Rather than critique Aaron David Miller’s post on the situation in Syria at RealClearWorld, which I urge you to read, I’ll offer my own views on Syria in bullet form.
- Unless defended by some protector, e.g. the Ottoman or the French, the Alawite minority can expect to be subjected to a pogrom by the Sunni majority, particularly after the experience of the last 70 years.
- The Sunni majority is even more radicalized now than it was 70 years ago.
- The Alawite regime believes it is literally fighting for its life and those of all Alawites.
- The most radical elements are increasingly in control of the opposition to the Syrian government.
- No stable partition of Syria is possible, at least not one that includes the jihadis.
- Chaos in Syria promotes the interests of the jihadis.
- Syria is part of Russia’s “near abroad”. It’s in their neighborhood.
- The Russians are very much at risk from jihadis within their own borders.
- The first objective of Russia in Syria is stability.
- That should be our objective, too.
- To that end we should stop supporting the rebels and encourage our allies to do the same.
There was an odd series of exchanges on Morning Joe earlier today on the issue of who is to blame for that Syrian child’s state of distress on the cover of several newspapers.
First, a State Dept. spokesperson gave the administration view blaming Russia and Assad, and accusing critics of wanting to put American boots on the ground in another potentially intractable conflict.
Second, Jeffrey Sachs, sitting on the panel, blamed Obama for starting a secret war to overthrow Assad five years ago, which those same newspapers have refused to cover to this day while they exploit this child’s tragedy.
What was most striking about this sequence of exchanges to me was that there was no shared facts underpinning their arguments. I’d have to sift through them in written form to be sure, but it’s possible that every fact they marshaled for their view was true. But Sachs’ point that the NY Times and the media won’t cover actual U.S. policy is the most troubling — there are not agreed facts.
That’s not limited to foreign affairs.
It’s closely related to a subject I started writing about earlier this week but never completed. Matt Taibbi was complaining that the news outlets had become so blatantly partisan that you couldn’t even trust their veracity let alone their authoritativeness. Basically, we’ve entered the territory that Britain has been in for a century with newspapers closely tied to political parties. The difference is that it’s a lot easier to win a slander suit there.
Years into the problem and we are still concentrating on who to blame. Sigh. Anyway, I think this a good list. Stop supporting the rebels and work with those who oppose them might be better.
Steve
Personally, I think we should stay out of it.