The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum recently announced and then canceled the release of a study purporting to show—using computer modeling and game theory—that American intervention to halt Bashar al-Assad’s slaughter of his own citizens would not have succeeded. The study, overseen by the Obama-administration national-security official Cameron Hudson, appeared to be a defense of the previous president’s inaction in the face of the Syrian regime’s war crimes and atrocities—while also ignoring his assiduous efforts to provide ample funds to Iran, Assad’s most important backer. Noah Rothman comments:
On Wednesday, United Nations war-crimes investigators indicted the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and his government for complicity in the commission of gross crimes against humanity, including the use of weapons of mass destruction against civilians. . . . One of the earliest and most grotesque of these assaults . . . took place in 2013 in Ghouta. There, approximately 1,000 people died as a result of exposure to sarin [gas].
It was this attack that finally compelled Barack Obama to take seriously his year-old, self-set “red line” for action in Syria. . . . His [resulting] speech was a Frankenstein’s monster of last-minute attempts to absolve [himself] of his responsibilities as president, and he’s been struggling to clarify his motives ever since. “I’m very proud of this moment,” Obama told Jeffrey Goldberg, unconvincingly, almost exactly one year before the massacre at Khan Sheikhoun, [where Syrian troops again used sarin gas on civilians]. . . .
If history was inclined to provide Obama absolution for his inaction in the face of war crimes, you might think his team would be content to allow history to run its course. They’re not. . . . The Holocaust Museum’s Memorial Council members at the time of this report’s composition included former Obama-administration officials who are deeply invested in ensuring that history [vindicates him]. Among them are the former deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes and several Obama-era National Security Council members. . . .
It wasn’t Obama’s lofty rhetoric but his apprehension that emboldened Assad to exacerbate the worst humanitarian and refugee crisis of the century. That’s a legacy that needs polishing. Apparently, team Obama isn’t above hijacking the moral authority of Holocaust memorials in the pursuit of that objective.
Read more on Commentary: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/politics-ideas/whitewashing-history-for-obama/