Syria

The situation in Syria is going to get worse before it gets better.  We all need to accept that it will also go in directions we have not anticipated.  And we need to accept that we – the US – are now involved, and in a major way.

We saw in the press that a White House source announced that the President approved support to the Syrian rebels and, in one way or another supports the ouster of President Assad.

Assad is a butcher, and the world would be better off without him.  But we need to be clear as to what the President just did: he de facto declared war on Syria.  And he declared unlimited war.  Calling for the removal of the current government is the true definition of unlimited war.  Simply put, there will be no negotiated settlement.  All well and good if you are prepared to pay for the costs.  But what that effectively does is remove any inhibitions on the part of the other party in the fight.  It means the fighting is going to get dirtier, and it means that if the other side can strike at you he will.

Syria of course, is not acting alone.  Syria has a strong ally in Iran, and, Russia and China have both found it politically expedient to back Syria if for no other reason then it is of low (Russia) or no (China) cost to them, and it is of significant political cost to the US.  But it also speaks to what may be happening in the region: the political maps are breaking down.

Over the past nearly 200 years the world – and the west in particular – has become quite fond of the boundaries as drawn on the map.  In the few cases where they have been changed the change has usually been accompanied with some reference to the borders having been ‘drawn by British politicians sitting in London with no regard for the people who live here.’  But the simple truth is that throughout history boundaries have always been drawn by generals and politicians with as little regard as possible to the people of the region at hand.  From Ramses II and Hattushilish III through Alexander, Julius Caesar, Hadrian, Charlemagne, Genghis Khan, all the Mogul emperors, up through Saddam Hussein, borders have been regarded as things to be crossed and then redrawn.  Syria in particular is perhaps the most redrawn parcel of land in history, with nearly every great or want to be great empire in history occupying that land.  The land itself is currently occupied by a patchwork of people who view themselves not as ‘Syrian’ but Sunnis, Shias, Alawites and Druze, as Arabs and Armenians and Turks, Palestinians, Kurds, Assyrians, and Circassians.

In fact, much of the Middle East is a similar patchwork, which upon close examination is further splintered into tribes, huge family networks in which people have real allegiance to their extended families ahead of any allegiance to country.  If you have closely followed the events in Libya over the past several years you have probably seen tribal names such as Awaqir and Misurata and Obeidat – tribes that had major roles in the power structure of the Qaddafi government.  But these tribes can trace their heritage back in time for centuries and centuries, many to before the founding of Islam 1400 years ago.  And it is important to recognize that for many of these people there is little real devotion to nations or boundaries, particularly when that nation, such as Syria, was physically ‘constructed’ by treaty after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, ruled by France, and then gained independence 66 years ago (1946).

But, there is much more to this current problem.  It would seem, in fact, that the violence is already spreading across borders.  There have been intimations that the governments of one or more regional powers played a role in the attack on Assad’s cabinet meeting on 18 July, which killed the Syrian minister of defense and at least 3 other senior members of the cabinet and pushed Assad to seek sanctuary outside the city.  (For the record, this should not be labeled as terrorism; these men were all legitimate military targets as they are all parts of the command and control process of the government.  War may be ugly, but whoever did this didn’t target civilians, they attacked the government.)  Just several days later there was a similar attack on Saudi Intelligence headquarters in Riyadh.  Was it retaliation?  Was it coincidence?  That hardly seems likely.  Was it done by the Syrians?  Or did they have assistance?  If so, who?  Iran would seem to be a good bet, though certainly not a given.

The point here is that the situation is escalating.  And spreading.  The US needs to be well thought out and deliberate.  Perhaps covert aid to the rebels in Syria is appropriate.  But, the US needs to have a clear plan.  One of the problems with wars is that they seldom go the way you want them to go.  And the less your investment on the battlefield the more likely that is to be true.  When you try to fight wars cheaply and through proxies you have essentially no control as to the course of events, you are simply adding gasoline to the barbecue.  And so our ‘plan’ needs to have enough ‘branches’ that there are well thought out – and ‘executable’ – options in the event this war takes a different direction then the one we want.  And if we haven’t done that planning, or there are branches we can’t execute – for whatever reason – then we shouldn’t be doing this.

Politics inside the ‘Beltway’ is fine, but wars require professionals and clear assessments of real risk, not ‘hip-shots’ and stories leaked to friendly reporters so that the administration can look tough for voters.

And meanwhile we have a White House staffed by people who can’t seem to keep their mouths shut, who don’t appreciate the value of secrets, and really seem to believe that it’s all just a game being played in newspapers and TV news shows.  At a time when we clearly need some professionals in the White House we appear to be watching the recreation of ‘Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour.’