Ramzy Mardini knows a hell of a lot more about the Middle East than I do, but he and I have the exact same opinion about what our proper policy should be on Syria. We should not take sides in a sectarian civil war. We should not introduce a higher level of violence by sending in more weapons. We should refuse to think of the conflict as a proxy war with Russia and Iran. And we should use the impossibility of Bashar al-Assad winning the May 2014 election to our advantage.
We should also consider all the downsides of arming the rebels.
The Syrian revolution isn’t democratic or secular; the more than 90,000 fatalities are the result of a civil war, not a genocide — and human rights violations have been committed on both sides.
Moreover, the rebels don’t have the support or trust of a clear majority of the population, and the political opposition is neither credible nor representative. Ethnic cleansing against minorities is more likely to occur under a rebel-led government than under Mr. Assad; likewise, the possibility of chemical weapons’ falling into the hands of terrorist groups only grows as the regime weakens.
And finally, a rebel victory is more likely to destabilize Iraq and Lebanon, and the inevitable disorder of a post-Assad Syria constitutes a greater threat to Israel than the status quo.
Not since the 2003 invasion of Iraq has American foreign policy experienced a strategic void so pervasive.
Mr. Mardini is also correct that the president made a mistake when he said that Mr. Assad had lost all credibility (he hadn’t) and said he had to resign (apparently, he didn’t). But if the policy is to get rid of Assad, it is better to let the ballot box take care of it.
How does that fit into current policy? Well, the cat is out of the bag in terms of not escalating the violence, but it should be done in a limited way that keeps the resistance strong enough to compel Assad to keep his promise to stand for election next May.
Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts should continue to reduce the sectarian tensions that are growing in the region at a dangerous pace. We should avoid anti-Iranian rhetoric that will be heard as anti-Shi’a rhetoric. We actually should be talking about how to protect religious minorities (including the Shi’a) in a post-Assad Syria. We should be thinking about it, too, because it’s a potential genocide that we’re talking about.
Assad is a monster. There’s plenty of evidence for that at this point, and yes, he has lost all credibility. That may not be convenient for some, but there it is.
Regardless of whether the rebels have been to finishing school or not, this process that has been started cannot be turned off. Assad will not survive long term. The only question is who replaces him, and whether we can (or should) influence that progression.
I’ve heard another idea lately, that Syria should be broken up like Yugoslavia into more natural geographic / cultural states. Maybe that isn’t the worst idea, as long as the people in these regions would want it. It seems to me at least some regions would welcome such an idea.
Did you go to the McCain/Bush/Cheney finishing school for US imperialism?
LOL, to do that I would have to be suggesting intervention. I’m not. We need to be able to have intelligent conversations about this without pretending Bashir Assad is anything but yet another autocratic nut. One, I might add, the west has found useful on numerous occasions.
The situation in Syria is horrible, and will not be fixed by adhering to any particular purist foreign policy. Every single avenue – including non-intervention – carries enormous human cost.
And there is also a sort of imperialism that implies that arabs are unable to live in free and democratic societies, and that they must be “controlled” by autocrats like Assad. That’s a pretty nasty one, too.
Would that be the imperialists that set up all the fake kings in that region in last century? And the allies of those imperialists that think those monarchies are just swell. So swell that we stole Iran’s democracy and handed them a “king” as well?
I’m no longer all that confident that all that many peoples want freedom and democracy. UK, Sweden, Noway, etc. still cling to their rich royal families even if they no longer rule. Gerrymandering and voter disenfranchisement continue in the US along with the corporate bought politicians and no major outcry from the public. Given the sorry state of our “democracy,” perhaps we should fix out own house before trying to fix those in countries that we don’t know and don’t understand.
You are the mirror image of the people who used to ask me “Why do you hate America?”
Ten percent of Syria’s population is Christian. That’s three times the United States’ Jewish population (by percentage). The Christians have generally been on Assad’s side because they do not want to live under the rule of Salafists. They see a different monster than you do.
The Alawites may have some pretty idiosyncratic religious beliefs but they are pretty secular in their outlook. And they’d prefer not to be slaughtered, which is exactly what is going to happen to them if our arms succeed in toppling their leader.
So, please, stop trying to assign one side the role of monster here. It oversimplifies things in a very unhelpful manner.
If I may offer an cautionary example, it was pretty clear in the 1930’s that Joseph Stalin was a monster. However, he was also the only man who could stop another monster, Adolf Hitler. We aligned ourselves with Stalin because it was in our national interests to do so.
Knowing that someone is a monster does not tell us what to do, necessarily.
We have our problems with the Shiites, primarily with Iran but also with Hizbollah. And we have our problems with the Sunnis, as we saw on 9/11. But what we never want to do is to take the side of one against the other. And that is precisely what we are at risk of doing by getting directly involved in this fighting. If we are going to get involved in helping the Sunni side prevail, we have to know that we’re doing that and why it is so dangerous. And we have to work doubly hard to change the sectarian dynamic so that what we’re working toward is not the subjugation of one sect before another, but the end to sectarian fighting.
We’re warning you of the magnitude of the fight we’re entering and that we ought not to get into this fight. And if we do, we need to do it to end the sectarian fighting.
Aren’t those problems of our own making? Problems that we refuse to acknowledge and take any steps to unmake?
As for Sunnis, we have no problem with those that control oil and gladly buy stuff from us. It’s just the Sunnis that aren’t in power and want it along with the oil wealth that resent our support for those that in their minds stand in the way of their vision.
I think it’s a mistake to just assign all the blame for our relationships in the Middle East on us. It’s an overcompensation to take that view.
Lord knows that I am frustrated with how little our citizens understand about U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. So, it’s tempting to explain every problem with reference to American decisions. But we are not the only side that makes decisions.
I think it’s fair to blame Ayatollah Khomeini for what became of the Iranian Revolution. It was not originally a theocratic revolution. I think it’s fair to blame Saudi Arabia for pushing a very austere version of Islam that encourages groups like the Taliban and al-Qaeda and others to use violence in the name of an ultra-orthodox politicized form of the religion. I think Assad made decisions that brought this crisis on himself, and at a time when the US was trying to thaw our relations. I could go on.
But anywhere you look, I think you’ll find bad leadership all around. We’ve been complicit in many of them. But we can’t take all the blame for them. The theory of American omnipotence is as wrong when the far left uses it as when the neo-cons use it.
Agree.
Iranians think it’s fair to blame the US for stealing their democracy.
As if there was any other single voice in Iran that could have taken down the Shah. There wasn’t. But that little war with Iraq that the US helped supply made him stronger domestically and reinforced the notion that we were an enemy.
Undoubtedly, but all the more reason to be cautious this time. I’m still hoping Obama’s game is more sophisticated than it looks. It seems clear to me that the gas attack “red line” was a bluff that was not expected to get called, and its calling has forced the administration into a position it didn’t want to be in–Obama now must display “toughness”, but surely there are ways of doing that without doing much harm.
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Obama pulled the trigger …
CW Experts Skeptical About US Claim Use of Sarin Gas by Syria
I don’t think Assad called the bluff; I think some of these guys, anonymous diplomats doing the leakage that is never prosecuted, put Obama in a box.
Subsequent reporting suggests that the “red line” comment was a spontaneous screw-up – that Obama went out to make some noises warning Assad off from the use of chemical weapons, without committing the US to anything, but he was speaking off-the-cuff and grabbed onto a turn of phrase that suggested a solid commitment.
Shades of FDR and the “unconditional surrender” speech.
Agreed, Saddam Hussein was also a monster but I don’t believe that it was in our interests to take him out either. If we’re going to get involved in Syria it should be under the UN umbrella and not unilaterally or part of some semi-Western coalition.
I think it was right to say Assad must go. He’s a tyrant and a symbol of so much that is wrong with the region. But I also believe it important we not make the conflict about us. It’s their country and their job to put the pieces back together.
Who is he or you to decide who is or isn’t the head of government in Syria or any country other than the US?
Has American “exceptionalism” become so inbred that we can no longer see our hubris?
Why are you such a fan of Assad? Seriously. I want to know what you see in him.
— sigh —
Why do you assume that anyone that opposes weapons supply and/or military intervention in the internal affairs of other countries has any fondness for or allegiance to the current ruler?
If not for the supply of western arms, would so totalitarian rulers continue to exist?
iirc a few countries have changed their governments without a violent civil war.
Because you consistently echo the messages coming out of the Syrian government.
How do you, or Mr Mardini, know for sure Assad can’t win in May of 2014? Whom will he run against? Is Jabhat al Nusra going to put up a candidate? Will the exile politicians of the SNC run that dude from Texas?
Now I agree that if you can invent a perfect candidate to run, then maybe Assad would loose. But if the Syrian public is choosing between Assad and the so called rebels, my guess is Assad has
nothing to worry about.
Which is probably why the the opposition will never participate in any election.
And besides, if May 2014 comes around and Assad DOES win, everyone will just scream “FIX!” and we’ll be back to where we are today.
Where have you been (not sarcasm, I mean legitimately, I haven’t seen you comment in a while)? I’ve been trying to get that answer from Booman since this shit started, when Hurria (who probably knows a hell of a lot more people in the region than I do) suggested that Assad would probably win if an election were held. I’m a lot less sure of that now, but who knows?
Hi seabe, thanks for asking. I was hanging around here back then in the vaine hope of persuading some Dems to cross-over and vote for Ron Paul, if for no other reason than to annoy the GOP establishment. When that turned to dust, I pretty much dropped out of domestic politics entirely. I do come by to lurk once in a blue moon.
Re: Syria, no one knows until a vote is counted. What is clear is that Assad is prepared to have an election under international supervision and the opposition is not. And if you peruse the numerous videos of cannibalism, be-headings, mass executions, torture, and most recently killing a 14 year old boy-proudly uploaded by the opposition themselves-it’s not hard to figure out why.
Always keep in mind that the US government is NOT intending to act in the best interests of Syria, but rather of Israel. It is in Israel’s interests for the US/NATO to destroy the Syrian Arab Army.
Whether Obama is genuinely reluctant, or merely wants to present the pretense of reluctance, or if he really wants to attack Syria but is afraid to piss off the Russians, I do not know.
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Pretty much vindicates a lonely voice here @BooMan during the past 18 months. Just saying. Confirms the poor judgement by the Obama administration after the demonstrations against Assad initiated the military response, to go all out for an outside overthrow of the regime according to the Neocon playbook (Bush regime). The situation in Serbia and Kosovo cannot be compared to Syria as I have mantioned before. One simple reason, those countries where part of a stable Europe, Syria lies in a very unstable region with many proxies involved to further exploit the unrest.
See my recent posts in a new diary which put forward similar thinking …
You all remember when the Bush regime backed popular uprisings by broad coalitions including Sunni jihadists, right?
You know, right out of the neocon playbook. That’s exactly what they did in…um…you know…
Help me out here, Oui. It’s right on the tip of my tongue.
I’m interested in this article. I strongly agree with the statement: We should not take sides in a sectarian civil war. We should not introduce a higher level of violence by sending in more weapons. We should refuse to think of the conflict as a proxy war with Russia and Iran. And we should use the impossibility of Bashar al-Assad winning the May 2014 election to our advantage. I really wonder how the relationship Shi’a and Suni in Syria because the media reported a different story. Hopefully all the elements really think of peace together.
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Media Streaming Player
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Roku 3 xd Streaming Player Review – YouTube
Google search – “http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoORzDqxUe8”
Tell tale sign recent login as new member and a copy of part of BooMan’s text.
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On the wrong side of history …
Between 2000 and 2006 Europe and Israel combined to have talks with a moderate Bashar Assad to further economic and political ties. The complot to assassinate Hariri changed the game plan, no one has proven who was behind this massacre in Beirut.
Analyse present situation and developments in Turkey, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Iran. Tell me once again the importance for the US to get involved in regime change to overthrow one dictator in Syria called Assad. So very similar to the call by Bush and his propaganda to invade Iraq and kill Saddam Hussein and sons.
My wish is to get rid of them all …
The Devil We Knew – An Excellent Op-Ed y Itamar Rabinovich, chief negotiator peace accord between Syria and Israel – Nov. 18, 2011.
Those of us who grew up in Richard J. Daley’s Chicago are rolling in the aisles laughing. Louisianans are probably doing the same.
In fairness, that is a totally different statement from “the impossibility of the Ba’ath Party winning the 2014 election”. The Assad family might no longer be the only game in town for the Ba’ath Party.
It’s great to read some acknowledgement that there are some problems bullets and bombs just can’t solve. It’s also difficult to see how a “free and fair” election can be held in the middle of a civil war where candidates will only be able to “campaign” within their own relatively safe strongholds and where all the machinery of state is in the hands of one side.
Probably the only positive role the “international community” can play is to try and downscale the conflict by reducing arms flows from all external actors and by offering to mediate and provide “safe haven” to the most polarising of the faction leaders including Assad in the hope they might be replaced by less polarising leaders.
Not much hope of a quick solution, then, but acknowledging that is a sign, not of weakness, but of wisdom.
Jesus, more craziness. US out of Syria, please!
Perhaps the Syrian hot civil war can help us resolve the US cold civil war.
“Okay, wingnuts, you want involvement in Syria? Here you go! You can have all the weapons you can carry, and we’ll parachute you into whatever part of Syria you want. Have fun!”
The minimal expense would be well worth it.
I’m glad Obama has been resisting the knee-jerk calls for no-fly zones or US military involvement. But the US has been up to its neck in this since the beginning and is partially responsible for the current situation, because arming the rebels is not new. The US has been doing it for at least the last 18 months, via Turkey and using Saudi Arabia and Qatar as proxies in doing so. Our original decision to do so was critical in helping to escalate the violence, and in helping the more violent and ideologically extreme elements of the opposition become dominant in the originally more nonviolent resistance.
Thing is, there’s no way such small arms support can do anything but worsen the conflict, because the Syrian Army is still much, much more heavily armed. What we’ve done (with EU and Israeli support) is help prolong the conflict, and help set up the dynamic where both sides see more extreme measures as necessary to break the stalemate.
Marie2 is correct that a lot of regime chances have happened in the world over the past 25 years with little or no blood shed – sometimes to good results (much of Eastern Europe, Chile, Indonesia), sometimes not (Egypt, Georgia), but at least a lot of people didn’t die for the sake of someone’s political power. There’s a reason Arab Spring activists studied Gene Sharp and the histories of MLK and Gandhi, and it wasn’t ideological – it’s because those are often effective tactics.
US foreign policy didn’t create the situation in Syria, but the mindset that pervades Washington thinking has been on full display of late. We have the strongest military in human history; the arms trade is just about our only remaining world-class industrial export; and so we see every crisis, every conflict in terms of how best to apply those assets.
It’s that mindset – one which more often than not has led to terrible results (unless you’re a MIC stockholder) – that needs to be uprooted. Until then, the McCains of this country are always going to be baying for us to bomb or invade the next spot on the map, and the Villagers of this country are always going to nod sagely and take them seriously. And the people on the receiving end of all that military glory – mostly civilians, as always – will continue to be unheard.
But the US has been up to its neck in this since the beginning and is partially responsible for the current situation, because arming the rebels is not new. The US has been doing it for at least the last 18 months, via Turkey and using Saudi Arabia and Qatar as proxies in doing so. Our original decision to do so was critical in helping to escalate the violence, and in helping the more violent and ideologically extreme elements of the opposition become dominant in the originally more nonviolent resistance.
This is nonsense. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been backing elements of the rebellion that the US has been strongly opposing, such as the Nusra Front, which the US listed as an international terrorist organization. The efforts of the CIA to divert Saudi and Qatari arms in Turkey was the main element of the New York Times story that initially reported on the involvement of the US in the situation.
There is no way you can look at the available facts and conclude that the Saudis and other Gulf states are acting as American proxies. You have to ignore the evidence that is available, and come in determined to reach that conclusion regardless of the facts.
As it turns out, this is 2012, not 1956; the Middle East, not Central America. The world in which the United States controls everything and other countries are merely our proxies is beloved narrative, but it doesn’t describe the reality of the 21st century. Being a superpower ain’t what it used to be.
Some useful background reading for people looking to understand US policy towards the Syrian rebellion:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/world/middleeast/cia-said-to-aid-in-steering-arms-to-syrian-rebels
.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
A small number of C.I.A. officers are operating secretly in southern Turkey, helping allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters across the border will receive arms to fight the Syrian government, according to American officials and Arab intelligence officers.
The weapons, including automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition and some antitank weapons, are being funneled mostly across the Turkish border by way of a shadowy network of intermediaries including Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood and paid for by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the officials said.
The C.I.A. officers have been in southern Turkey for several weeks, in part to help keep weapons out of the hands of fighters allied with Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups, one senior American official said. The Obama administration has said it is not providing arms to the rebels, but it has also acknowledged that Syria’s neighbors would do so.
From the linked article by Ramzy Mardini:
The President has an interventionist-minded set of military and national security advisers. His caution causes him to split the difference on those proposals that he does not intuitive sense as winnable and then to demand peformance–consider the Afghanistan surge and a series of general who said it absolutely could be won, sir, if we get the resources, sir.
The fact that what the President has had announced, not yet committing his own voice and trying to enlist members of some alliance, tells me that that the White House is trying to wriggle out of the “rhetorical entrapment” it walked into during Secretary of State Clinton’s overseeing of it.
Ramzy Mardini has the most balanced view of the potential dangers I seen yet.
Meanwhile President Morsi of Egypt rushes into a Sunni-Shi’ite war by advocating a no-fly zone.
IMO the US should be very reluctant to take side; indeed, it should back off from its previous commitments to various ineffective rebel groups. What happens in Syria does not need the brand “Made in USA” stamped on it.
Given the election in Iran, it would not surprise me if the US started a shift in policy away from alignment with Sunni monarchies and to neutrality with respect to the Sunni-Shi’ite political divide.
There is some rather extreme question-begging going on in the phrase “escalate the violence.”
In a fight where the guy with the upper hand wants to murder his foe and chop him into little pieces, leveling the odds is more likely to reduce the violence than escalate it.
Tell me how more “small arms” from the US in addition to the flood from Qatar and Saudi Arabia levels the odds.
Then tell me how a no-fly zone plays out helpfully over the region.
To my mind, those are the two key tactical questions.
Tell me how more “small arms” from the US in addition to the flood from Qatar and Saudi Arabia levels the odds.
It reduces the Syrian military’s material advantage over the rebels, who have insufficient numbers of light arms to make full use of their personnel. This seems a rather blindingly-obvious point.
Then tell me how a no-fly zone plays out helpfully over the region.
Why? Shouldn’t you, instead, ask that question of someone who wrote something about a No-Fly zone?
What exactly have Qatar and Saudi Arabia been sending through Jordan, if not small arms? Are Qatar and Saudi Arabia sending them only to Salafists? Qatar and Saudi Arabia — our “allies”?
How is it that a country awash in small arms needs more?
So you agree that in Syria trying to implement a no-fly zone is a very risky and not very rewarding venture?
“a country awash in small arms” is an assertion made without evidence.
It’s certainly true that the Assad government has all of the small arms they need, but that doesn’t mean the rebels are well-armed.
Here’s what they say about their arms situation: http://en-maktoob.screen.yahoo.com/syrian-rebels-request-help-arms-103612802.html
On the No-Fly Zone, I am indeed extremely wary. This isn’t Libya; it would be a great deal harder, owing to geography and the very well-supplied, modern air defenses.
Destabilization is the West’s goal.
How’s Yugoslavia doing?