Watching the reverberations of our past wars and “police actions” in the debate over … it happens in every administration… possible American military strikes in Syria.  A few things hit me.  For the ongoing historical reference points.

Vietnam.  And here the obvious target comes to be John Kerry.  And his Vietnam Era activism.  And into the archives we have not only your classic “Last to die in a mistake line”, appropriated by Rand Paul, but — yes, here we go… Firing Line with William Buckley.

Things get more convoluted in quothing Kerry about this matter.  After all… he did back the War in Iraq.  (The … er… second one).  No matter what he says now.

Next, I do see some renewal of a kind of “Either go full blow or get out” idea… popular in Vietnam by various Republican hawks and by a conflicted public who wanted a win … which tended to die with animosity toward the peaceniks calling for “Get Out”.  (We see, for instance, Governor Reagan actually made the charge).  This massages the differences in the Republican Party between the isolationists and neo-cons.  But the bifurcation slides back to the early Cold War, at least, where Truman could no good, and was throwing too much money to build up quasi-socialist Europe (never mind this was how you stopped Communism in that sphere) and not going full bore to “roll back” Communism from Korea clear across China.

Your curious concerns, on Syria — “Humanitarian” and all that — it depends on how you define “success“, and the nay-sayers are guilty of cherry picking a definition…

I do have the thought with our intervention of Syria… which “if it were voted on in the House” would go down to defeat… which, if offered by — say — Bush —  …

On the Democrats, the split with Iraq was slightly more than 50 – 50 in the House and slightly less in the Senate — it’s a more gerry-mandered lot, so I suppose it’s hard to say what the political calculus comes to nowadays… at any rate, a Speaker Pelosi would be looking for a way to get the measure through…

… all to say.  If you’re political desire is to stop a military intervention.  You want a Democratic President.  And a Republican House.  Though, they might do well to not irk Democrats back to the “Supporting Obama” standing and heed…

House Republicans might boost those numbers if they skip the incoherent rants about Benghazi and opportunism-flaunting to ask earnest questions about America’s long-term interests and role in brutal protracted civil wars in the Middle East.

… in someone’s mind, the idea of striking Syria is about distracting public attention from Benghazi.  Makes no sense on several fronts.  Notwithstanding the final historical analogy, and one that runs back to a movie no less — the charge of “Wagging the Dog” — hits up against the fact that Impeaching the President was going fore-bore and Benghazi is trapped in the Conservative media cocoon… with this one…  well, Obama may think he’s doing the right thing, and public opinion wise this is not something that he needs.

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