A recent headline in The Atlantic (6/9/17) earnestly pondered if the US was “Getting Sucked Into More War in Syria.” “Even as Washington potentially stumbles into war…” was how the article’s discussion began.
One of the most common tropes in US media is that the US military always goes to war reluctantly—and, if there are negative consequences, like civilian deaths, it’s simply a matter of bumbling around without much plan or purpose.
This framing serves to flatter two sensibilities: one right and one vaguely left. It satisfies the right-wing nationalist idea that America only goes to war because it’s compelled to by forces outside of its own control; the reluctant warrior, the gentle giant who will only attack when provoked to do so. But it also plays to a nominally liberal, hipster notion that the US military is actually incompetent and boobish, and is generally bad at war-making.
This is expressed most clearly in the idea that the US is “drawn into” war despite its otherwise unwarlike intentions. “Will US Be Drawn Further Into Syrian Civil War?” asked Fox News (4/7/17). “How America Could Stumble Into War With Iran,” disclosed The Atlantic (2/9/17), “What It Would Take to Pull the US Into a War in Asia,” speculated Quartz (4/29/17). “Trump could easily get us sucked into Afghanistan again,” Slate predicted (5/11/17). The US is “stumbling into a wider war” in Syria, the New York Times editorial board (5/2/15) warned. “A Flexing Contest in Syria May Trap the US in an Endless Conflict,” Vice News (6/19/17) added.
“Sliding,” “stumbling,” ”sucked into,” “dragged into,” ”drawn into”: The US is always reluctantly—and without a plan—falling backward into bombing and occupying. The US didn’t enter the conflict in Syria in September 2014 deliberately; it was forced into it by outside actors. The US didn’t arm and fund anti-Assad rebels for four years to the tune of $1 billion a year as part of a broader strategy for the region; it did so as a result of some unknown geopolitical dark matter.
Syria especially evokes the media’s “reluctantly sucked into war” narrative. Four times in the past month, the Trump administration has attacked pro-regime forces in Syria, and in all four instances they’ve claimed “self-defense.” All four times, media accepted this justification without question (e.g., Reuters, 6/19/17), despite not a single instance of “self-defense” attacks occurring under two-and-a-half years of the Obama administration fighting in Syria. (The one time Obama directly attacked Syrian government forces, the US claimed it was an accident.)
Why the sudden uptick in “self-defense”? Could it be because, as with the bombing of ISIS (and nearby civilians), Trump has given a green light to his generals to adopt an itchy trigger finger? Could it be Trump and Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who has a decades-long grudge against Iran, want to blow up Iranian drones and kill Iranian troops? No such questions are entertained, much less interrogated. The US’s entirely defensive posture in Syria is presented as fact and serves as the premise for discussion.
When US empire isn’t reluctant, it’s benevolent. “Initially motivated by humanitarian impulse,” Foreign Policy‘s Emile Simpson (6/21/17) insisted, “the United States and its Western allies achieved regime change in Libya and attempted it in Syria, by backing rebels in each case.”
“At least in recent decades, American presidents who took military action have been driven by the desire to promote freedom and democracy,” the New York Times editorial board (2/7/17) swooned.
“Every American president since at least the 1970s,” Washington Post’s Philip Rucker (5/2/17) declared, “has used his office to champion human rights and democratic values around the world.” Interpreting US policymakers’ motives is permitted, so long as the conclusion is never critical.
In contrast, foreign policy actions by Russia are painted in diabolical and near-omnipotent terms. “Is Putin’s Master Plan Only Beginning?” worried Vanity Fair (12/28/16). “Putin’s Aim Is to Make This the Russian Century,” insists Time magazine (10/1/16).
Russia isn’t “drawn into” Crimea; it has a secret “Crimea takeover plot” (BBC, 3/9/15). Putin doesn’t “stumble into” Syria; he has a “Long-Term Strategy” there (Foreign Affairs, 3/15/16). Military adventurism by other countries is part of a well-planned agenda, while US intervention is at best reluctant, and at worst bumfuzzled—Barney Fife with 8,000 Abrams tanks and 19 aircraft carriers.
Even liberals talk about war in this agency-free manner. Jon Stewart was fond of saying, for example, that the Iraq war was a “mistake”—implying a degree of “aw shucks” mucking up, rather than a years-long plan by ideologues in the government to assert US hegemony in the Middle East.
War, of course, isn’t a “mistake.” Nor, unless your country is invaded, is it carried out against one’s will. The act of marshalling tens of thousands of troops, scores of ships, hundreds of aircraft, and coordinating the mechanisms of soft and covert power by State and CIA officials, are deliberate acts by conscious, very powerful actors.
Media shouldn’t make broad, conspiratorial assumptions as to what the bigger designs are. But neither are they under any obligation to buy into this mythology that US foreign policy is an improvised peace mission carried out by good-hearted bureaucrats, who only engage in war because they’re “sucked into” doing so.
Doug Latimer
Points taken, certainly, but is the assertion of imperial domination at the cost of countless lives considered a “broad, conspiratorial assumption”
Or simply stating the literally bleeding obvious?
Gregory Kruse
We seem to continually forget that we are living in an empire. Some people think they should resist it, especially now that we have an emperor who doesn’t think it necessary to hide the fact. It dawned on me the other day, that resistance to war never stops war; it only hurts the resistor. The supporters of empire and war always win. We Americans should be glad that we are inside the empire, not on the outside.
michael
So then we must state that as fact. We are the empire and you must serve the needs of the empire as we go “not stumble” to war. The wealthy, political elites, the well connected will not serve to defend the aggressive, all-consuming needs of the empire; only to concentrate the wealth to maintain control over the masses who will serve the our needs. War is peace
Nick
Excellent analysis well stated!
Youri
The US and UK aren’t being sucked into the Syrian Conflict, they actively want to and with or without congress have outsourced it to the deep state and their corrupt allies of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Rania Khalek’s excellent journalism on Syria lays this bare.
Barney Burnside
I love Rania even if she plagiarizes Vanessa Beeley.
Jasper den Ouden
Also Eva Bartlett, i think they’re pro-palestinian activists misguided into thinking they should support Assad. Of course, they’re often right, but then to their discredit, withhold or downplay Assads crimes.
howard
The Syrian government is the legitimate internationally recognized government of Syria. It is not a regime. Calling it such is part of the same problem that this article is deriding.
Mikey Maxon
Of course it is legitimate. His father designated him as his successor according to the laws of Baathist scripture. And look how good he did in the first election he ran in. 98 percent of Syrians voted for him. Gosh, what a popular guy and he didn’t even have Mayor Daley working on his campaign.
Cosmic Brain
Not every legitimate government is democratic. See: Saudi Arabia
howard
See USA
Johnny Jones
I don’t see why Adam Johnson bothered. The USA has no interest in toppling Assad since he is so good at bombing hospitals, driving people into desperate flight over the Mediterranean, etc., associated with “Assad or the country burns”. For the past 6 years Johnson has worked overtime to defend Assad so why would he be bothered by imperialism bombing one of his enemies in Raqqa? So what if hundreds of ordinary Syrians get killed in these attacks. Just collateral damage when you are trying to conduct a war on terror.
WONDERing WOMAN
I think it’s helpful to look at England and George the 3rd and why that war didn’t work out so well for England., and maybe some of the same things apply with America today.
England had all the best and biggest war toys and even hired guns. ( Maybe Blackwater, Academie and Xe and all the other private contractors are like the red coats with all the soldiers and all the BIG money of war. Then of course, England hired their own soldiers for hire. Since they were the biggest–how could they not win? I think America suffers from this—-also the mental health of that King George was in question and so was the awful medical care given him—-and we share that today too.
I think many in Ameruca believe, like that old England did—–that if they were top dog they would always be top dog—-kind of like America now. The soldiers were far away from home and in a land where people didn’t want them, and they would be unsure of the enemy because the Americans would dress as Indians to confound them , just as the ME version dressed in burkas to confound the soldiers. Still, I bet after a week or 2 all soldiers of both historys just wanted to go back home, because they do not profit by invading another land. The people at the top in old England thought that might makes right, just like many in America think today. Because war equipment and killer machines are bigger and faster. America is falling apart faster than old England did. After such losing wars, people don’t want to go and waste the money, except for thse at the top. Afghanistan was the graveyard of empires for Alexander the Great, and it almost was for America the first time, so I guess America wants a second chance to finish itself off! A sad fact of history—— when empires get too big and too far flung, they seem to all implode————the war on climate change is the only one to be fighting, but too many believe that “pre-emptive strike and investments count for more than we the People and We the Planet. Poor sad dying planet. as we stumble on to oblivion: (
JK
Give this man a cigar
Michael Kenny
The link between Ukraine and Syria is the nub of the Syrian problem. By wading into the Syrian civil war, Putin made Syria part of his wider dispute with the US, NATO and the EU. Syrians are now irrelevant to their own civil war! For a whole series of moral and practical reasons, Putin must be removed from Ukraine and since he has bogged himself down irreversibly in Syria, it’s logical to fight him there, where he’s most vulnerable. The US “stumbled” when Obama failed to stand up firmly to Putin in Ukraine, thereby encouraging the latter to up the ante in Syria. It would undoubtedly have been better if Obama hadn’t “stumbled” in Ukraine, but he did and there’s no going back on that now. The US thus has little choice but to fight Putin in Syria so as not to encourage him to grab more of other countries’ territory.
Druid
Hardly stumbling. Following the Yinon Plan!
Suki
Well said. Putting ourselves on a pedestal and imputing awful motives to others is a common human trait. It is this flaw that is the major cause of the problems between individuals and countries. Hence, the admonition by Christ, ‘do unto others as you would others do unto you’. This simple truth, if followed by all, can bring about a utopian world!