If you read my last post get ready for a change of pace, this one is a little more serious. That’s because anyway you slice it, the situation in Syria is pretty bad. For more than a year, the Assad regime has cracked down on civil unrest and resistance with a true dictator’s brutality. With reasons that range from humanitarian to opportunistic, most agree that something should be done, but therein lies our conundrum: what?
Many are calling for military intervention a-la NATO’s campaign in Libya. Aside from the fact that there are some pretty serious political opponents to intervention – namely China and Russia – we should ask ourselves: what would happen if we did have the freedom to enter the conflict?
Oddly enough, it’s non-military types that are most ardently calling for the troops. But perhaps that is not so odd, considering that it is the same non-military types that often under-appreciate the constraints and limitations of the use of force.
Military intervention is normally a tool of last resort for good reason, which may not be a shocker to some of you. This is because military interventions don’t often cause peace.
That’s right. Believe it or not, sending guns to rebels, or launching a bombing campaign, tends to make conflicts longer. The worst cases are when both the rebels and the government have someone to send them guns and money (aka sponsors). Unfortunately this will be the case in Syria with US/NATO for the rebels and Iran/Russia for Assad. The result of these dueling interventions becomes what’s known as a “proxy war.” The people of Syria will end up being the pawns of a larger game between more powerful states. Ultimately nobody wins, but the Syrians definitely lose.
What’s more disheartening though is the finding in the Regan article linked above that “neutral” interventions, or peacekeeping missions, don’t necessarily hasten the end of conflict either. Often peacekeepers will only cool things off long enough for all sides to rest their weary and plus-up their supplies, and the fighting will renew shortly after.
So if getting involved at all is only likely to make the conflict last longer, we’re left with a pretty dark choice. The conflict will end most quickly if we leave it alone. But that would also mean that we would have to be prepared to accept “our side” to lose. The conflict would be shorter, and therefore (hopefully) incur a smaller loss of life, but a brutal dictator and stifling regime may remain in power.
There is the heart of our dilemma. If we intervene things will likely become worse in the short run, but may be better in the long term, assuming Assad’s replacement is more just. Alternately, if we stick with sanctions and leave the fighting alone things may calm down more quickly, but the people of Syria will be left with a despot for a considerable time yet (Assad is only 46 years old, and is the second so far in an Assad dynasty).
All said and done, the situation is obviously more complicated and nuanced than outlined here. Arguing that we should either “do something” or “do nothing” is really a false choice (sorry bout that). And although I seem to make the argument here that we should just stay out of this one, it of course is not so simple. There are MANY more reasons why military intervention is a bad idea, but we can’t realistically expect ourselves to just stand aside as a country tears itself apart.
If you want to read more see below for a few links to more in-depth sources. There is a lot to talk about here, so add your comments. As always, thanks for reading!
-RAB
The Economist Debates: Should we intervene?
The Washington Post: Syria rebels gaining ground, strength
World Politics Review: Locating the Real Risk of Syria Spillover in Lebanon, Iraq
World Politics Review: In Syria, a Quick, Decisive Outcome is Unlikely
Center for a New American Security: Pressure Not War: A Pragmatic and Principled Policy Towards Syria
The Miami Herald: In northern Syria, rebels now control many towns and villages
The New York Times: Do Not Attack Syria
As a liberal interventional I often skew to the side of military intentions (and I’m sure part of the reason for that is I’m one of those folks who have little real-world experience with the armed forces), but I think the case of Syria is much different. For a multitude of reasons:
-Syria is, moreso than Libya, clearly ripe for civil war. The Shia minority will cling t the Assad regime for as long as possible, out of fear of retribution from the Sunni majority should they emerge victorious. This isn’t Libya where one tribe feared for their safety, but rather a dispersed group of individuals who see no security in failure.
-Libya was a geographically divided conflict, Syria is densely populated and the conflict doesn’t have a “49th parallel.” a softer intervention, or injection of supplies, would be difficult to orchestrate given the nature of this battlefield. There is no supply route or safe city for Syrian rebels to liaise with international support forces
-the media wrongly parallels Libya and Syria. A more apt comparison is Iraq ans Syria. Now, put in that context, would anyone suggest military intervention?
I could go on, but all in all I think the attention you give to the proxy war issue points to the only clear solution to this problem: continue to try t sway Russia and China to align with the Western powers and further increase sanctions on Syria.
Thanks for the on-point feedback! I would agree with you on all points, except for the statement the Syria is “ripe for civil war.” I would actually go as far as saying that civil war in Syria has already begun.
Your comparison to Iraq is dead-on. Sectarian tensions may in fact be the worst part of this mess.The Alawites have a lot of incentive to remain in power.
I don’t think we know enough about who the opposition is in Syria to make a good case for intervention. We have to balance getting rid of Assad with the possibility of Syria being run by Al-Qaida. That might go from bad to worse, since Al-Qaida is ideological while Assad is concerned only with maintaining his own power while accountable to no higher power or cause and is therefore predictable.
We can train Free Syrian troops and provide air support, but the only way we can ensure that Assad is defeated and non-Islamists take power is to knock him off ourselves and then occupy the country with enough military force to fill the resulting power vacuum. I don’t know if we have the capability to do that right now.
However, I don’t rule out that some of these conditions may someday be met. If the FSA can become better organized, speak with one voice, and prevent Islamist influence, then maybe the picture will look different. And in that case, we might need to re-examine intervention.
Which leads me to wonder, are there ways we can work towards acheiving those conditions? Possibly an Operation Cyclone type operation? Could that be effective in shaping the insurgency into something we could support?
I think another problem with any intervention is that an outside power stepping in and choosing who gets to be in control sets the stage for even more dangerous conflict down the line. In this case we have a minority clinging to a regime that is clearly guilty of human rights abuses out of fear of reprisal should the rebels win in the end. This is, unfortunately, a legitimate concern. While differing in many significant ways from liberal intervention, the legacy of colonial policies in which certain groups were put in control over others have had damaging effects that are still felt decades after decolonization (See the Tamil-Sinhala conflict in Sri Lanka, for example).
Despite good intentions, it seems that the type of intervention the Syrian situation would require would perpetuate a damaging cycle of violence.
I’m surprised that very few are seriously thinking about nonviolence-based resistance and revolution in Syria. And short of its actually being used, taking it as a good place to at least meditate on the possibility. Certainly that’s what military strategists do all the time: imagine a war, imagine a battle, here, there, everywhere. This serves as a ground of ideas for actual battles.
So what gives? Why are so few engaging the question at all? I mean, I can spin an answer, but I’ll just leave this question like this for now.