I wanted to take note of Walter Russell Mead’s most recent column in the Wall Street Journal. Dr. Mead writes:
The collapse of Mr. Assad’s poorly trained army of sullen conscripts humiliated the regime. The loss of Aleppo has wounded it. Before civil war wrecked the Syrian economy, Aleppo was the country’s commercial capital. It’s where Mr. Assad kicked the rebels to the curb in four years of bitter warfare starting in 2012. The regime’s 2016 victory in Aleppo signaled to the world that Mr. Assad was here to stay.
Now a loose coalition of rebel groups has retaken the city as Mr. Assad’s demoralized forces flee in disorder. Russian and Syrian war planes are strafing rebel-held territory and supply lines, but the rebels continue to advance. While nobody knows how this ends, there are important lessons here for policymakers around the world.
Dr. Mead points to three lessons that might be drawn from the situation in Syria:
- The uses and limits of military power
- Israel is an excellent ally, and the U.S. benefits when we support it.
- How to deal with Russia
What Dr. Mead does not accomplish in the column is to explain why we are aiding the Syrian rebels? I think we are repeating the error we made in Libya.
For liberal interventionists that Assad is a bad guy is enough reason. But the world is full of bad guys and we aren’t trying to oust all of them.
Furthermore, what happens if Assad is removed? Either he will be replaced by another Alawite dictator who will keep doing exactly what Assad has been doing for the same reasons or by a Sunni radical Islamist. Remember Al Qaeda? Those were radical Sunni Islamists. Rationalizing that by saying they aren’t Islamic State is a distinction without a difference. They are still worse guys than Assad.
The reasoning for neocons is pretty similar. I can come up with no earthly reason (other than conspiracy theories) for us to aid the Syrian rebels.
It can’t be because it weakens the Russians. We started aiding the Syrian rebels before the Russians started helping Assad. The causality actually goes the other way. The Russians are helping Assad because we are helping the rebels.
I also question this assertion from Dr. Mead:
Moscow wants to be a global power, and that creates vulnerabilities that the U.S. and our allies can exploit.
I think that’s incorrect. The only thing that makes Russia a “global power” is nuclear weapons. Otherwise, it’s a regional power and there isn’t much we can do about that. Russia’s region is pretty enormous. Aleppo is only about 1,300 miles from Moscow—it can be flown in a couple of hours and driven in three or four hard days. It makes sense for the Russians to be concerned, especially when we’re aiding the rebels.
The best outcome we can hope for from aiding the rebels is chaos. I don’t believe that chaos actually works to our advantage. It certainly doesn’t work to the Syrian people’s advantage.
The ugly reality is that al-Qaida affiliates like al-Nusra (now Tak something) and ISIS are CIA operations. For decades, the CIA has attempted to use various terrorist groups to further American wars. The terrorists have their own agendas, and pretty often they bite us, as in 9/11 and the ISIS rampage down the Euphrates. So this current upsurge is an attempt by the Biden administration to get in a few licks against Russia’s ally Syria.
There is a sudden upsurge in CIA operations everywhere: the attempted color revolution in Georgia; the aborted coup in South Korea; demi coups in Moldova, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia…
The coup in South Korea is especially interesting, because the American ambassador to SK was previously expelled from Bolivia and Philippines for conspiring with coup plotters in those countries.
It is going to get real interesting when Gorka becomes active in Trump’s administration. Gorka is an MI6 asset, and MI6 is moving Heaven and Earth to expand the Ukrainian war.
I will repeat myself yet again: Trump will be a war president, and he will give more and bigger wars.