APRIL 20, 2018, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A5
KeizerOpinion
KEIZERTIMES.COM
High explosives do not
constitute a Syria policy
By MICHAEL GERSON
“Mission Accomplished” may be
the most famous presidential words
never actually uttered by a president.
I know because, as head of presi-
dential speechwriting at the time, I
didn’t write them. They
were found on a ban-
ner, but never in a single
draft of President George
W. Bush’s 2003 remarks
aboard the USS Lincoln.
But now that this
phrase has been tweeted
and defended by Presi-
dent Trump, it is worth examining
what he has accomplished by his
missile strikes in Syria.
High explosives do not consti-
tute a Syria policy, which has been
lacking across two administrations.
So it might be more useful to ask a
narrower question: What principle is
America trying to enforce?
Trump seems committed to the
norm that chemical weapons attacks
against civilians should bring kinetic
consequences. That is superior to
President Obama’s version, in which
chemical attacks brought only un-
enforced threats. Trump’s carefully
calibrated application of Tomahawks
easily clears his predecessor’s bar,
which was barely off the fl oor.
Trump’s position, however, has its
own share of inconsistencies. It pri-
oritizes the lives of children killed
by a nerve agent above the lives of
children killed by a barrel bomb.
Targeting civilians -- through terror
bombing, forced starvation, torture
and the repeated use of chemical
weapons -- has been an essential
element of Bashar Assad’s strategy
in the Syrian civil war. His aim has
not merely been to reclaim territory
from the rebels; it has been to terrify
the Syrian people into submission or
fl ight. And, with the help of Russia
and Iran, he has largely succeeded.
There is a further inconsisten-
cy. The images of children after a
chemical weapons attack seem to
move the president. The images of
5 million refugee children -- many
out of school, many traumatized by
violence and loss -- seem to lack
that power. So far this year, Amer-
ica has taken 11 -- yes, 11 -- Syrian
refugees. The Trump administration,
apparently, will avenge the deaths of
Syrian children, but not welcome
them.
In spite of all this, it can be ar-
gued that the norm prohibiting the
use of chemical weapons is a special
one. In a world where wars often in-
volve criminal barbarity, it is useful
to place at least one act beyond the
pale.
But this should not be mistaken
for the deterrence of future chemi-
cal attacks. Hitting a few sites with
perhaps 100 missiles may reduce
Assad’s capability to make more so-
phisticated chemical weapons. But
the chemical attack on Douma was
fairly primitive. The coalition strike
probably did not deprive
Assad of the ability to re-
peat this kind of tactic. And
Assad still has a powerful
incentive to do so, since
press reports indicate that
it was the chemical attack
that fi nally broke the spirit
of resisters in Douma.
Trump’s standard -- that a dic-
tator can indiscriminately kill his
people as long as he doesn’t use
chemical weapons -- is nearly lost
in the overarching lesson of the Syr-
ian confl ict. Assad has established
his own international norm: If you
make war on your own people -- if
you kill enough of them, brutal-
ize enough of them and displace
enough of them -- the world will
let you stay in power.
Here is the norm that America
might have defended: Mass atroci-
ties against civilians as a method of
warfare won’t be allowed to succeed.
This would involve not only pun-
ishing the use of chemical weapons
as a tactic, but also making sure that
the use of chemical weapons and
other violence directed at civilians
fails as a strategy.
The last two administrations have
placed their main emphasis on two
goals -- defeating the Islamic State
and opposing the use of chemi-
cal weapons -- for a reason. In the
chaos that once was Syria, Obama
and Trump have wanted to defi ne
America’s mission in ways that are
discrete, limited and achievable.
Both men can claim credit in the
campaign against the Islamic State
-- not a trivial matter. One of them
has, at least, maintained the pretense
of an international norm on chemi-
cal weapons.
In the real world, however, battles
are not won by limiting your ob-
jectives. The outcome in Syria that
would have best served American
values and interests? A well-armed
coalition of moderate rebels forcing
the regime to the negotiating table,
resulting in a coalition government
that includes some regime elements
but not Assad. After several wasted
years of indecision and indifference,
this is a distant, perhaps impossible,
dream. But it is the only result that
would have re-established the norm
that murdering innocents as part of
a military strategy won’t be allowed
to prevail. This mission was never
even attempted.
michael
gerson
(Washington Post Writers Group)
Trump’s turnover is huge
By DEBRA J. SAUNDERS
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas has been
keeping track of White House staff
turnover since the late 1990s, but
until President Donald Trump took
the oath of offi ce, the Brookings In-
stitution senior fellow told the Las
Vegas Review-Journal, “no one’s
ever cared about it.”
Turnover in the Trump White
House is, well, huge. The president
loves to compare himself to his pre-
decessor, and in this department,
Trump exceeds President Barack
Obama exponentially. In the fi rst
year of the Trump White House,
turnover was more than triple that
of Obama’s freshman year.
Already Trump has burned
through four communications di-
rectors—fi ve if you count Sean
Spicer twice for his stints doing
double duty as press secretary/com-
ms director—as well as hired three
national security directors —Mike
Flynn, H.R. McMaster and John
Bolton—and two chiefs of staff.
As a reality TV show host, Trump
famously told contestants, “You’re
fi red.” Tenpas uses a different phrase
to capture what it’s like to be canned
from the Oval Offi ce—RUP for
“resigned under pressure.”
“It’s rarely one thing,” Tenpas ex-
plained.
Indeed, it’s a standard question
when a cabinet member of staffer
leaves as to whether the individual
quit or was fi red.
For one thing, the process of be-
ing shown the door can take weeks,
months even. It starts with a leak
about the president’s dissatisfaction
with an individual. Then come the
denials, and even presidential tweets
damning said speculation as #fak-
enews. A week or so later, the gal-
lows drop.
The spectacle makes so much
noise that it drowns out the dam-
age done by staff churn. Generally,
a president’s fi rst staff represents the
A-team—the best hires of a new
executive—while their replacement
picks—the B-team —usually lack
their predecessors’ star power.
“Either he doesn’t realize or he
doesn’t care,” Tenpas said of Trump,
but “it’s really undermining his
agenda.”
The confi rmation process eats up
a lot of political capital in the Senate.
Consider CIA Chief Mike Pom-
peo, Trump’s pick to succeed un-
ceremoniously dumped Secretary
of State Rex Tillerson. Pompeo is
the exception to the replacement-
as-B-lister scenario. To Washington,
Tillerson always will be the remote
corporate big shot who hollowed
out Foggy Bottom.
With his sterling credentials that
include West Point and Harvard Law
School, his background of military
service, as a member of Congress and
successful leader at Langley, Pompeo
seems the perfect pick to bring tal-
ent back into the State Department
while working with Trump to craft
smart foreign policy.
In January 2017, the Senate con-
fi rmed Pompeo’s nomination as
CIA director by a vote of 66-32,
with 14 Democrats crossing the aisle
to support him and one Republi-
can, Rand Paul of Kentucky, voting
against him.
And yet Pompeo’s confi rmation
as secretary of state is not in the
bag—as it should be given his quali-
fi cations, acceptability to Democrats
just a year ago, and the nation’s need
to have a powerhouse at State’s helm
as Syria and Pyongyang threaten
American national security.
After he fi red Tillerson, Trump
told reporters he felt “close to hav-
ing the Cabinet and the other things
I want.” Now it’s not completely
clear he’ll get the top diplomat he
wants.
And if Pompeo does make it,
the road to confi rm his successor as
CIA chief, Gina Haspel, will be that
much rockier. “You shouldn’t have
to be going to well over and over
again,” Tenpas noted.
As of mid-March, according to
the Brookings tracker, 49 percent of
Trump’s top 65 people had left their
positions due to an RUP, fi ring, res-
ignation or promotion.
Trump has fl irted with fi ring a
number of Cabinet offi cials, includ-
ing Chief of Staff John F. Kelly. Worse,
he’s let it be known he is thinking of
not hiring a replacement.
Trump has not hired a replace-
ment for his last communications
director, Hope Hicks. He seems to
think he can be president and dabble
in other jobs that used to be presti-
gious.
“Who are the people who want
these jobs now?” Tenpas asked.
“How many people have walked
out of there with their reputations
intact?”
(Creators Syndicate)
Oh, for the days of bipartisanship
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Many Americans remember a more
constructive engagement between
members of Congress and may wish
for similar relationships considering
the great number of problems facing
our nation’s present and future. Coop-
eration and unity once characterized
deliberations in Washington, D.C., but
has now become one of the most de-
stroyed hopes in modern American
times. Meanwhile, what are the back-
ground trends in America now pre-
venting such an accord?
One trend reminds
of a time when Re-
publican
lawmakers
included left-of-center
members while Demo-
crats had its share of
right-of-center mem-
bers. However, at pres-
ent, each of our major
parties couldn’t be fur-
ther apart. Interestingly,
during the 50 years between 1930 and
1980, both parties were generally bal-
anced by centrist views. In the last 40
years, the parties have steadily drifted
from each other to become more and
more ideologically pure. Not only
have conservative Democrats and lib-
eral Republicans almost disappeared
but few if any centrists remain; hence,
with each passing congressional ses-
sion, the GOP has gone ever more
right, the Democrats more left.
Before 1980, it was diffi cult to pre-
dict from party affi liation whether
this and that American held liberal or
conservative views. The relationship
between party and voter, however,
has become close to totally predict-
able. It’s argued that the differences
have become more observable and the
dislikes more apparent.
Meanwhile, the Democrats, for-
merly more often from agrarian set-
tings with its power base in the South,
have in more recent times become the
urban party with attention focused
mainly on concerns to city dwellers
with cosmopolitan and secular val-
ues. Rural areas have shifted toward
the Republican Party whose members
tend toward religious, patriotic and
family-oriented interests and values.
These changes can arguably be attrib-
uted to in large measure from federal
legislation in the 1960s, including the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting
Rights Act of 1965.
The United States is diverse by way
of its multi-racial, religious and social
makeup. Many a social sci-
entist has noted that ethnic
uniformity makes it easier
for groups of like-minded
background to reach agree-
ment. The realignment of
political parties has led to
increasing divisions by race,
with the Republican Party
increasingly white and Dem-
ocrats more of color.
When the trends are studied, one
fi nds that the major parties have come
to represent diverging material inter-
ests with different moral values and
ways of living. As the divisions have
become more intense, oftentimes
Americans hold attitudes character-
ized by hostility and distaste that’s fo-
cused on the other political party and
its members. Again, using 1980 as a
benchmark year, the feelings toward
the opposite party have been trending
down with what’s been more notice-
able since 2000. Democrats more of-
ten nowadays dislike the GOP and the
people who support it with duplicate
feelings for Democrats by Republi-
cans. Consequence: lawmakers are
infl uenced accordingly and thereby
typically won’t compromise.
When Newt Gingrich became
House Speaker in 1995, he eagerly
sought many changes to the institu-
tion that had been dominated by
Democrats for 40 years. One big
change was to discourage new House
gene
h.
mcintyre
members from locating in Washing-
ton, D.C. That proximity of location,
in the past, resulted in more Republi-
cans and their families getting to know
Democrats and their families while
the House leader altered the calendar
so that most work got done midweek,
allowing members to fl y conveniently
in and out from their respective dis-
tricts. The U.S. Senate now resembles
the House.
Other trends include politicians
working the phones for dollars rather
than developing social relationships
while they think and worry about not
being partisan or ideological enough
to satisfy constituents, adhering there-
by to their party’s purest story line.
World War II united Americans but
the Cold War, and now dove versus
hawk, further divides the electorate
and offi ce-holders. Then, too, but not
necessarily a complete list of trends,
is the fact that the generations now
in charge had their political instincts
shaped by the internal American cul-
ture war that got underway in the
1960s.
A resolution to work better to-
gether does not appear likely in the
immediate future as we Americans
seem more inclined to metaphorically
race from one side of the Titanic to
the other with few willing to refl ect
on a middle of “ship” passage. Some
among us have concluded that de-
mocracy in a nation as large and di-
verse as America’s is simply impossible
and thereby we drift more and more
into “strong man” leadership to em-
brace an autocracy. It will be possible
to preserve our Constitution, our free-
doms, our way of life, and our insti-
tutions and norms only if the people
of the U.S. demand it. An autocracy
should be better known here as it
means an end to our way of life and,
with high predictability, one most citi-
zens will regret.
(Gene H. McIntyre lives in Keizer.)