Striking Syria

The news reports say that the decision to strike is perhaps only hours away.  Further reports suggest that the strikes will be cruise-missile strikes, will not be designed to force a regime change, and are not aimed at Syrian chemical weapons.  Rather, they are intended to ‘send a message.’

I’ll begin with this: sending a message is best done with paper and crayons.  I say crayons because it has to be a simple message.  The general rule of history is that “If there is a way to misinterpret your message, the other side will do so.”

But, let’s ask some simple questions: Does anyone think that bombing alone – no matter how heavy and sustained – would result in regime change?  The history of the last 100 years is replete with examples of strategic bombing that didn’t work.  Japan and the use of the atomic bombs is a heavily caveated exception, but it followed years of brutal all-out war; any serious reading of Kosovo shows that the bombing wasn’t the real impetus to the cease-fire; and what happened in Libya actually reaffirms the idea that tactical air strikes conducted in concert with actions on the ground (there were all sorts of allied personnel in close contact with the Libyan rebels) are what bring victory on the battlefield.  And on and on.

So to say ‘this isn’t to force regime change’ is akin to saying that these strikes are not intended to feed the poor in sub-Saharan Africa.  Both are completely true, and both are nonsense.

Secondly, the intent is not to destroy the Syrian chemical weapons stockpile.  That’s good, because having told the whole world what we are thinking about it is doubtful that we know damned near anything about where those weapons are right now.  We certainly know less now then we did 24 hours ago – unless the Syrians are clinical idiots.

It is also worth remembering that dropping bombs on chemical weapons – assuming we knew where they were - is a dangerous thing.  If you break the weapons open but do not destroy them in a fire then you have probably just released the chemicals into the atmosphere, and those within a certain distance, based on winds and physical reality (geography, presence or absence of building, weather, etc.) you may place a great many folks at risk.

Third, and this is the most important issue for all those involved to consider: what if ‘it’ doesn’t work?  What if Assad and the Syrians don’t ‘get the message?’  Let’s imagine: on the 30^th the US and UK and French conduct strikes into Syria.  Several days of relative quiet follow.  On the 7^th of September a report comes out that more people are showing up at a hospital, victims of a nerve agent.  The US demands an explanation.  And the Syrians respond: ‘We don’t know.  We didn’t use it the first time, but you bombed us anyway.  We didn’t use it this time.  Now what are you going to do?’

Let me note here that there is no doubt in my mind that the Syrian government – that Assad - is responsible for the use of chemical weapons in 2012 and 2013.  But is our intelligence fool proof?  Does anyone in the world right now – given the events of the last several months – trust the US intelligence community enough to accept its reports on face value?

The simple truth is that every plan needs to be able to either achieve a clear end state or have a reasonable, and readily executable follow-on – a sequel.  If our goal is to send a message we need to be ready to continue until the message is ‘received.’  Or we need to find a new goal.