Quicker is better, but use the delay well
“Impractical, unenforceable and unwise” are the labels I gave yesterday to Anne-Marie Slaughter’s proposal for highly conditional military aid to the Syrian revolutionaries aimed at creating safe areas.
Today, Kofi Annan resigned as the UN/Arab League negotiator, having failed to make progress on the peace plan that bears his name. This likely dooms the UN observer mission, which has been useful in providing the international community with some objective data on what is going on and in assigning responsibility. It could prove helpful in the future in identifying who is emerging within the on-the-ground leadership. We’ll miss them when they are gone.
So what do I think should be done now?
There are two criteria I would ideally like to meet:
- Get it over quickly
- Empower people who will take post-Asad Syria in a democratic direction
The first is important because the Syrian war is starting to overflow the country’s borders to Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey. This could precipitate a nightmare scenario of widespread sectarian war that will open opportunities for extremists (including from Al Qaeda) and reshape the Levant in ways that are likely to be inimical to U.S. interests.
The second is important because only an inclusive democratic regime in Syria will be able to re-establish stability and reduce risks to the region. The last thing we need in Syria is what its history suggests is most likely: a series of coups and narrowly based, unstable governments that mistreat Syria’s minorities, destabilizing the region and prolonging the agony.
Or worse: a break-up of the country along ethnic and sectarian lines, with Alawites establishing a homeland along the Mediterranean coast and Kurds trying to carve out something like Iraqi Kurdistan (even though the Kurdish population is not nearly as concentrated as in Iraq).
The big question on Washington’s mind yesterday was whether military action, either direct or through proxies, would speed the denouement. Andrew Tabler testified at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:
Washington should lead its allies in the “Core Group” of the Friends of the Syrian People gathering—Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia—in issuing a stark warning to Assad that mass atrocities in Syria will be met with an immediate military response.
Jim Dobbins was more circumspect:
I do not believe the United States should become the standard bearer for such an intervention. I do believe, however, that the United States should up its assistance to the rebels; quietly let those on the front lines, particularly Turkey and Saudi Arabia, know that it will back initiatives they may wish to take toward more direct military engagement; and provided the earlier mentioned conditions can be met, America should provide those military assets needed for success that only the United States possesses in adequate number.
Martin Indyk, more concerned with speed, nevertheless focused on political and diplomatic measures and recommended no military action. Less concerned about how long it takes for Bashar to fall, Aaron David Miller, writing on foreignpolicy.com, was unequivocally against direct intervention:
The time for guilting the United States into expensive and ill-thought-out military interventions has passed. Indeed, the reasons to intervene in Syria — the hope of defusing a bloody religious and political conflict and dealing the Iranian mullahs a mortal blow — are just not compelling enough to offset the risks and the unknowns.
My own view is that U.S. (aerial) military intervention might accelerate the fall of Bashar, but only if it is direct and massive. If the Arab League and the Syrian opposition request it, the United States and whatever allies are willing to join could take direct action against Syria’s command, control and communications, aiming not to create safe areas but rather to decapitate the regime and render the Syrian army harmless. This would not necessarily work right away, but it has a far better chance of working quickly than a messy operation devoted to creating euphemistic safe areas. First step: move a carrier battle group to the Eastern Med visibly and ostentatiously.
If Washington doesn’t want to take decisive military action, and my reading is that it does not, it is better to follow Miller’s advice: let the natural course of events develop, with proxies arming and training the Syrians, as Dobbins also suggests. This isn’t likely to fulfill my first hope–to get it over quickly–but it is better than the fractious opposition trying to control territory rather than fighting the regime.
Empowering people who will take Syria in a democratic direction is a much more difficult trick. This is where Jim Dobbins put his emphasis. Our best bet is to try to identify people who are emerging as leaders inside Syria, many of them at the local level. Without an embassy in Damascus, we are flying blind.
Ironically, the people who can help us best are the much-maligned UN monitors, who have been engaging at the local level with leaders of the opposition for months now and should have an idea of who is emerging town by town and what their political views are. They will also know everyone in the regime who might be helpful to a transition.
So where I come down is this: short of taking decisive military action from the air targeting the regime’s command, control and communications, we are going to have to live with a painful and unpredictable process of regime collapse. We should use the time to develop a much better understanding of who is who on the ground inside Syria and how things can be nudged in a democratic direction.
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Annan betrayed Syria. He was appointed as a mediator but he never even attempted to get the parties at one table.
The only excuse he ever provided was that the armistice didn’t work well enough. But in conflict resolution it is quite common that negotiations are started before there is a truce. And it is hard to see how a truce can work when there are no talks to discuss and resolve the inevitable violations.