsy, independent-minded progressive on the panel, he or she might ask some difficult questions to candidates who talk tough about the Middle East. For instance, some pointed foreign policy questions could be asked to the two frontrunners, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders:
--Secretary Clinton, what have you learned from your misguided support for the Iraq War that has spread violent disorder across the region and now into Europe? Do you think someone who showed such poor judgment in supporting a war that was illegal under international law and involved massive human rights violations should be rewarded with the Presidency of the United States? Do you regret your enthusiasm for regime change in Libya that contributed to more death and destruction and to the spread of ISIS into northern Africa? Considering everything -- including the torture of Muammar Gaddafi -- do you regret your joke, "we came, we saw, he died"?
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