Syria. Homeland of the Arameans, of Hammurabi the Lawgiver. Where King Hazael defied the Assyrians and brought all the known world into a grand alliance to hold back the tide of the most gruesome regime the world had yet seen(they failed). Crossroads of Empires, sometimes defiant, sometimes compliant, but currently it's a quagmire. A black hole of blood and treasury and all around terrible place to be at the moment. But it's also where a lot of people are dying horrible deaths, and where the people doing the killing are breaking all the rules. What those rules are or even mean would be a post all by itself, but to the point: Many are calling for military intervention on the part of the United States, to either end the conflict or "send a message", and I for one think that's a terrible idea. But someone dear to me argued:
"If we stand by and don't intervene, I think this has the potential to turn into another Rwanda or Cambodia. On the one hand Assad is clearly insane and willing to commit wholesale murder of innocent people as well as opposition fighters, but on the other hand he might be the Saddam Hussein of Syria in that he is the only linchpin capable of holding what little remains of Syrian society together. So pick your poison: do you want another Rwanda or do you want another Iraq? I don't see a way around one or the other."
Iraq or Rwanda? That's an interesting choice. I also think it's a false choice- it could easily be both. Or worse. For example, Assad the lynchpin falls and then all of a sudden ALL the factions have nerve gas- and they will use it. Or we could destabilize a rough-yet-negotiable stalemate, dragging it all on and costing countless more lives. Or we could be played for fools and end up helping the people who did it- because in fact, there's a great deal of ambiguity as to whether or not it was Assad in the first place:
http://www.examiner.com/article/breaking-news-rebels-admit-gas-attack-result-of-mishandling-chemical-weapons
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/08/27/216172145/is-it-possible-the-syrian-rebels-not-assad-used-chemical-weapons
If you want to treat this as a crime, not a war, you then must deal with the question of who did it. If it wasn't Assad, then we're helping the people who did it. Sounds like a pretty good reason to wait. If you want to treat this as a war, then... What are we hoping to gain, exactly?
At this point, most pro-intervention arguments shout "But those weapons are terrible, and we need to show that there are consequences for using them!" Well, Iraq showed that we would invade a country even for possibly having them, let alone using them- and we're currently invading and bombing how many countries right now because Al Qaeda might be there? How trigger happy do we have to be? Even if it was Assad he knew damn well the consequences and did it anyway, in which case what kind of enforcement would be deterrent against that?
Yes, the analogy of "crimes must be punished" works up to a point. But to take the metaphor a bit further, most murder cases don't involve two parties accusing *each other* of the same murder, and when you arrest murderers they aren't likely to split apart into five smaller, equally dangerous murderers- which brings us to the potential consequences. And oh boy, are there consequences. Just for the sake of argument, let's say we succeed beyond our wildest dreams and American air strikes are the straw that broke the tyrant-camel's back and... Then what? The rebels hate each other as much as they hate Assad. Plus, Assad represents factions (Alawite, Christians, etc) that will have to defend themselves no matter what happens to him.
It's also worth mentioning at this point the rather critical detail that practically no one in the media is reporting: the whole Syrian crisis was precipitated by the worst drought and famine in the country's modern history; even if Assad's regime toppled and everyone miraculously decided to not fight each other(which they're already doing), you still are left with a country with a shortage of food and a surplus of people who hate each other. It's a powder keg at best, and freaking Mad Max at worst. What, exactly, could we do to make it better? Keep in mind powder keg/Mad Max is what happens if we succeed. If the best case scenario for what we're doing totally sucks, why are we doing it? And, at any rate, in order to achieve an "Iraq" best-of-the-worst outcome in the first place we'd have to invade the country and pacify it- how many soldiers is this endeavor worth? And afterwards we would have the exact same situation again when we leave. How would that help?
The only thing that would work would be to send hundreds of thousands of soldiers into Syria, disarm everyone, and then immediately split up the country so that each faction doesn't have to live with the people they hate. And THEN there would have to be a great deal of aid to repair all the damaged infrastructure in order to make sure there's enough food so that the conflict doesn't immediately start up again. And that option is not on the table. Evaluating what we would actually do, and seeing that none of it would work, why are we contemplating those half measures anyway?
What I'm saying is that any action on our part that doesn't address the root causes of this conflict is almost certainly gong to make things worse. And those root causes are a) overpopulation in the face of dwindling resources, and b) a country designed by foreign diplomats who might as well have been trying to create as many ethnic fault lines as possible. Now, "a" is something that he entire world is trying to deny(even mentioning that dimension of this crisis brings up the always-heated Climate Change/Peak Whatever debates), and the Iraq war showed the international community will keep avoiding the issue of "b" even in the teeth of the most hideous of consequences.
Now that all that's out of the way, to play devil's advocate: Let's just say we do nothing. What is probably going to happen, in terms of how the conflict has been going so far, is that the various factions will continue to receive enough support from their allies to slowly grind everything into a stalemate in which each faction holds territory roughly contiguous with their ethnic/religious background. That's already happened with the Kurds, anyway; they are currently defending their territory not against Assad, but against other Sunni rebels. Once it's clear to all sides that warfare is getting them nowhere, they'll come to the bargaining table of their own accord. Yes, it sucks, it might even mean that Assad's regime survives, but that's the closest outcome to a real peace that you're going to get from any of the options on the table. And on top of that, it costs us nothing, because it involves us doing nothing.
Furthermore, therein lies the reason why any action, even mostly symbolic airstrikes, is potentially a terrible idea: The rebels are already receiving a great deal of help from regional allies like the Saudis, Turks, even Kuwait- basically from everyone who doesn't want to see an expansion of the Iranian sphere of influence, because the Iranians are helping Assad. That's why any impression that any one side was winning repeatedly went up in smoke over the past few years- because both sides are receiving roughly equal amounts of support. If we go in guns blazing we'll quite possibly tip the scales so far in the other direction as to undermine any potential stability that might be there. Which brings us to the question that no one seems to be asking: Is "sending a message" worth prolonging the conflict?
For what it's worth, I agree with the people who cry tragedy and want to let slip the dogs of war- on most of it. This is horrible, it's only been getting worse, and if this were happening in America(which I'm pretty sure it eventually will, but that's a discussion for another day), I certainly would want help too. But that doesn't mean that it would be any better of an idea for the people who might help us.
Unfortunately, there probably is going to be a strike, or some other limited military action- because the actual calculus of decision making in this situation has absolutely nothing to do with what will actually happen in Syria as a result, and everything to do with American politicians trying to save face within their own political class. Not, interestingly enough, with the American public, who overwhelmingly oppose this war. But it's a testament to the power of the Washington DC beltway bubble-world that the only things that seem to matter are looking tough and maintaining "credibility" with their fellow politicians, and nothing else. It's a common symptom of empires in their senility- they forget that anything matters outside of palace intrigues, and sooner or later make a terminal mistake.
That's ultimately why I oppose this, in sort of the same sort of way I oppose a plane hurtling towards the ground- with a sickening, reeling feeling that I can't do anything to stop my country from not only causing more death and destruction, but also taking one step closer towards the fate of all empires. But on the bright side, "the fate of all empires" is also my favorite subject, so we'll get to discuss that next week! Silver linings here, people.
Good night,
Matt
"If we stand by and don't intervene, I think this has the potential to turn into another Rwanda or Cambodia. On the one hand Assad is clearly insane and willing to commit wholesale murder of innocent people as well as opposition fighters, but on the other hand he might be the Saddam Hussein of Syria in that he is the only linchpin capable of holding what little remains of Syrian society together. So pick your poison: do you want another Rwanda or do you want another Iraq? I don't see a way around one or the other."
Iraq or Rwanda? That's an interesting choice. I also think it's a false choice- it could easily be both. Or worse. For example, Assad the lynchpin falls and then all of a sudden ALL the factions have nerve gas- and they will use it. Or we could destabilize a rough-yet-negotiable stalemate, dragging it all on and costing countless more lives. Or we could be played for fools and end up helping the people who did it- because in fact, there's a great deal of ambiguity as to whether or not it was Assad in the first place:
http://www.examiner.com/article/breaking-news-rebels-admit-gas-attack-result-of-mishandling-chemical-weapons
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/08/27/216172145/is-it-possible-the-syrian-rebels-not-assad-used-chemical-weapons
If you want to treat this as a crime, not a war, you then must deal with the question of who did it. If it wasn't Assad, then we're helping the people who did it. Sounds like a pretty good reason to wait. If you want to treat this as a war, then... What are we hoping to gain, exactly?
At this point, most pro-intervention arguments shout "But those weapons are terrible, and we need to show that there are consequences for using them!" Well, Iraq showed that we would invade a country even for possibly having them, let alone using them- and we're currently invading and bombing how many countries right now because Al Qaeda might be there? How trigger happy do we have to be? Even if it was Assad he knew damn well the consequences and did it anyway, in which case what kind of enforcement would be deterrent against that?
Yes, the analogy of "crimes must be punished" works up to a point. But to take the metaphor a bit further, most murder cases don't involve two parties accusing *each other* of the same murder, and when you arrest murderers they aren't likely to split apart into five smaller, equally dangerous murderers- which brings us to the potential consequences. And oh boy, are there consequences. Just for the sake of argument, let's say we succeed beyond our wildest dreams and American air strikes are the straw that broke the tyrant-camel's back and... Then what? The rebels hate each other as much as they hate Assad. Plus, Assad represents factions (Alawite, Christians, etc) that will have to defend themselves no matter what happens to him.
It's also worth mentioning at this point the rather critical detail that practically no one in the media is reporting: the whole Syrian crisis was precipitated by the worst drought and famine in the country's modern history; even if Assad's regime toppled and everyone miraculously decided to not fight each other(which they're already doing), you still are left with a country with a shortage of food and a surplus of people who hate each other. It's a powder keg at best, and freaking Mad Max at worst. What, exactly, could we do to make it better? Keep in mind powder keg/Mad Max is what happens if we succeed. If the best case scenario for what we're doing totally sucks, why are we doing it? And, at any rate, in order to achieve an "Iraq" best-of-the-worst outcome in the first place we'd have to invade the country and pacify it- how many soldiers is this endeavor worth? And afterwards we would have the exact same situation again when we leave. How would that help?
The only thing that would work would be to send hundreds of thousands of soldiers into Syria, disarm everyone, and then immediately split up the country so that each faction doesn't have to live with the people they hate. And THEN there would have to be a great deal of aid to repair all the damaged infrastructure in order to make sure there's enough food so that the conflict doesn't immediately start up again. And that option is not on the table. Evaluating what we would actually do, and seeing that none of it would work, why are we contemplating those half measures anyway?
What I'm saying is that any action on our part that doesn't address the root causes of this conflict is almost certainly gong to make things worse. And those root causes are a) overpopulation in the face of dwindling resources, and b) a country designed by foreign diplomats who might as well have been trying to create as many ethnic fault lines as possible. Now, "a" is something that he entire world is trying to deny(even mentioning that dimension of this crisis brings up the always-heated Climate Change/Peak Whatever debates), and the Iraq war showed the international community will keep avoiding the issue of "b" even in the teeth of the most hideous of consequences.
Now that all that's out of the way, to play devil's advocate: Let's just say we do nothing. What is probably going to happen, in terms of how the conflict has been going so far, is that the various factions will continue to receive enough support from their allies to slowly grind everything into a stalemate in which each faction holds territory roughly contiguous with their ethnic/religious background. That's already happened with the Kurds, anyway; they are currently defending their territory not against Assad, but against other Sunni rebels. Once it's clear to all sides that warfare is getting them nowhere, they'll come to the bargaining table of their own accord. Yes, it sucks, it might even mean that Assad's regime survives, but that's the closest outcome to a real peace that you're going to get from any of the options on the table. And on top of that, it costs us nothing, because it involves us doing nothing.
Furthermore, therein lies the reason why any action, even mostly symbolic airstrikes, is potentially a terrible idea: The rebels are already receiving a great deal of help from regional allies like the Saudis, Turks, even Kuwait- basically from everyone who doesn't want to see an expansion of the Iranian sphere of influence, because the Iranians are helping Assad. That's why any impression that any one side was winning repeatedly went up in smoke over the past few years- because both sides are receiving roughly equal amounts of support. If we go in guns blazing we'll quite possibly tip the scales so far in the other direction as to undermine any potential stability that might be there. Which brings us to the question that no one seems to be asking: Is "sending a message" worth prolonging the conflict?
For what it's worth, I agree with the people who cry tragedy and want to let slip the dogs of war- on most of it. This is horrible, it's only been getting worse, and if this were happening in America(which I'm pretty sure it eventually will, but that's a discussion for another day), I certainly would want help too. But that doesn't mean that it would be any better of an idea for the people who might help us.
Unfortunately, there probably is going to be a strike, or some other limited military action- because the actual calculus of decision making in this situation has absolutely nothing to do with what will actually happen in Syria as a result, and everything to do with American politicians trying to save face within their own political class. Not, interestingly enough, with the American public, who overwhelmingly oppose this war. But it's a testament to the power of the Washington DC beltway bubble-world that the only things that seem to matter are looking tough and maintaining "credibility" with their fellow politicians, and nothing else. It's a common symptom of empires in their senility- they forget that anything matters outside of palace intrigues, and sooner or later make a terminal mistake.
That's ultimately why I oppose this, in sort of the same sort of way I oppose a plane hurtling towards the ground- with a sickening, reeling feeling that I can't do anything to stop my country from not only causing more death and destruction, but also taking one step closer towards the fate of all empires. But on the bright side, "the fate of all empires" is also my favorite subject, so we'll get to discuss that next week! Silver linings here, people.
Good night,
Matt
