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Another Perspective
Wrong Assumptions on Syria
Assad isn’t doomed so long as the Western powers reject military involvement.
Conventional wisdom in Washington and in European capitals is that the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad is doomed. The protests that have spread across the country since March of 2011 and claimed the lives of more than 6,000 people appear to be progressing by their own inertia. Secure in the assumption that “it’s only a matter of time,” Western countries have tagged on sanctions and other punitive measures that target Syria’s economy but have left out any discussion over the possibility of military intervention.
The assumption, however, that the regime’s days are numbered is seriously flawed. After all, U.S. and EU sanctions may have driven up food and energy prices, but it has failed to fundamentally alter the regime’s behavior. The Arab League even took the unprecedented step of kicking Syria out of the organization and dispatching a 165-member delegation of observers to monitor the situation inside the country. It was hoped that their presence would reduce the level of violence. But that mission has proven to be a failure, with the average daily death toll climbing to 50 since the monitors arrived in late December.
In fact, the case can be made that the international response to the Syrian uprising has emboldened the regime. On January 11, President Assad appeared in public for the first time since the uprisings began where he addressed a rally in Umayyad Square in Damascus and promised to defeat the “conspiracies” against his country. A day earlier he delivered a speech at Damascus University where he vowed to use an “iron fist” to put down the uprising, labeling the protesters as traitors and terrorists. Indeed, by continuing to blame the uprising on a foreign conspiracy and calling thousands of his countrymen “bandits, Zionists and al Qaeda,” the Syrian leader is demonstrating that he is as delusional as the late Libyan leader, Moammar Gaddafi. In past speeches, Assad paid lip service to the idea of government reform and offered some hollow concessions to the protesters but none were mentioned this time around. As the protests have continued, Assad has gauged what the outside world is willing to do — and more importantly, not do. The result is that he has become less willing to compromise.
The decision to foreswear military intervention bolsters the Assad regime at the expense of the opposition and American interests. Yet without foreign intervention, the unfortunate but most likely result will be a protracted and bitter, sectarian civil war. The smart money would be on the Assad regime maintaining power due to Iranian assistance and the continued delivery of fresh arms from Russia and Iran.
The greatest argument against military intervention remains the mantra, “Syria is not Libya.” And that is certainly true. In Libya’s case, Gaddafi was loathed both at home and abroad whereas Syria still enjoys the backing of Iran, Hezbollah, Russia, and to an extent, China. In Libya there were mass defections of soldiers and officers and an area of territory dominated and controlled by the opposition that could be used as a base to project power. In Syria, there are no swaths of territories firmly held by the forces of those defected, such as the Free Syrian Army. And there is no indication that Assad is failing to maintain his grip on the four pillars of Syrian power, namely, the unity of the Alawites, supremacy of the Ba’ath Party, supremacy of the al-Assad clan, and Alawite dominance over the military and intelligence apparatus. While all of this may be true, it is not a case for the White House to rest on its laurels.
The U.S. must prepare for the militarization of the conflict. If the Syrian civil war grows, regional actors will likely become involved, eager to sway the outcome. One need look no further than Syria’s neighbors in Lebanon and Iraq to gauge the probability of a regional conflict taking shape. In that scenario the U.S. will need to have a plan in place to set up “no-go”, “no-fly” and humanitarian zones. To prepare for this likelihood, Washington should form a contact group to work with international partners to share this cost and responsibility, while increasing the pressure on the Syrian regime.
Washington should also assist the various opposition groups in developing a strategy for coordinated civil resistance that includes providing them with intelligence, training, and advice. While a unified plan among the various opposition factions within Syria remains elusive, they have nevertheless made some uniform requests. Providing them with night-vision goggles, better communications equipment, and RPGs could help them fight beyond the current standstill and would perhaps be enough to free up towns that are under siege.
The anti-regime opposition began as a peaceful protest against a dictatorship. Bashar al-Assad’s brutal response — including the arrest and torture of regime opponents, the indiscriminate shelling of cities, and the cutoff of escape routes for civilian refugees to Turkey and Lebanon — has pushed the opposition to respond with force. By ignoring Assad’s escalation of violence against his people, the United States is helping to pave the way for more and greater depredations. The U.S. may choose not to intervene militarily, although the case for humanitarian intervention is manifest. But under no circumstances should Washington decline to provide the opposition the means to protect the people and, perhaps, oust a brutal dictator and puppet of Iran.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (30) | Leave a comment
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VonMisesJr| 2.1.12 @ 7:45AM
Perhaps Thomas L. Friedman will lessen his opining admiration for the simple autocratic and despotic rule of China in favor of Assad's Syria where the elites can simply shoot the freedom fighters. This may be the reason the TEA Party has not had rallies lately. We see the progression of how dictators treat their subjects.
Bob K.| 2.1.12 @ 8:07AM
So. When are you going to enlist, Mr. Brodsky?
Bob K.| 2.1.12 @ 8:43AM
But rather than put yourself at risk perhaps you would agree to starving them out over the next 4 years? You will have to wait at least until 8 year old children go out into the streets to protest.
See this: http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NB02Ak03.html
The article above was written by a Russian. Your solution, of course, is more humane? Right?
Jack in Wi.| 2.1.12 @ 12:54PM
Syria is about the last place in the Middle East where Christians can practice their faith freely. It are home to a lot of the Christians who have fled Iraq. Lets by all means replace the secularist government of Syria, which has been offering Israel peace for at least a decade, with radical Islamists, like we have done in every country we have stuck our noses in.
Paul Kotik| 2.1.12 @ 12:59PM
Let me offer you real peace, Syrian style: kill yourself. You'll be real peaceful then.
Occam's Tool| 2.1.12 @ 5:59PM
Bullshit on the peace offering, Jack---in your dreams. That being said, Assad is the lesser of the two weevils.
Occam's Tool| 2.1.12 @ 6:00PM
I'd cheerfully starve 'em. They are, like Dmitry below, my blood enemy.
Dimitry Aleksandrovich| 2.1.12 @ 6:48PM
Yes you are my blood enemy. Not because you are a Jew, but because you don't care how many die for bad foreign policy as long as they're not Jews.
Harry the Horrible| 2.1.12 @ 9:33AM
Isn't that brilliant idea!
Let's replace an evil, murderous (mostly of his own people) dictator with an evil, murderous (of non-Moslems in general), expansionist Theocratic government.
Who the hell is coming up with your foreign policy? Osama bin Laden's ghost?
Hobbes| 2.1.12 @ 10:03AM
Another boring diatribe by a NeoCon Chickenhawk. Can we at least invade Iran first, before we invade Syria? And God forbid we raise taxes to pay for world domination.
Occam's Tool| 2.1.12 @ 5:56PM
The "chickenhawk" is stating NOT to invade Syria. My view is that there is nothing wrong 20 kilotons over Damascas (airburst, of course) can't cure. Just make sure the wind is blowing away from the Golan.
Dimitry: thanks for being a typical Ruskii Commie scumbag. It will make it much easier to be amused when you lose to the Chechens circa 2040.
A poem:
The funny thing that I have noted,
Is When Lib and Paultards have voted,
Although Stating Not to hate the Jew,
They usually give the Old Thumbscrew.
Occam's Tool| 2.1.12 @ 5:58PM
And Dmitri: you ARE an antisemitic asshole. Jews fight their own wars, jihadi ass kisser. Bush I DIDN'T want Israeli help in Iraq; neither did Bush II.
Dimitry Aleksandrovich| 2.1.12 @ 6:56PM
20 kilotons over Damascus? How bout 20 kilotons over Tel Aviv? You don't care how many have to die just as long as they're not Jews am I right Occam. So who's the real bigot here? I have nothing against Jews, but I don't want Americans fighting or dying for Israel or subsidizing the zionist state.
Dimitry Aleksandrovich| 2.1.12 @ 6:58PM
The Chechens probably have CIA support. America loves Jihadists as long as they're serving American interests and the Europeans and Israelis are no different.
Timothy L. Pennell| 2.1.12 @ 10:33AM
Can anyone find out what Hobbes was saying about Chickenhawk In Chief: Obama, when he was Leading the Struggle (From behind) against the Imminent Threat, that was Khaddafi? I'm sure that Douchebag was writing his Puke/Liberal Congressman, every day, in an effort to reserve a spot on Mt. Rushmore for his Hero: SUPER CHICKENHAWK Obama.
Anyone wanna bet?
And I SERVED, Scumbag. So you can stick your Chickenhawk up your *ss.
nathan| 2.1.12 @ 10:33AM
Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence that when people were reduced to a state of despotism they had both a right and an obligation to get rid of the despot in question. I would point out to all of you especially all you neocon imperialist interventionists who dragged us into Iraq which sadly we lost, that Jefferson said the people in question have a right and an obligation to deal with their despot, others do not have a right and much less an obligation to do it for them. A guarantee of victory is not a condition for initiating the effort. When the Minutemen opened fire in what 1775 they had no expectation of victory against what was in this part of the world the pre eminent military force of that day. They fought anyway.
As with Libya we don't know the players we don't know enough to figure whose side to be on, we need to stay out. And with regards to Iran look at the news stories this morning. Contrary to what the Israelis (translation Netanyahu) are saying, there's no bomb, they probably can do it, it depends how threatened they feel. Maybe the best solution is to quit threatening them? Again best we need to get out of areas where we don't know enough to act and don't really have sufficient interests to act. And right now that includes most of the world.
Paul Kotik| 2.1.12 @ 12:57PM
English translation: all brown-skinned people are angels, and the Jews are the root of all evil.
Dimitry Aleksandrovich| 2.1.12 @ 2:08PM
Translation: Jews should fight their own god damn wars instead of getting mostly gentile American soldiers to put their necks on the line and mostly gentile American taxpayers to pay for it. Those who would suffer most if Assad goes are my Orthodox Christian brothers and sisters and the Iraqi Christian refugees that the Americans turned their backs on but Assad took in. It's the Israelis and the Wahhabist scumbag Saudis who want Assad gone and the aftermath will be the massacre the Shia Alawite, Druze and Christian minorities in Syria at the hands of Sunni Islamists (that our media champions as some kind of pro-democratic opposition even though they are most definitely not). I am an American but I support Assad and I tip my hat to Russia, China and Iran who are also standing by Assad. Does anyone understand that this "opposition" in Syria are the Sunni Islamists not unlike the ones who attacked us on 9/11.
albert constantine jr.| 2.1.12 @ 10:23PM
Actually, I believe it was Jefferson who began the US intervention in Libya (...to the Shores of Tripoli) with the assistance of a neocon Chickenhawk 1stLt Presley O'Bannon, USMC, and associates.
Clint| 2.1.12 @ 10:36PM
Thomas Jefferson's Letter To Charles Thomson, January 9, 1816
I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists, who call me infidel and themselves Christians and preachers of the Gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its author never said nor saw. They have compounded from the heathen mysteries a System beyond the comprehension of man, of which the great reformer of the vicious ethics and deism of the Jews, were he to return on earth, would not recognize one feature. "
Paul Kotik| 2.1.12 @ 12:47PM
If the US simply can't contain itself and must, must intervene in the Syrian situation, I would prefer that the intervention consist of measures that would allow the present circumstances to continue indefinitely.
It's still pretty small potatos compared to what Papa Assad faced back in the day. He had his Army kill some 30,000 folks, shelling the town of Hama with gay abandon.
The Syrians richly deserve themselves. Let them keep at it.
Louis Jenkins| 2.1.12 @ 2:16PM
What are the state dept. people and Obama considering? As said above, we replace one disgusting despot with a disgusting Islam brotherhood? Who's making the policy anyway?
TrueBlue | 2.1.12 @ 3:11PM
Meh, let the region burn. Open up our resources to drilling to deal with the reduced oil flow (we have them, we just aren't allowed to use them). I have no issues backing Israel, but we really need an actual treaty by now if we're going to continue to do so (which I think we SHOULD do).
ncatty| 2.1.12 @ 3:19PM
"The unfortunate but most likely result will be a bitter and protracted civil war." So?
Dimitry Aleksandrovich| 2.1.12 @ 4:57PM
The United States, Israel, the Saudis and Turks are behind the bloodshed in Syria and the blood is on their hands. Assad, the Iranians and the Russians are actually the good guys in this case.
Occam's Tool| 2.1.12 @ 6:02PM
Dmitry: you are a sick little monkey, in keeping with your homeland, whose life expectancy for men is the shortest in the civilized world, thanks to the fact that Russlies are too ignorant, incompetent, and blind to avoid poisoning their own country.
Dimitry Aleksandrovich| 2.1.12 @ 6:22PM
Occam you truly are a "TOOL". I am an American and as a patriotic American I can denounce the foreign policy of my government as both Unconstitutional and UnAmerican and downright murderous because that's what's going to happen to my Orthodox Christian brothers and sisters, Shia, Druze and Alawites if these Sunni Wahhabist scum take power in Syria with the help of the United States, Europe, the Turks, the Israelis and their Wahhabist financiers in Saudi Arabia. They will be massacred...I know this and you can bet your ass that Washington DC knows this and that Mossad knows this and London know this, but they don't care how many have to die as long as its in the best interest of the West. I am not a Russian. I am Russian Orthodox and I am very fond of Russia, but I am not a Russian...I am 1000% American.
mmercier| 2.1.12 @ 8:18PM
dimitry and occam have a nifty little spat here.
better than a pissant civil war in some third world shithole.
POST American| 2.1.12 @ 11:51PM
"----And, of course, say what we will
about the Islamic world ---they were NOT
into USURY. See, they actually, officially
respected and adhered to the Law of Moses."
Those with and ear ---take heed!