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Friday October 12, 2012

Ryan/Biden Debate Shows Both Parties Indistinguishable on Syria

Posted by Omar Baddar at 3:03 pm

All those who harbored misconceptions about the potential impact of the 2012 presidential election on U.S. policy towards Syria were disillusioned last night during the vice-presidential debate, when Paul Ryan could not offer a single thing that the Romney administrated would do differently on Syria if elected.

When the topic of Syria came up, Joe Biden was the first to point out that there was no difference on policy there, saying:

“Now, every time the governor is asked about this, he doesn't say any — he say — he goes up with a whole lot of verbiage, but when he gets pressed, he says, no, he would not do anything different then we are doing now. Are they proposing putting American troops on the ground, putting American aircraft in their airspace? Is that what they're proposing? If they do, they should speak up and say so. But that's not what they're saying.”

When Ryan’s turn came, he confirmed that “nobody is proposing to send troops to Syria — American troops,” and went on to describe either vague or symbolic things they would have done differently in the past; things like not going to the U.N., identifying and supporting the Free Syrian Army sooner, having a “better plan” (whatever that means), and so on.

The moderator pressed Ryan on what the Romney administration would do if Assad didn’t fall, and his response was this:

“Well, we agree with the same red line, actually, they [as in the Obama Administration] do on chemical weapons, but not putting American troops in, other than to secure those chemical weapons. They're right about that. But what we should have done earlier is work with those freedom fighters, those dissidents in Syria. We should not have called Bashar Assad a reformer, and we should not have — we should not have waited to Russia to give us the green light.”

So both Romney and Obama have the same policy position: condemn Assad in the harshest terms, work with allies to support the right elements of the Syrian opposition, but no direct intervention unless there is a drastic development involving the use of chemical weapons or threatening vital American interests. Will that stop the campaigns from using the tragedy in Syria as a partisan foreign policy issue in the election? You bet it won’t. 

Tagged as Issues, Syria, Posted by Omar Baddar, Yalla Vote, Election Central