By Barry Rubin
Professor Hilal Khashan is a political science professor at the American University of Beirut. Although I don’t agree with all of his points, he has written a good article on the battle over reform, democracy, and the status quo in syria and Lebanon, available here.
One point is worth repeating about U.S. policy:
“[Syrian dictator Bashar al-] Assad seems to have concluded that the Western intervention in Libya is not repeatable in the Syrian context, apparently drawing some comfort from Hillary Clinton’s assurance after the killing of dozens of protesters in the northern port city of Latakia that `the USA will not interfere in Syria in the way it has in Libya.’”
I am 100 percent against any direct U.S. intervention in Syria. But what’s important is that you don’t signal your enemy (well, the Obama Administration doesn’t regard the Syrian dictatorship as an enemy, that’s part of the problem) of what you are going to do unless you absolutely must do so. After all, once you tip him off as to the limit of your pressure that gives him aa license to do whatever he wishes. Every time Asad murders Syrian demonstrators it is partly because he knows the United States will let him get away with it.
Yes, but it’s less honest and forthright if we tell our friends and neighbors exactly what we’re going to do, before we do/n’t it, or change our minds and do something else. It’s much more fun if you leave your allies in the dark, while telegraphing your every move to the people you’re trying to influence. You can look sanctimonious, when often all you really should be is sheepish at your own incompetence.
Obama and company are hopeless. But let’s assume utter stupidity is the main qualification for leadership in the eyes of the majority of the electorate and try and figure out what a second Obama administration will be like. First we can say good-bye to the economy, there will be no recovery and who knows what else, certainly the dollar will be as valuable as the giant stones the Pacific Islanders used as currency.
Security wise we will be better off, no one will attack us for the same reason no one wants to attack Benin or Niger. Obama will take credit for this and rightfully so. The next supreme court appointee will be a Lesbian or transgender satanist who has had multiple abortions on TV. NASA will give up space exploration and concentrate on outreach to the Arab world. This will include air strikes on Prime Minister Netanyahu thereby getting the US into a war with Israel which will be lost by the US. The Iranians will get the bomb of course and celebrate July 4, 2016 by sailing nukes into our ports and coastal refineries. Obama will deny that they did this because he knows that his outreach to the Iranians really worked.
I invite the reader to dispute my predictions for a second Obama term.
that sure sounds a lot better than Bush’s second term. at least more fun
Successful and effective foreign policy requires strong and determined leadership.
Barack Obama is a weak and inconsistent leader who clearly lacks any moral principles either domestically or internationally.
This is particularly bad because it means that foreign leaders, especially rogue and terrorist ones, as well as allied leaders, cannot rely on Obama or take whatever his foreign policy consists of seriously.
Obama has turned American foreign policy into as big a joke as he has made his administration’s domestic policies.
“he knows the United States will let him get away with it.”
Now the question is: Will Assad show appreciation for this act of friendship?
“Every time Asad murders Syrian demonstrators it is partly because he knows the United States will let him get away with it.”
That is utter nonsense. The reason why he uses force to eradicate the opposition is because he thinks if he were to give in to the demands of transition democracy he would signal weakness. And given that he rules by fear, if the majority of the people were to detect any sign of weakness on his part then they would stop fearing and that would be the end of his rule. Since he is a minority tyrant that means serious blood letting. Unfortunately for the Syrian people there is no easy way out. Assad will fight to the end. Can there be a third party arbitration? Maybe, that is what Turkey’s angling in the affair. But I don’t have high hopes. Assad can not himself transition Syria to a democracy as there’s no love lost between the majority Sunni population and himself.
So, we will see a war of attrition maybe with a palace coup of some sort. But ultimately we will see the end of the minority rule in Syria.
For a change I partly agree with you.
It’s true that being perceived as weak will only increase the confidence of the people revolting. But that rule isn’t limited to Asad and to situations of popular revolts. This is the law of the Middle East. Every concession is interpreted as weakness, creating the impression, rightly or wrongly, that total victory is at hand, thereby intensifying the attack rather than pacifying it. That’s why there will not be peace in the Middle East until there’s a cultural transformation.
I think the US could have seriously influenced the outcome only by a military intervention (I’m not saying the US should do that, I’m just saying that other measures aren’t likely to have a meaningful effect). Fighting is simply Asad’s best option. If he doesn’t fight he’ll lose the rulership one way or the other, and might lose his fortune and possibly his life and his family’s. He’ll likely end like Mubarak. His people and the army elite, made mostly of Alawites, are not likely to turn on him because being a religious minority in the Middle East is not fun even if you aren’t defenseless and even if you weren’t an oppressive dictator just a short while ago, but the combination of the three will lead to nearly certain brutal revenge at the hands of the Sunni Muslim majority. Iran and Hizballah also have no reason to let go. Asad’s regime is Iran’s central regional ally and is too strategically important to lose. So whatever the US says or does, they’ll continue to try and suppress the revolution because any other alternative is just too bad for all of them.
However, telling them the US won’t attack is like giving them a green light to do whatever they want. The admin should have kept its mouth shut and let Asad believe that the more he kills the likelier an intervention becomes. Maybe it would have helped restrain him a little and maybe not, but now we’ll never know.