Barack Obama's Options

Barack Obama wants options on Syria. "The president has asked all of the agencies to put forward options—some familiar, some new—that we are very actively reviewing," saidAnthony Blinken, deputy secretary of state. But force is not an option, since according to the White House there is no military solution for Syria.

"We're trying to pursue the diplomacy," John Kerry told a group of Syrian opposition activists in a meeting whose proceedings were leaked last week. To that end, Kerry wants some credible threat of military force—not, of course, to force the Russians to bend to American power. After all, as Kerry has insisted, "We remain absolutely convinced there is no such thing as a military solution." No, all they want is to make the Russians a bit more agreeable to American pleas for mercy. In any case, Obama rejected Kerry's proposal. Force is not an option, even if it's just meant to get Moscow to the table.

Options are urgent since the suffering in Aleppo is getting worse. The assault on what was once Syria's largest city, comprising forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad, with Russian, and Iranian support, may be theworst in more than five years of fighting. The president wants options. The White House even tried to hand Syria over to Russia but that didn't work.

"With the Sept. 12 U.S.-Russia cease-fire agreement," former Obama staffer Philip Gordon wrote last week in the Washington Post the Obama administration offered Putin a way forward that from a Russian perspective could only have been described as a clean win. If fully implemented, the agreement would have prevented regime change in Damascus — a major Putin redline — for the foreseeable future; boosted Russia's position as a major power in the Middle East; facilitated military and intelligence cooperation with the United States against terrorist groups; diminished a costly conflict; and secured Russia's Mediterranean base.

And still Russia said no. The White House pressured Democratic leadership to delay a Syria sanctions bill because it might have annoyed Moscow, but Putin refused to accept Obama's surrender. Instead, the Russians are hammering away at Aleppo. And why not? The Obama administration cannot stop them no matter how many rostrums it employs—in Europe, the United Nations, or Washington itself—todenounce Moscow's barbarism. Putin doesn't care how much suffering he's inflicting on innocents. His plan is to protect his client Assad, and thereby advance Russian interests by turning himself into the key player in Syria, to whom everyone, allies and adversaries alike, will have to speak. The Russians believe that there is a military solution to the Syrian conflict. And thus it is hardly a coincidental benefit that Putin gets to teach Barack Obama a lesson about the nature of the world a she understands it.