Day: March 16, 2012
Shut out
Max Boot in the Washington Post today makes the case for U.S.-led military intervention in Syria. Zack Beauchamp at foreignpolicy.com makes the case for relying on diplomatic, political and economic tools. Zack wins. The score isn’t even close.
Boot
Boot dismisses most of the downsides of military intervention without serious discussion. He cites Syria’s lack of air defense effectiveness against Israel in 1982 (sic) and in 2007, when the Israelis achieved strategic and tactical surprise in a one-time raid on a single target. The inapplicability of these instances to a major, fully anticipated air campaign against multiple targets in urban areas in 2012 should be obvious. An American-led air war in Syria is going to be difficult and kill a lot of civilians.
Likewise, Boot writes off the large Syrian army as mostly conscripts and unmotivated. But it has also proven cohesive during a year of attacking Syrian cities. There have been few defections compared, for example, to Libya. The notion that only Alawites will fight for Bashar al Assad, as Boot implies, is just wrong.
Boot also writes off the argument that we don’t want to get into a proxy war with Iran, claiming that the Iranians are already fighting a war with the U.S., or with Russia, saying Moscow won’t fight for Bashar. But he doesn’t even consider the political and military risks to our ability to attack Iran, if that proves necessary to prevent it from building nuclear weapons, arising from a prior attack on Syria. The Obama Administration is not making a mistake to keep its powder dry if it wants to maintain a serious military threat against Tehran’s nuclear program.
Claiming that we have not even provided communications capabilities to the Syrian opposition, which is surely untrue, Boot says Syria is already in a civil war and doesn’t bother considering whether foreign military intervention could make things worse rather than better. After all, our other Middle Eastern military adventures have gone swimmingly over the past 10 years, without any blowback that undermines U.S. national security?
Our military intervention will also somehow prevent Syrian chemical weapons from falling into the wrong hands. The evidence on this question in Libya is still not in, but I’ll bet we haven’t prevented it entirely there, where our assets were much stronger than what they are likely to be in Syria.
Beauchamp
Zack doubts that airstrikes can have the desired impact in urban areas. He also notes the strength of the Syrian army (relative to the Libyan one) and the divisions in the opposition (also relative to the Libyan one). “Safe zones” would be target-rich environments for the Syrian army and difficult to defend for those intervening. Ground troops would be required. As for chemical weapons, Bashar might well use them in the event of an international military intervention, making things much more deadly than they would otherwise have been.
Beauchamp also considers the negative implications of a U.S.-led military intervention without Security Council approval. It would, he says, stiffen Indian, Brazilian and other resistance to “responsibility to protect,” undermining its usefulness in the future. Certainly there is ample reason to believe this.
Instead, he suggests we rely on diplomatic, political and economic pressure: referral of Bashar al Assad to the International Criminal Court (ICC), assurances to the Russians that their interests will be served in a post-Assad Syria, and consideration of renunciation of any debt Bashar incurs now as “odious,” i.e. not to be repaid. These are, admittedly, not strong options: the Security Council referral to the ICC is unlikely, assurances already offered have not yet moved the Russians, and anyone who still thinks Bashar’s debts are going to be repaid in full if the opposition wins is smoking something.
Shut out. These are, nevertheless, the right approaches to a problem for whose solution there are no good options. A U.S.-led military intervention without a UN Security Council resolution or even an Arab League request is a non-starter. I’d call this one four or five to zero for Beauchamp. And he didn’t even know what game he was playing: his piece is mostly about R2P and how it is properly applied to Syria. He’s right on that too.
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By any other name, still Macedonia
Zara Bozinovska of the Skopje daily Dnevnik asked some questions. I replied. I’ve touched up the questions a little, just to make them a bit more accessible to English-speaking readers.
Q: Some time ago you stated that Chicago summit is an opportunity to correct the injustice that is done to Macedonia in Bucharest [at the 2008 NATO Summit, when Greece blocked Macedonian membership]. Two months before the NATO gathering, do you think there is a chance to change anything in terms of Macedonia’s membership?
A: It isn’t looking good. Greece, preoccupied with its financial problems, has remained indifferent to the International Court of Justice decision. The Americans, while supportive of Macedonia, have not to my knowledge done anything substantial to change the situation. I may still hope for a solution, but I am not seeing one emerging.
Q: What can be changed and how injustice could be corrected if [the] NATO Secretary General, as well as senior U.S. officials repeat that there is no NATO membership until the name is resolved, calling [for] consensus in decision making?
A: Obviously one possibility is to solve the name issue. The parameters by now are well known. But I haven’t seen any flexibility either in Athens or Skopje. The other possibility is to convince Athens to allow NATO membership as The FYROM, as required by the interim accord and the ICJ decision.
Q: Do you think that consensus is stronger than injustice?
A: Consensus is the NATO rule. Yes, I suppose it appears stronger than injustice at this particular moment.
Q: What should Macedonia do in [the] next two months, given that on its side [Macedonia] has the judgment of the Hague Tribunal. How we can use that judgment?
A: My view is that the NATO issue should be solved under the interim accord, in accordance with the ICJ decision, not in the UN talks on the name, which may go on forever. But neither Washington nor NATO seems to agree with me. If I am correct, the right address for Skopje is Athens, not New York.
Q: What do you think, why Greece keeps the Hague judgment on low level?
A: Because they lost.Q:
Q: You said that Skopje should stop knocking on the door of ambassador Nimetz and to address directly Athens to convince the [its] authorities to allow admission to NATO under reference FYROM. How can we convince them for an issue that cannot be resolved 20 years, especially when both sides accuse each other constantly?
A: Maybe it would be best to stop accusing and start negotiating. That starts with this question: what does Greece need that Macedonia can provide?
Q: What is the impact of the current situation and the crisis in Greece? Does Greece just use the crisis as an excuse for failure to solve the issue or it really cannot think of the name issue?
A: The financial crisis does make it difficult for Greek politicians to think about the name issue. It also gives them a good excuse for not doing so. Not to mention upcoming elections.
Q: Why do you think that the Macedonian-Greek name dispute is one of the most uninteresting problems stemming from the breakup of former Yugoslavia? Uninteresting and long last[ing], as you said…
A: Uninteresting because I think Macedonians have a right to call themselves whatever they want. If Skopje and Athens reached an agreement tomorrow to call you Martians, would anyone pay any attention to it? Would the language you speak suddenly become “Martian”? Long-lasting because it involves identity issues on both sides. And we know how difficult identity issues are, especially in the Balkans.
Q: Recently we witnessed several interethnic incidents in Macedonia, but also in the neighborhood. In Kosovo, the Macedonian flag was burned, and the same happened in Albania. Is there a danger of a new crisis in the region?
A: There is growing pan-Albanian sentiment in the Balkans, due to Serbia’s unrelenting opposition to Kosovo’s independence and continued control of north Kosovo, Kosovo’s difficulty moving forward on its path to the EU, as well as the difficulties Macedonia is facing getting into NATO and proceeding with its EU candidacy. It would be far better to solve these problems than to allow the current situation to fester.
Q: Who is behind these incidents, do you think that they may be organized by one center?
A: I really don’t know.
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