Pat Lang presents his plan of action for the U. S. in Syria:
* Accept the truth that we destroyed the Iraqi state and from that act of vandalism all present chaos in that country derives.
* Don’t do it again in Syria.
* Stop saying that no “Assad cronies” can be in or head the government. They ARE the government. Assad himself is dispensable, but not the government of Syria.
* Act like Russia, China and Iran matter as something other than rivals and adversaries.
* Ignore Erdogan’s Turkey. It is a manifestation of the jihadi enemy. They will deny us use of Incirlik and the other bases? Fine, that would clarify the situation. Move onto Syrian bases or the big, unused NATO built base north of Tripoli in Lebanon.
* Ignore Saudi Arabia’s wishes with regard to Syria. They are jihadi supporters.
* Ignore Israel’s wishes with regard to Syria. Natanyahu’s government is pursuing a mistaken and short sighted policy of eliminating coherent government in Syria for the purpose of crippling their Lebanese Hizbullah adversaries whom they think exist because of Syrian and Iranian help. The Likud’s imagined interest in Syria is not America’s interest.
* Accept Russian and Iranian co-belligerence in the war against the jihadis, ALL JIHADIS.
* Fully coordinate operations, intelligence analysis sharing and logistics with the co-belligerent partners.
* FIGHT THE JIHADIS, NOT THE SYRIAN GOVERNMENT.
Not only is it materially correct, it’s what the Russians have been saying for several years. Someday maybe we’ll stop thinking that we should oppose everything the Russians support.
Another way of saying it would be “Don’t do stupid s**t”. Somebody said that once. Did it not pertain to Syria?
Personally, I think we’ve crossed the Rubicon and Lang’s strategy is no longer viable. I doubt it’s possible to walk-back the position that both the lefty R2P and the righty Neocons agree on but I would be happy to be proven wrong. Maybe things could change if Assad was disappeared and replaced, but that would be difficult for the Russians to do while protecting what remains of the Syrian government from collapse and it’s already teetering on the brink (hence the Russian intervention).
The thing about Baathist dictators is that they make themselves “necessary men” as a coup-proofing strategy. They are, by design, difficult to replace without the house of cards falling down. His kids are still children, so they can’t replace him. They are probably destined for a life in luxurious exile in Europe, or a brutal death, but they are still very young so it’s unlikely they’ll replace Bashar to rule what’s left of the state of Syria.
Speaking of which, “Syria,” like Iraq, is a goner IMO and the sooner we realize that the better.
Andy- Agree that Syria as it has been for the last 20 years is done. I think the big question is if it stops at Syria, remembering that Iraq is also done.
Steve
I think that the administration is making several poor assumptions in formulating its policy with respect to Syria. Not only WRT the territorial integrity of Syria mentioned above but also WRT Assad’s role, what the Alawites will accept, and what the Islamists will accept.
WRT Assad’s role they’re engaging in a cult of personality. Assad is unimportant. If anyone else in his regime had been confronted with the situation Assad has been, they’d’ve done exactly the same things. The Alawites are well aware that they can’t allow a shared government (the Obama Administration’s demand). Any foreseeable “democratic” regime in Syria will be run by Islamist Sunnis who will treat the Alawites much as DAESH has treated the Yezidis and Christians in Iraq.
Partition is impossible; power-sharing is impossible. Basically, there’s nothing wrong with the Middle East that starting over with an entirely new population wouldn’t cure.
The only solution short of population replacement (maybe we should start sending them Mexicans & Congans) is empire. Then the questions Who? Whom? need to be answered. Unfortunately, such options are considered unfashionable in the West, so they’ll get more of the same.
Meanwhile, I’ll continue awaiting developments in Egypt. I’ve seen a couple of things recently that make me think the Egyptian government is getting very worried about what’s going on in the Sinai & their western dessert. If Egypt well and truly melts down….
One good thing about President Obama is that he can take anything and make it his own idea. He would not walk it back. Somehow it would have been his strategy all along. The elegant black man was tricking the Russian thug into propping up Syria against ISIS.
The neo-cons would scream bloody murder, but the acolytes and “the girls”, as the good Colonel affectionately calls them, would reluctantly fall in line.
Assad has made it difficult to remove him, but he ain’t his daddy. If he were his daddy, it would have been over a long time ago. Having Assad retire to Russia and replacing him with someone slightly less brutal could work, especially with Russia around to supervise. (This would have worked in Iraq if the US would do what is required.)
Iraq, Syria, and Libya are places where the different groups of people would exterminate the others if they could. There is no way Western liberal democracy can function in this environment, or they will require an extermination of the weaker groups first. These much hated dictators are what keep these countries from flying apart and many people alive.
When Assad and his government are gone, Syria will not become more stable, it will descend into chaos, and ISIS will take over. If ISIS is such a threat today, why is an ISIS controlling a modern country – airports, telecommunications, banking, manufacturing, etc. – better than today’s ISIS?
Could somebody who supports Assad’s removal please explain this theory to me.
Could somebody who supports Assad’s removal please explain this theory to me.
I’ve tried to get Garry Kasparov, greatest chess player ever and now a political agitator, to explain this to me. (Also tried with his assistants.)
The reasoning seems to be this:
Dictators are bad. Therefore NOT-dictator is good.
That, plus the conviction that everyone everywhere is really a Western liberal* at heart, seems to be the whole of it.
That really does seem to be all there is to it.
* In the broadest sense of the word. Kasparov himself is both very hawkish and very pro-market. He’d be a fairly conventional “conservative” by US standards of 15 years ago.