Guest Post by Pat Buchanan
When America did nothing after Obama’s red line was crossed, U.S. credibility suffered.
In early August 1990, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein invaded and occupied Kuwait and declared it to be his nation’s lost 19th province.
Said George H. W. Bush, “This will not stand!”
Translation: Get out of Kuwait, Saddam, or we will come over there and throw you out.
Six months later, after a five-week air assault on Iraq, a U.S.-led army of 500,000, in a 100-hour ground war, sent Saddam’s legions back up the road to Basra and Baghdad.
President Bush was a serious man.
A decade later, Barack Obama warned Syria’s Bashar Assad that if he used chemical or biological weapons in his civil war, this would cross his “red line” and Obama would respond.
Thus, when chemical weapons were used, allegedly by the regime, Obama prepared to make good on his warning.
Unfortunately for Obama, Americans arose in protest against his taking us into Syria’s civil war and Congress balked at authorizing an attack, though Secretary of State John Kerry pleaded and promised that the U.S. strike would be “unbelievably small.”
When America did nothing after Obama’s red line was crossed, U.S. credibility suffered.
In April 2018, after Assad allegedly used chlorine gas in his civil war, Trump joined our NATO allies in launching 120 cruise missiles.
Presumably, U.S. credibility was reestablished.
Of late, Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s foreign policy team have both been drawing red lines and warning Iran and China not to cross them or they’d face U.S. military action, even at risk of a wider war.
Trump has reportedly put out word that any killing of an American anywhere in the Middle East, traceable to Iran or its proxies, will result in U.S. action against Iran itself.
A general of the Iranian Republican Guard has reportedly warned Iran’s militia allies in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq to hold off any attack on Americans so as not to give Trump an excuse to launch a war.
Other red lines have lately been drawn.
In a Nov. 12 phone call with Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, Joe Biden apparently agreed that the U.S.-Japan security treaty of 1960 covers the Senkaku Islands controlled by Japan but claimed by China. Almost every day of 2020, China has sent ships into the waters around the Senkakus.
Said Suga, “President-elect Biden gave me a commitment that Article 5 of the US-Japan security treaty applies to the Senkaku Islands.”
If taken literally, this means the U.S. would treat a Chinese attempt to seize these rocks as we would treat a Chinese attack on the Japanese Home Islands.
The newest red line was drawn by Trump’s national security adviser Robert O’Brien.
A year ago, a Chinese ship smashed up a wooden trawler with two dozen Filipino fishermen aboard near Reed Bank in the South China Sea. Fortunately, the Filipinos were rescued by a Vietnamese fishing boat. Reed Bank is also claimed by China.
On a trip to Asia, O’Brien told Philippines officials that the U.S. does not recognize the Chinese claim, and they should go ahead and exploit the resources around Reed Bank. And if Philippine vessels come under attack, our mutual security treaty dating to the 1950s will be invoked and America will come to the defense of the Philippines.
What this sounds like, indeed, appears to be to Beijing, is a U.S. commitment to fight to defend Manila’s claims to shoals, reefs and rocks in the South China Sea. Earlier this fall, Manila announced plans to restart oil and gas exploration around Reed Bank.
O’Brien said bluntly of the territories around Reed Bank:
“They belong to the Philippine people. They don’t belong to some other country that just because they may be bigger than the Philippines they can come take away and convert the resources of the Philippine people. That’s just wrong.”
O’Brien added: “Any armed attack on Philippine forces aircraft or public vessels in the South China Sea will trigger our mutual defense obligations.”
Beijing is visibly angered by the U.S. assertions that they have no legitimate claim to the Senkakus in the East China Sea or to the Manila-claimed islets, reefs and rocks in the South China Sea, and that the U.S. military will take the side of Tokyo and Manila in a collision with China.
Red lines are, at root, war guarantees. And, often, the result of issuing such war guarantees is that they are called in and lead to wars that are sometimes fatal to the great powers that issue them.
In 1914, Kaiser Wilhelm issued his famous “blank check” to his Austrian allies to punish the Serbs for complicity in the assassination of their archduke. Austria’s attack on Serbia led to World War I, and the end of the Kaiser’s Hohenzollern dynasty.
In late March of 1938, Neville Chamberlain gave an unsolicited war guarantee to Poland, to come to its defense if the Polish colonels refused to negotiate with Berlin over the German port of Danzig.
How did that one work out for the Brits?
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Bush is criminal globalist puppet and Assad never gassed his people. Has Pat gone over to the dark side?
Assad will soon be gassing his people again. I give it about 6-7 months. And by “Assad” I mean the CIA and the White Helmets film production crew. Auditions begin soon for children who can be covered in dust and fake blood and look sad.
Bush the Dead was a criminal long before Hollywood Reagan used him to pacify the Swamp so he could be (s)elected and installed in 80. Pat was in the thick of the Swamp himself for years…can leopards change their spots??? I think not….
House passes bill to pay for NATO mercenaries in 46 U.S. cities
https://brassballs.blog/home/house-passes-bill-hr-7120-to-pay-for-nato-mercenaries-in-46-us-cities-american-united-nations-un-bill-barr-doj-police-review-boards
If they want a fucking civil war or full out revolution let this happen. People will love making red mist of foreign mother fuckers. Surely
Pat Buchanan has become such an asswipe!
>Americans arose in protest
Wut? I don’t recall such. 30 people in front of the WH maybe? Links please.
>Congress balked at authorizing an attack
Muaaahahahahaa!
Tell us again, when was the last time Congress had authorized any US attack?
>Secretary of State John Kerry pleaded and promised…
Are you effing kidding me? A full-on boots-on-the-ground invasion had basically already been publicly announced. Expected to occur a few days later.
How about some more serious look behind the facades??
My best guess is the Russians told Obama in no uncertain terms, that large-scale invasion into Syria would be taken by them as the US’ wish to commence WWIII.
As nothing much smaller than that would have stopped the already rolling US war machine at that point.
Yep. Little by little Pat continues to chip away at his credibility and his legacy.
The MIC are licking their chops for the coming Biden / China showdown. You see all this narrative that China is paying off the deep state etc. That our leftist are communist. What better way to crush that narrative than a war with china instigated by the ones the narrative claims are in bed and beholden to China. It. Is. Coming.