South Park is Right on Syria

I made a post last week where I expressed my skepticism of a military strike in Syria doing much good. Well, things have changed significantly since then, with a statement (gaffe?) from John Kerry apparently offering the promise of a diplomatic solution. It's obviously too early to tell, but these recent developments seem promising. 

I find it funny that this breakthrough came about largely thanks to an offhand comment. I know that whole "give peace a chance" trope is overused...but in this case, I think it applies. Was the communication between the Obama administration and Assad regime really so poor that this solution never came up until now? 

As I thought about the division in public opinion on the Syria issue, I thought back to a great South Park Episode, "I'm a Little Bit Country". Released in 2003, this episode is all about the raging debate over the war in Iraq. The moral of the episode is that the different opinions are good for America. By having a pro war government, the US can go and kick butt when necessary, but all the anti-war hippies let them show the national community that all the US citizens didn't really support the war, allowing the country to not appear like a bunch of jerks and rednecks. This divided approach has (if all the negotiations go well) worked perfectly for the United States. The US was able to provide a credible threat of force, but the divided public opinion pressured Obama into seeking Congressional approval instead of just launching the strikes. The result was that Assad came to the table, and now we'll likely have a peaceful resolution where no more people get gassed and no one gets blown up by American cruise missiles. Even better, this seems like a huge win for US relations with Russia and China. This article from the NYT has a great explanation of the downward trend in US/Russian relations since the Obama administration's "reset". Maybe this can reverse the trend. 

But the larger point is that, as with so many things, South Park is right.