Mark Moyar repeats a very tired and discredited argument:

Mr. Obama’s passivity in the face of provocations and his failure to enforce the “red line” in Syria led Russia, China and other adversaries to seek new gains at America’s expense.

There are other problems with the way Moyar describes Obama’s foreign policy record, but this is his main objection and it isn’t true. The “failure” to enforce the so-called “red line” kept the U.S. from starting another illegal war over something that had nothing to do with U.S. or allied security. It did not lead other states to “seek new gains at America’s expense.” Russia’s intervention in Ukraine did not happen because of this, but rather happened in response to the overthrow of Ukraine’s president. China’s actions in the South China Sea likewise have no connection to this episode, but stem from longstanding Chinese ambitions in the region that would not have been changed in the least by bombing the Syrian government. Moyar is extremely vague about how the decision not to bomb Syria led to these other events, because when these claims are put under the slightest scrutiny they collapse.

The two big flaws in Moyar’s argument are his overestimation of the importance of U.S. action or inaction, and his failure to consider that other states have their own agency, interests, and ambitions independent of U.S. policies. The conceit that U.S. military action somewhere discourages undesirable behavior from all other states everywhere credits the U.S. with far more power than it could ever have. Ignoring the agency and interests of others states ends up creating the illusion that Washington has a degree of control over their behavior that it doesn’t actually have. This way of thinking about foreign policy also traps the U.S. into always having to intervene in conflicts where it has little or nothing or stake out of a fear of what might happen somewhere else if it doesn’t. That’s a poor way to make decisions, and it is a bad reason to take military action.

It is important to counter these unfounded claims because they will be cited in the next debate in support of intervention. If the false idea that choosing not to bomb Syria had serious consequences in other parts of the world is widely accepted, the next shoddy case for intervention will be strengthened, and the U.S. will be more likely to get into another war that it could have avoided. Of course, that is what most people that use the discredited “credibility” argument want, which is why they keep harping on the one instance in the last twenty years when the U.S. chose not to attack another country.