What should our policy with respect to Syria be? What do we want to happen?
Although it’s nine months old, in the light of recent developments I found this analysis by Thanassis Cambanis at The Century Foundation useful in considering those questions.
First, what has our policy been? In effect whether deliberately or accidentally the U. S. strategy has had the following components:
- We have engaged in limited military intervention preventing any side from winning outright.
- We have provided support to neighboring countries
- We have provided support for Syrian refugees.
IMO the second two of those are practical, productive, warranted, and even necessary; the first has been counter-productive.
As to what our policy should be, Mr. Cambanis lists these as our alternative objectives:
- Assad, and nothing else. Promote an outright Assad victory. Supporters of this approach argue that Assad’s rule is more stable than any alternative. If the United States made a full about-face, it could pull support from rebels and pressure allies to do the same, and signaling that it would accept consolidation of Assad’s power.
- Full withdrawal. Close down the covert rebel aid program, even curtailing or stopping the war against the Islamic State group. Such a course would probably come as part of a wider embrace of U.S. isolationism.
- Attack only Islamic State. Abandon any military involvement, direct or indirect, unless it is entirely concerned with Islamic State, and not the Syrian government.
- Partial withdrawal with humanitarian enhancement. Give up on influencing the prospect of a political solution, and decide that the United States will only take actions aimed to reduce death toll and displacement, and contain cross-border spillover of conflict. Increase non-military aid to bordering countries.
- Balancing the civil war and containing its spillover (the status quo). Provide military and financial assistance so that rebels do not lose, but not enough so they can make advances. Contribute to palliative humanitarian care, but not enough to actually contain refugee crisis.
- Enhanced containment. Intervene militarily and promote a negotiated settlement that includes all major parties, Syrian and foreign. Increase military action by advisers, proxies, and allies designed to reduce civilian death and displacement, and increase risk to Syrian government and allied forces of engaging in indiscriminate bombings and shelling. Deepen collaboration with unsavory rivals (Russia, Iran, Syrian government) to promote negotiated settlement, along with a renewed willingness to confront those rivals.
- Regime change. Give rebels sufficient military support to overthrow government and take Damascus, knowing such a course will likely result in a long, continuing civil war and further sectarian reprisals, with no natural successor to Assad on the horizon.
I believe that any of the first four of those might be workable. Any of the last three would be disastrous. This morning I heard Tom Friedman talking about the “pro-U. S. rebels”. There are no such things. They are fabulous beasts.
We should start thinking in terms what the possible outcomes are. As I see it they are:
- A secular, multi-ethnic, multi-confessional Syria. I believe that to whatever degree that was once possible our support for opposition rebels has reduced its chances. Additionally, I note than in Mr. Cambanis’s list of “unsavory rivals” he does not include the Gulf States. They stand opposed to a secular, multi-ethnic, multi-confessional Syria and as long as that’s the case and they continue to provide support for the opposition, none will be possible.
- An Arab, Sunni Islamist Syria. I don’t believe that is in anyone’s interests other than Arab Sunni Islamists and we should not act as though it were.
- A Syria partitioned along ethnic and sectarian lines. That would result in a Kurdish area, an Alawite area along the coast, and a landlocked Arab Sunni Islamist area in the region in the eastern part of present Syria that is dominated by DAESH. I think that the stability of such an arrangement is unlikely and it would invite ongoing intervention by the Russians, Iranians, Hezbollah, Turks, and Gulf States. Basically, it’s a formula for continuing civil war.
If we were to engage in nuclear brinksmanship, willing to deploy significant U. S. military force in Syria, and willing to occupy the country on an indefinite basis, we could impose a secular, multi-ethnic, multi-confessional Syria on the warring sides who would be united only in opposing us. I don’t see that as possible so I discount it as an outcome. That means that such an outcome inevitably requires the present Alawite regime, with or without Assad.
Pick an alternative and then relate means to ends.
1. Limit our goals to blowing up ISIS
2. Respond with significant force to any use of chemical weapons (the Trump administration didn’t even put the airbase out of operation for a significant period of time).
3. Encourage the Russians to be more involved.
No good will come from more involvement.
If we cannot tolerate the continuing attrocities on the ground, than partitioning is an option, but a difficult one. A very, very difficult one. Eastern Syria to Iraq, Syria is a coastal state, and the Kurds have a homeland. The coastal Syria would probably be a Russian client state, which could provide some stability. The Turks would be unhappy.
Assad and nothing else providing he Russia and Iran still want it that way.
Or you get this.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/assad-palm-sunday-us-assad/
Because of this.
” Philip Giraldi, former CIA officer and Director of the Council for the National Interest, who writes for The American Conservative Magazine (April 6, 2017, excerpts):
Philip Giraldi: “The fact is that I am hearing from sources on the ground in the Middle East, people who are intimately familiar with the intelligence that is available, who are saying that the essential narrative that we’re all hearing about the Syrian government or the Russians using chemical weapons on innocent civilians is a sham. That the intelligence confirms pretty much the account that the Russians have been giving since last night [April 5] which is that they hit a warehouse where the rebels – now these are rebels that, of course, who are connected with Al Qaeda – where the rebels were storing chemicals of their own and it basically caused an explosion that resulted in the casualties.”
I see no reason to think the Alawite regime can survive without Assad. Given a secular government is almost certainly preferable to a theocratic, the best option for the U.S. is to support Assad in consolidating the country under his control.
That’s what I’ve been saying for years. Another thorny question is whether it’s better to have no influence whatever with a monstrous regime and be able to say that you took the moral high ground or have even a little influence by supporting it but no credible moral argument.
I think that our best posture has always been negative reciprocity but that’s apparently too much for recent administrations to handle.
Do as little as possible. Accept that we don’t know who the good guys are, if there are any. If we have to do something, work only against IS. I don’t think we need to actively support Assad. H he plenty of support from Russia and Iran. Why should we spend money and lives?
Steve
4 to 5 years ago there were viable options available and a better ways to distinguish good rebels from bad rebels. Today there are veritable no good options, only choosing the best of the bad.
In Navy, we call this kind of thing a “shit sandwich.” No matter where you take a bite, you’re almost certain to get something unpleasant in your mouth. Maybe you can nibble on a corner and avoid the nastiness, but nibbling won’t fill the tummy or get rid of the sandwich.
It’s a no-win situation for us, a geopolitical Kobayashi Maru.
Normally the least bad option, at least in the near term, is to go with the devil you know which in this case is support Assad. But he’s done just about everything to make that impossible except for growing a Hitler mustache. I get that he’s desperate, that he’s weak without Iran, Hezbollah and the Russians backing him up, but you’d think he’d be a bit smarter about pissing off the United States so much that he can’t even ensure we stay neutral. Dealing with existential threats does that I guess. But that ship sailed long ago and I don’t see any way that we could actively back him after all the things his regime has done. F@ck that guy.
Anyway, IMO our TLAM strike was nibbling at the corner of the sandwich. It was problematic for a lot of reasons, not least of which it did not have Congressional authorization, but it’s sad to say Congress doesn’t care and hasn’t cared for the many similar actions that have occurred in the past. After all, President Obama used military force to another government without any Congressional authorization. They didn’t even call it a war – it was a “time limited, scope limited, military action.” Well, how could anyone argue with that bureaucratese? Trump needs to hire whoever came up with that phrase.
Regardless, Assad needed a punch in the face and it was obvious that punch was coming the day after the gas attack given Trumps comments on the subject. We pulled the punch pretty hard, but that was necessary to prevent killing Russians and the message was likely received. To me this was a classic case of punitive strategic messaging and therefore it doesn’t signal anything more than message itself.
Finally, it’s sad to hear Phil Giraldi talk such nonsense. His sources must be provocateurs or crap because the gas didn’t come from some rebel warehouse. That “theory” came quickly from the Russians and just as quickly was shown to be completely bogus, like 90% of everything that comes out of the MoD or MFA. That same BS theory was floated in 2013 (actually one theory of many) before the Russian troll army and their useful idiots in the West (Seymour Hersh)decided it was a “false flag” instead. This time I’m sure they’ll get around to that eventually.
Anyway, I think I’ll get back to my vacation. For some reason our school district decided to have spring break this week – we drove the house down to Key West today. Fortunately the weather is still great and almost all the snowbirds are gone.
Assad, educated in the west, represents our best option in the region, as his opponents prefer Sharia law or Islamic theocracy. As to the gas attacks, Islamic hardliners have, out of necessity, hidden among civilians who protect them out of fear. As was necessary in Dresden and Nagasaki, civilian will needs to be broken or the war will never end.
All Trump has done is prolong the war.
First, off, there are plenty of chemical weapons on both sides. The rebels have been caught before faking atrocities at Ghouta and the Houla massacre that was supposed to have been perpetrated by Assad’s troops by was actually the work of the rebels themselves.
As I said here, there’s no benefit to America from getting involved in Syria:
http://www.watcherofweasels.org/11173-2/
It is a failed state and a made up country that was cobbled together out if several Ottoman provinces after WWI. No one has ever been able to make anything positive out of Syria, not Alexander, not the Seleucids, not the Romans, Byzantines or the Ottomans.
The country wasn’t even capable of feeding itself before the civil war, one reason that war broke out,because Assad couldn’t afford to subsidize the price of staples like the Saudis were. There are no good guys on either side (PS , anyone who takes anything the asinine Tom Friedman has to say seriously deserves to).
So who do we want to win? Assad, who is malefic and an ally of Iran and Hezbollah? Or the ‘moderate’ rebels, who consist of al-Qaeda and their affiliates like al-Nusrah?
Are we willing to fight Hezbollah and Iran as well as the ‘moderate rebels?’ We would have to defeat both factions decisively. Possible, but it would involve a major commitment.
And then what? We get to spend a trillion dollars we don’t have to rebuild a dysfuntional mess that will never turn into anything but a tribal battleground.
If Trump was just sending a message to Putin and Assad, fine. So much for the Left’s idiotic ‘Trump is Putin’s puppet’ nonsense. But if this is a prelude for us getting involved in Syria, it’s a huge mistake.
Let Syria solve its own problems. And that includes their ‘refugees.’ Europe’s experience with these people ought to a lesson to us.
Amen.
Gary,
Well, we don’t have to do anything to help any side in this civil war. Intervention has costs in terms of money but more importantly lives. No President with any principles would send Americans to potentially die to keep a shit-bag like Assad in power. I probably hate the jihadis a lot more than you do for a lot more personal reasons, but Assad is not worth defending.
Rob,
Ghouta was faked eh? Cool story bro.
I am beyond reacting to the government lackey commentors here
and am rather saying there needs to be a house cleaning of warmongering agents of a Russophobic bent particularly.
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/04/the-white-house-report-ttg.html
There’s obviously a difference of opinion. The retired intelligence officers over at Pat Lang’s place are convinced that pinning the chemical weapons attack (if there was a chemical weapons attack) on the Syrian government is codswollop. There are others who are likely to be at least as well informed (like our regular commenter Andy) who think that only the Syrian government could have been responsible for what they are convinced was an attack using chemical weapons against Syrian civilians.
Personally, I don’t know. I don’t think we have enough information, especially not enough information from credible sources. The mostly meaningless missile attach on a Syrian military airport certainly has changed the subject.