Former senior Obama official: Inaction in Syria result of desire to keep Iran deal alive

Former U.S. ambassador to Syria Robert Ford said in June 2014 that he resigned from his post because he was “no longer in a position where I felt I could defend American policy.” In May, Hof wrote a similar critique of the Obama administration, noting that it failed to protect Syrian civilians because that would have conflicted with the “pursuit of a nuclear agreement with Assad’s premier long-term enabler and partner in mass murder: Iran.”

In “The Mind of the President,” which was published in the June 2016 issue of The Tower Magazine, editor-in-chief David Hazony quoted Hof’s earlier critique of the Obama administration and provided context for the scope of the catastrophe in Syria:

That this concern was decisive to the situation in Syria—and the mass refugee crisis now wreaking havoc across the Middle East and Europe—was also reiterated by Frederic Hof, Obama’s former point man on Syria who is one of the few administration officials to resign in protest.

For an American president and his principal subordinates to avert their gazes from mass homicide and from doing anything at all to mitigate or complicate it is far from unprecedented. In this day and age, however, knowing what we know about 20th century failures to protect civilians thanks to the research and writings of Samantha Power and others, it is stunningly remarkable and regrettable. For a man of Barack Obama’s evident humanity and values, surely there has been something of transcendent importance that has stayed his hand from protecting Syrian civilians; something of paramount national security significance that has stopped him from acting in support of American friends and allies trying desperately to deal with the hemorrhage of humanity from Syria. Thanks to Ben Rhodes and his chronicler we know now what it has been: Pursuit of a nuclear agreement with Assad’s premier long-term enabler and partner in mass murder: Iran.

The result of U.S. inaction, when action was possible and proposed, in order to make sure nothing stopped the Iran deal, has been the perpetuation of Assad’s brutality and the glaring perpetuation of a war that pits radical Sunnis against Shiites against Kurds against less-radical Sunnis against an Alawite regime, with Russia and Turkey and Iran and Saudi Arabia vying for influence, leaving hundreds of thousands dead and many millions displaced. Syria is now a country that will never be whole again but may also never successfully break apart. It is a war that could last a hundred years.

“By not intervening early,” French Prime Minister Manuel Valls told Goldberg, “we have created a monster.” How big of a monster? Estimates range as high as 400,000 dead and tens of millions displaced.

Think about it: From a humanitarian perspective, the devastation resulting from the effort to prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb may have already exceeded the devastation that would result from Iran actually dropping a nuclear bomb.

This article is published courtesy of The Tower