Ben Carson repeats a familiar bit of nonsense about the “red line” episode and U.S. “credibility” in East Asia:

Additionally, President Barack Obama’s fecklessness, most evident in his inability to enforce a red line drawn against Syria’s Bashar al-Assad for the use of chemical weapons, created grave doubts in the region about America’s resolve to counter potential aggression from China.

Carson is wrong about this, but his criticism of Obama’s handling of the “red line” in Syria is even weaker than the usual complaint because it comes on the heels of complaining that the so-called “pivot” to Asia was undermined by U.S. entanglements elsewhere. If the U.S. has been distracted from its role in East Asia by other conflicts and concerns, how would a U.S. attack on Syria be reassuring to allies there? That would have been the start of a new conflict with the Syrian government, which would mean that fewer resources and less attention would be available for U.S. commitments in other parts of the world. In short, East Asian allies are much more likely to be alarmed by Washington’s apparent inability to stay out of unnecessary wars in the Near East, and they can hardly be worried about U.S. commitments to their security when the U.S. doesn’t embark on yet another foolish military intervention.

The invocation of “resolve” here is misleading as it often is. East Asian treaty allies aren’t going to doubt U.S. security commitments to them because the U.S. “fails” to attack some government on the other side of the world. The U.S. commitment to defend its allies from external attack is a long-standing one codified in formal defense agreements. It isn’t the product of some off-the-cuff presidential declaration, and it isn’t going to be adversely affected if the U.S. “fails” to follow through on a vague threat against a government in a different part of the world. The only people casting doubt on the U.S. commitment to its allies in East Asia have typically been hawks bemoaning our supposed loss of “credibility” around the world. There is no evidence that any government in Asia, least of all China’s, views things this way. The implication of Carson’s argument is that the U.S. has to get into unnecessary conflicts on a regular basis to make our allies believe that they can rely on our commitments to them, but this is exactly the opposite of how the U.S. can demonstrate its reliability as an ally to these states.