Kerry flexes muscle: Assad has a week, or we’ll do something ‘unbelievably small’

When you're a world leader, sometimes you create a red line and you say "Hey, man. Cross this line and we're going to war." Then, your enemy crosses that line, and you've got a problem. Either you go to war as promised, or you come up with a new strategy. The weakest way to weasel out of this scenario is to create - wait for it - another red line.

Sadly, that's just what the Obama administration has done with Syria. According to remarks given this morning by John Kerry, Assad - sorta - has a week to give up his chemical weapons. "Sure," Kerry said. "He could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week - turn it over - all of it without delay - and allow the full and total accounting, but he isn't about to do it and it can't be done." The State Department quickly clarified that Kerry was speaking "rhetorically," since no one believes that Assad would ever decide to comply with U.S. demands.

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In other words: the new "rhetorical" red line is a week long, and the United States has already decided that compliance is utterly unattainable. We're well aware that - even if he wanted to - Assad can't possibly meet our demands, but hey, it'll be fun to see what he does. He should be warned, however, we're not screwing around with our hypothetical ultimatum. When he fails to meet our already impossible-to-meet standard, the consequences will be... Well, they'll be minimal. Kerry described our intended action as an "unbelievably small, limited kind of effort." As reported by the Guardian:

Kerry said the Americans were planning an "unbelievably small" attack on Syria. "We will be able to hold Bashar al-Assad accountable without engaging in troops on the ground or any other prolonged kind of effort in a very limited, very targeted, short-term effort that degrades his capacity to deliver chemical weapons without assuming responsibility for Syria’s civil war. That is exactly what we are talking about doing -- unbelievably small, limited kind of effort."

Surely, that has Assad quaking in his boots. A man who's willing to use chemical weapons on his own people must be terrified of any military action that's been described by its commanders as "unbelievably small," "very limited" and "short term." Look, recent polling indicates that almost nobody supports the administration's apparent decision to attack Syria. It's incredibly unpopular and a political loser for both Obama and Kerry. It's also ill-conceived and lacking in both purpose and exit strategy. However, if you're going to ignore all of that and do it anyway, shouldn't you try to come at it from a position of power? Why in the world would you embolden your enemy by informing him that you might hit him with an "unbelievably small" attack? Any third-grade bully knows that you want your quarry frightened before you punch him in the nose. You don't reassure him that "it won't hurt that much" and promise him that he'll still be able to retaliate. Sadly, it seems that's a lesson the Obama administration has failed to yearn. The weakness being projected by the Secretary of State is, to borrow Kerry's phrase, "unbelievable."