“We are going to have to make a choice,” said Richard Clarke, a former top counterterrorism adviser, during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week” a few weeks back. “If we want to eliminate this ISIS we are going to have to deal with people we don’t like. The president said we wanted Assad out. Well, we are going to have to say something to the Syrian government if we are going to start bombing in Syria. And if we are going to get rid of ISIS, we are going to have to start bombing in Syria.”Wednesday night’s speech showed that on this matter too, Obama sees limits to this form of realism. Instead of partnering with Assad, he said, America would prop up the more moderate opposition in the country “as the best counterweight to extremists.” If that seems overly hopeful as far as foreign policy approaches go, it’s because it probably is. It wasn’t too long ago that Obama himself described these rebel groups as “former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth.” It had “always been a fantasy,” he proclaimed, that sending them arms would make a difference.
But jumping into bed with Assad was something that he wouldn’t do, even if it presented a convenient short-term shortcut. The president has repeatedly called for Assad’s ouster and came THISclose to bombing his regime after it used chemical weapons on its people. To do an about-face at this point would be a political pirouette in the absurd.