Did Secretary Mattis fall from grace on the Syrian question?

12 April 2017

Another example of an admired person — who evidently fell victim to Washington DC's political toxicity

Yesterday, at a press conference, the man with a reputation for straightforward Marine Corps honesty arguably put cracks in it.

Secretary of Defense James Mattis insisted that we know — for sure and beyond even a wisp of reasonable doubt — who ordered the baby gassings that prompted President Trump to order a multi-missile strike at Syria's Homs air base.

Second, the Secretary of Defense descended into CENTCOM-like language vacuity to reassure us that the Trump Administration indeed has a Middle East strategy that does not involve up-the-butt head placement.

And third, he made it clear that American leadership has no idea what the descriptive phrase, vital national interest, means.

Claim 1 (we know for sure who planned and did it) — is almost certainly exaggerated

The claim of impeccable certainty was delivered this way:

SEC. MATTIS: Jennifer, the strike that we're talking about here today was directed at the people who planned it, who held onto the weapons contrary to what they had promised the international community and United Nations when they said that they had gotten rid of all those weapons.

And the reason for the strike was that alone. It was not a harbinger of some change in our military campaign.

Q: I'd like to ask both of you if you believe that Russia had advanced knowledge of this strike and if Russia should be considered as complicit in this strike, the chemical weapons attack?

SEC. MATTIS: David, I can speak for both of us on that one. It was very clear that the Assad regime planned it, orchestrated it, and executed it.

And beyond that, we can't say right now. We know what I just told you. We don't know anything beyond that.

Q: In this room on Friday, a briefer said that at the time of the attack, a drone was sighted over that building and we weren't sure whether it was a Russian or a Syrian drone. Has it been determined yet whether that drone was Russian or Syrian?

SEC. MATTIS: I don't know. I -- I will tell you that we have gone back through and -- and looked at all the evidence we can and it is very clear who planned this attack, who authorized this attack and who conducted this attack itself, that we do know, with no -- no doubt whatsoever.

© 2017 Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and General Joseph L. Votel (Commander, U.S. Central Command), Press Conference by Secretary Mattis and Gen. Votel in the Pentagon Briefing Room, U.S. Department of Defense (11 April 2017) (excerpts, with necessary context supplied)

To know what Secretary Mattis said he knows would require either that:

(a) the US has someone highly placed inside Bashar al-Assad's government or military

(b) the gas-spewing culprits were in plain and identifiable sight during their action(s)

and

the American military observed an unbroken chain of clearly visible evidence linking them to the government's gas supply, as well as to its victims.

Satisfying these elements of proof seems unlikely:

If someone highly placed Syrian government were actually in US employ, we would be far less off-balanced by Syrian doings than we usually appear to be.

Nor would we ever admit (even by hinted implication) that such a someone was working for us.

Similarly, the idea that the US has the capability of accurately watching Syrian military actions (of all kinds) from start to finish is mechanistically improbable.

If we actually had such capacity, the Syrian Civil War would be considerably less opaque, intelligence-wise, than it has been.

We can infer (therefore) that Secretary Mattis' certainty — regarding who did what to whom — is probably overstated.

Notice that the Secretary advanced no evidence to support his claim. "I said so," it seems, "is good enough for y'all."

Claim 2 (the United States has a Syria strategy) — is also unlikely

When asked whether the missile strike was part of an American strategic plan for Syria, Secretary Mattis (admirably calmly) evaded making an intelligible answer by resorting to CENTCOM's characteristic say-nothing language:

Q: And General -- Secretary Mattis, could you please let us know, how is what you're doing militarily in Syria fit into a broader strategy being developed by this administration?

How does the strike and the positioning of U.S. forces -- U.S.- backed forces on the ground help in a broader strategic sense?

SEC. MATTIS: Well, Phil, the broader strategy as you know is embedded inside a global strategy.

And overall right now the Americans are making very clear that ISIS is in our crosshairs and that's what our conduct of the campaign in Syria is designed to take on, is take on ISIS and defeat them.

Apparently, the entirety of our strategy consists of it being "embedded inside a global strategy" (of some undescribed kind) and having ISIS in our "crosshairs."

Can one get any more intentionally uncommunicative than that?

Intelligent strategy requires, at minimum, (a) clearly defined end states and (b) reasonably workable ways of achieving them. Secretary Mattis' vapid description of our claimed strategy in Syria does not fulfill either of those elements.

This is a good contextual example of why CENTCOM's stream of meaningless drivel is harmful. If "you" don't say anything, but I come away with the idea that you did — how am I to become a wiser voter, much less an adequately informed military volunteer?

Claim 3 (preventing Syrian use of chemical weapons is a vital American national interest) — is damaging nonsense

Secretary Mattis told the press that:

This other effort . . . addresses a vital national interest of ours that chemical weapons not be used, that the bar not keep getting lowered by the Assad regime so this becomes commonplace.

With claimed "vital national interests" like this one, it is no wonder that the United States blunders from strategic failure to strategic failure.

A genuine "vital national interest" is defined as Paul J. Saunders once summarized — apparently interpreting and applying The Commission on America's National Interests' publication regarding the concept:

Writers and speakers should refer to America’s “vital national interests” only in connection to something that is truly vital, meaning “concerned with or necessary to the maintenance of life” or, more loosely, “of the utmost importance.”

In foreign policy terms, one good definition of vital national interests is those “conditions that are strictly necessary to safeguard and enhance the well-being of Americans in a free and secure nation.” They are beyond even important interests and eclipse mere preferences.

Strict definition makes clear that avoiding a nuclear attack on the United States is a vital national interest but ending Syria’s civil war is not.

Likewise, it makes clear that preventing China from invading a U.S. ally like Japan is a vital national interest—a China that did so would pose an unacceptable threat to our security and prosperity—but perfecting Afghanistan’s governance is not.

Politicians’ excessive invocation of “vital national interests” to justify their varied aims diminishes their persuasiveness by breeding public skepticism.

Precise definition of vital national interest, and thoughtful use of the term, strengthens its meaning, impact and utility.

Chemical weapons use, in its circumstantially confined Syrian context, does not constitute even a hint of an American vital national interest.

Thus, we have the Secretary of Defense publicly exhibiting a damaging misunderstanding of what a vital national interest really is.

If we do not know what is most important to our national survival, how can we intelligently compose and prioritize responses to competing streams of world circumstances?

The moral? — By their distortions and deadly misunderstandings shall ye know them

With truth-distorters and incompetent national-interest-prioritizers advising our commanders in chief, it is no wonder that the United States entusiastically stumbles from one mishandled deadly situation to another.

Former Army Colonel, now Professor Andrew Bacevich wrote recently:

If the four-stars abandon obfuscation for truth, then and only then will they deserve our respectful attention.

This is not just a matter of differing geopolitical opinion.

It is a matter of insisting that American leadership begin legitimately demonstrating rationally acceptable levels of fact-aware astuteness.

PeteFree.com

Did Secretary Mattis fall from grace on the Syrian question?