Whither Syria

This article was begun early in 2013, but never finished, simply because I was frustrated that no one in the US or anywhere else was engaged in meaningful thought about what might be done to stop the inevitable.  Now, the inevitable has occurred.  And now we find ourselves trying to ‘play catch-up.’

So, what’s next for Syria?  Everyone wants to know. 

First, let’s be clear: there are no easy answers.  And any attempt to understand what is next must begin with the understanding that Syria is more a place then a country.  Syria is a patchwork of a number of different tribes (Turks, Alawites, Kurds, Assyrians, etc.) who view themselves as such, and not particularly as ‘Syrians.’  Further, virtually every rebel group in the country is to one degree or another seeking to establish an Islamic state if it comes to power.  The US had an opportunity to get involved a year ago with revolutionary groups that were not Islamic extremists.  The US – the President - did not choose to actively back them, for good or ill.  Now that is no longer a meaningful option.

Who will succeed is not clear.  It certainly isn’t clear that the current dictator, Bashir Assad, will lose, despite the never-ending series of hopeful and inaccurate assessments. If I were to place a bet, I would bet he is still in power in 2014.  Once again, Hope is NOT a plan.  Sure, some weeks it looks like he is weakening, and other weeks it look like he might be gaining, but it has looked that way for nearly 2 years.  And rebellions seldom go as planned. 

So what is likely to happen?  We are rapidly approaching a situation in which the US will have painted itself into a corner of appearing to lead the call for strikes against the Syrian regime.  First, there will be a confrontation in the UN (where the current US Ambassador if off to a poor and seemingly incompetent start).  Russia and China, both members of the ‘Perm 5) – permanent members of the UN Security Council (UNSC) – will oppose approval of air strikes.  Putin, who sees President Obama as weak and vacillating, is likely to push hard on this issue.  The President will have to overcome a good deal of political resistance if he is going to conduct strikes.  Right now that is a 50 – 50 chance.

If the US does not back strikes, it is unlikely the UK and France will conduct them on their own. 

Assuming the US decides to conduct strikes, even in the face of a veto in the UNSC, the President will be in the uncomfortable position of having to produce a real success, one that a favorable press will not be able to construct out of whole cloth.  Is that possible?  Certainly.  The US and its allies have the wherewithal to produce a great deal of damage to Syria.  Will that be enough?  No.  Only in the event that the rebel forces organize quickly enough to take full advantage of these strikes would the strikes lead to regime change.  What happened in Libya is fundamentally different then what is happening right now in Syria, and Assad and Qaddafi are two substantially different leaders. 

What is possible for Syria:

1)    Assad manages to maintain control.  If he does, he will need to be very brutal.  Fortunate for him, he’s not afraid of being brutal.  Not fortunate for many Syrians. This is the most likely event, even in the face of a serious bombing campaign by the US and allies.  Assad could always be killed by a ‘lucky’ bomb.  But that is unlikely.

2)    One of the rebel groups ‘wins’ and takes control.  They will try to establish an Islamic state, but will find a shattered economy and a country that is hardly what we think of as a nation; the new leadership will find themselves leading a collection of peoples and tribes who all feel that they should have considerably more share in the ruling of the nation and should have a greater share in economic power.  Within several years the new leaders will either need to exercise greater control or the country will start unraveling again.  If the country starts unraveling, expect Turkey to ‘step in’ with a ‘peacekeeping’ force.

3)    Assad is overthrown but no rebel group can consolidate power.  If that happens, one of two countries will then step in to control Syria: Turkey (which did in fact control Syria for centuries) or Iran.  Whichever one steps in, the other will challenge.  Expect more bloody fighting. 

4)    Eventually, someone will come to power.  He will be a strongman who knows how to wield power and how to bang heads together and make the various tribes obey him.  He will probably make a great show of being a man of the people and will have some sort of show of democracy.  But he will be a dictator.

Sadly, nothing good is likely to come out of Syria for many years, not until the various tribes in Syria move beyond tribal identity and assume a national identity.  Only then would they have a chance of moving forward towards a working representative government, assuming they want one. 

As for the US, the US must either get involved in the ‘no-win’ situation in Syria or sit by and potentially watch Syrian chemical weapons fall into the hands of extremists. 

Before we go down that road we would do well to consider a few things:

1)    No strike that lasts just a few days is going to do a great deal of damage.  We can destroy a large number of fixed positions (like knock down an antenna, blow up a building, etc.)  But all of that can be rebuilt, and Russia will be more than happy to do so.  Assad knows this.

2)    Any operation that lasts long enough to destroy major portions of the Syrian military will be expensive and destabilizing to the whole region.  Do we really want to further destabilize the Middle East?

3)    Trying to destroy chemical weapons by air strikes would be difficult simply because you can never be sure (unless you used nuclear weapons – no one wants to go there) if you actually got everything.  So that means you end up in some sort of ‘Strike – look – strike – look – strike – look’ ‘Do Loop.’  That could last a very long time (and be very expensive in material and in political clout).

4)    If you drop bombs on chemical weapons are you prepared for the possibility of causing a leak of the chemicals and killing more innocents?  Even if you don’t cause the leak, you will be blamed and it will be difficult to disprove.

5)    No matter what happens, if the US starts dropping ordnance on Syria there will be a world-wide expectation that we will provide humanitarian assistance as well.  This will be expensive.  That may sounds crass and hard-hearted, but we need to understand that this operation might be very expensive.

6)    If Assad wins you can be certain that he will be generous to the Iranians and Russians who backed him, as well as various Iranian backed terrorist groups that might want to operate from Syria.

Finally, there is the perennial problem of foreign policy: getting involved is ugly and expensive, but if you don’t get involved you are 100% certain that the end result will not be anything that you wanted.

So, what should the US do? 

The real answer is the painful one that no one seems interested in pursuing: the US needs to ask – and answer – this simple question: What do we want Syria to look like?  After that, at least we would know where we are trying to ‘go.’ 

Later this week I’ll offer my thoughts about what the US might want to make its goals vis-à-vis Syria.