Reagan’s Rules for Military Action pt.4

Reagan Rule 1: The United States should not commit its forces to military actions overseas unless the cause is vital to our national interest.

Is the use of chemical weapons in Syria “vital to our national interest”? 

The question is not, as Secretary of State Kerry says, whether the use of chemical weapons is “immoral.” It is immoral. So too was blowing up a barracks full of 241 sleeping Marine peacekeepers in Beirut.

The hard fact is that there have been, according to most news reports, some 100,000 people killed in this Syrian civil war. Killed by conventional means — guns and bombs. To be shot dead by a gun, to be killed dead because one is in the way of a bomb makes no one less dead than if killed by a chemical weapon. All are horrible. All leave behind gruesome pictures. (As here, with a victim being carried from the site of a car bombing in Damascus, no chemical weapons involved.)

 It is a very tough question to ask, perhaps to some a callous question. But it is a needed question in any event. Why is death by chemical weapon any more “vital to our national interest” than death by gun or bomb?

Reagan Rule 2: If the decision is made to commit our forces to combat abroad, it must be done with the clear intent and support to win. It should not be a halfway or tentative commitment, and there must be clearly defined and realistic objectives.

Every indication from President Obama and his team indicates they have every intention of violating Reagan Rule 2. What is apparently in store is launching cruise missiles to “degrade” Syria’s military capacity. This precisely meets Reagan’s definition of “a halfway or tentative commitment.” There is quite clearly no “clear intent…to win.” Sending these missiles is the equivalent of sending those Marines to Beirut. Absent an intention to win — which is to say — unhorse Bashar al-Assad as Reagan did with those Grenada Marxists — this is going to be seen by the world, by America’s enemies — as a “halfway or tentative commitment.” Thereby making an already bad situation worse.

Reagan Rule 3: Before we commit our troops to combat, there must be reasonable assurance that the cause we are fighting for and the actions we take will have the support of the American people and Congress. (We felt that the Vietnam War had turned into such a tragedy because military action had been undertaken without sufficient assurances that the American people were behind it.) 

Reagan finally made up his mind about Grenada in the dead of night, although he had in fact discussed the situation in public a number of times. On his return to Washington that October Monday, Reagan made a point of summoning congressional leaders for consultation — yet made it plain that he not only had the authority as commander-in-chief to rescue those 800 American medical students but that the Communist control of a small island was decidedly an American national security interest.

Liberals of the day, beginning with House Speaker Tip O'Neill  were furious. Steven F. Hayward’s The Age of Reagan documents the typical liberal fury beginning with O'Neill and one liberal politician after another and running on through the editorial page of the New York Times. Then, lo and behold, in addition to the findings of the American troops — Hayward documents the presence of 800 Cubans along with contingents of Russians, North Koreans, Bulgarians, East Germans and even Gaddafi’s Libyans plus enough arms for a ten-thousand man military along with a million rounds of ammunition “found in a false floor of the vacated Cuban embassy” — there came an unexpected something else.

The television cameras were on hand to record the return of the 800 rescued American students to the United States. The first student, thrilled to be safely home, bounded down the steps of the plane, stepped onto the tarmac — and knelt and kissed the ground.

By day’s end, liberals were in full retreat, with Speaker O'Neill saying grudgingly that Reagan was “justified” in his actions. The American people, in poll after poll, overwhelmingly agreed.

But importantly, when Reagan made his decision to pull the Marines out of Lebanon — they agreed as well. Reagan couldn’t justify an American war in Lebanon — and, he knew, the American people wouldn't support it either. So….there wasn’t one.

Reagan Rule 4: Even after all these other tests are met, our troops should be committed to combat only as a last resort, when no other choice is available. 

There is no present plan to send American troops to Syria. But what will happen as a result of any American missile attack on Syria? In fact, no one knows. So the question must be — if the Obama Administration generates a situation that does in fact call for committing combat troops as a “last result” — will they be prepared? And will they have the courage to do it if “no other choice is available”?