The Pilgrims initiated Thanksgiving to celebrate the end of harvest and to acknowledge that they had managed to survive another year. We too have survived in spite of attempts to get the United States involved in wars with Syria and Iran. Of the two we should perhaps be more thankful for Syria as we were right on the cusp of going to a war that was supported enthusiastically by the White House, Congress, and the media. And we might have done so based on the hyping of some very dubious intelligence, reminiscent of Iraq, but for the fact that the American people decided to rise up and tell their congressmen and the White House just what they thought about the prospect of a new war in Asia. That there was such a strong public reaction is perhaps a tribute to the new Internet driven media, which was only getting started back in the days of Iraq. Sites like antiwar saw the holes in the case for war and reported on them even as the government was attempting to convince the public that only more armed force would solve Syria’s problems. The Barack Obama Administration found itself constantly behind the curve of the information cycle, attempting to deflect the very legitimate claims that there was no real case to be made for a military intervention. The White House was forced to back down, for the first time since 9/11 turning away from a new war of choice.
The Syrian misstep may or may not have finally put paid to unsustainable arguments being made by the humanitarian interventionists in the Administration, most notably Samantha Powers and Susan Rice, particularly as it coincided with a collapse in the governance of Libya. Libya was the last humanitarian intervention entered into by Washington and it has been in chaos ever since strongman Moammar Gaddafi was removed and executed. One might also look at the still smoldering exercise in nation building in Afghanistan, which almost certainly will not turn out well either for the Afghans or for anyone else. The Karzai regime is possibly the most corrupt on the planet and US aid for humanitarian reconstruction has been both squandered and stolen. Iraq too, though not a humanitarian intervention per se, has suffered from the American occupation and reconstruction effort, the country now de facto divided into three sectarian mini-states engaged in something like a civil war with 50 Iraqis dying from bombs and bullets every day. Iraq was a double whammy in that it was a war that need not have been fought at all followed by a prolonged American presence that could have been crafted by the Marx Brothers that only made things worse.
The second thing we have to be thankful for is the deal with Iran which, if it evolves into a comprehensive agreement, will considerably lessen the likelihood of war unless Israel should choose to start one. Leading neoconservative Bill Kristol is indeed calling for a first strike from Israel in a disjointed and painful to read editorial in his magazine the Weekly Standard. Kristol even compares Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Abraham Lincoln in a bizarre retrospective on the Gettysburg Address, suggesting that spilling a little blood is sometimes necessary to do what is right. Of course, it won’t be Kristol’s blood that will be spilled, nor that of any of the inside the Beltway chickenhawks that form his usual chorus as all of them prefer to worship the military from a distance, most often by writing books praising overrated and underperforming generals. As even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows that attacking Iran without American support would be disastrous, it is unlikely that too many Israelis will be lining up behind Kristol to volunteer for the first wave.
President Obama should earn our approval for his stepping away from war with Iran. It has been clear for some time that he has been a reluctant player in the "get Iran" game, presumably because he fears the possible consequences of a new war in Asia against a country that would actually be able to strike back. Congress will certainly try to upend the agreement with Tehran, but one suspects the support for harsh new sanctions in the legislature is widespread but paper thin. If the American public appears to be going along with the deal it will be hard for Congress to say "no."
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