It’s clear that the conflict in Syria is now an issue in the American presidential campaign, largely at the insistence of Mitt Romney’s Republican supporters. Most notable among the interjections was an emotional speech recently delivered on the Senate floor by Senator John McCain, in which he demanded to know why the White House was abetting Bashar al Assad’s murdering of innocents. There is, of course, much to quibble with in this characterization: Far from doing nothing to oppose Bashar, the Obama administration has supported the U.N. ceasefire proposal sponsored by Kofi Annan and put pressure on Moscow and Beijing to assert their influence.
But in another way, it is only fitting that the White House’s response has become a campaign issue. After all, it’s very likely that electoral considerations have been among the things on President Obama’s mind as he has crafted his Syria policy.
I don’t mean this pejoratively. Foreign policy—dealing as it does with the most charged political subjects of all, the safety and dignity of the nation—will always be political terrain particularly vulnerable to distortion and demagoguery. And so presidents are always mindful of the shifting national consensus about the exercise of military power, especially in election years. Indeed, history shows that, particularly at times of conflict, one doesn’t usually earn the job of commander-in-chief unless one is prepared to finesse the inherent tensions between public opinion and the national interest.
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