Hopeless But Not Syri-us
Over at the new Gatestone Institute, some longstanding friends and I conduct a regular electronic meeting to dissect crisis situations, and let the public read the results after we’re done. There are too many moving parts for any individual to follow, and Syria is a case in point: It resembles one of those Quentin Tarantino standoffs in which everyone has a gun pointed at everyone else. Our last exercise came to a striking conclusion: Nothing is going to happen in Syria, except more of the same. Syria will stand as a living monument to the delusions of the Democracy Exporters.
UPDATE: My friend Lee Smith writing at Tablet thinks that Assad will fall, that a Sunni government will replace him, and that this will diminish the Iranian threat. Lee is a terrific journalist, but I disagree on all counts: Assad can’t be dislodged from an Alawite enclave as long as the Russians back him (and they will; there’s no combination of Sunni forces that could form an alternative government; and the problem of Iran’s nuclear weapons development has little to do with Syria. To deal with the Iranian threat, there’s a simple solution: Neutralize their nuclear program with air strikes and related pinpoint attacks.
The Turks won’t push in, because it’s a booby trap for them. The Russians won’t intervene, unless Syria’s chemical weapons are at risk of passing into the hands of terrorists who might use them against Russian targets. Basher Assad will keep power, at least in the coastal mountains where his Alawite supporters hold sway. Syria’s Sunni majority won’t push him out because tribal and confessional differences keep them at each others’ throats.
Among the journalists involved at the Gatestone project are David Samuels, a contributing editor at Harper’s Magazine and one of the most experienced Middle East reporters in the US; Pepe Escobar, the roving correspondent for Asia Times Online; and Rotem Sella, a correspondent for the Israeli daily Ma’ariv. Last weekend we were joined by Tony Badran of the Across the Bay blog, and a Russia expert. I helped assemble this group mainly for selfish reasons: what we came up with surprised me.
What happens if one side runs out of Sunnis? Right now the battle lines are Sunni against Sunni.
pics from a lebanon friend facebook
-http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152037633335727&set=a.10150397575815727.619133.420796315726&type=1&theater
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=499102633439064&set=a.145324765483521.27748.114760155206649&type=1&theater
Interesting but mystifying analysis: from your writeup here, at any rate, it would appear that you might have left out a variable — have you?
That variable is “Some Colossally Stupid Action Committed by the Obama White House, a Smash-My-Forehead-on-the-Keyboard-in-Despair-Level Blunder, That Is Half-Driven by Ideology and Half-Driven by Electoral Desperation.”
You know, the kind that pushes a cascade of wantonly self-and-other-damaging actions on the part of the other players you mentioned; something on the order of a “Nightmare on Game Theory Street” future case-study.
After all, in “True Romance” (which was written albeit not directed by Tarantino, and where I’m guessing you’re drawing the multi-sided armed standoff image from), after a couple of minutes a switch flips in someone’s mind and that’s all it takes for everyone to open fire at one another.
The POTUS and his foreign-policy/national-security teams have been skating on stilts since January 2009. They’ve only managed to avoid a real wipeout starting on the Nile thanks to the truth of Kissinger’s “No war without Egypt, no peace without Syria” dictum — but the full weight of that dictum is finally about to force the wipeout.
Nice post Spengler,
Did you guys happen to game out Syrian spillover into the neighboring states? Namely Kurds/Alewis in Turkey, Sunnis/Kurds in Iraq and all sects in Lebanon?
Thanks
De facto Kurdish state between Iraq & Syria, though no other nation (Turkey & Iran &?) and no push for de jure nationhood. A step forward for the Kurds, but we learn to walk with baby steps. The rest of Syria, and even Iraq are somewhat between the ancient Greek city states and feudalism. Many innocents are going to die, but not worth one American soldier’s life. How many thousands of years has the Mid-East been at war?
The historical betrayals of Kurdish nationalism have not gone unstudied by your current crop of leadership. The Kurds are doing the best they can with the cards they have been dealt, patience. A Kurdish state at peace with its neighbors will be a stabilizing factor in the region. Again, patience.
The Kurds won’t make a move from Syria. The threat is mightier than the execution; it keeps Turkey off balance.
Forgive the generality of my comment. All the Kurds have to do is hold. Everything else will fall into their hands. Impatience and divisiveness were always Kurdish weaknesses. Something other ancient races in the region are not immune to.
I’m afraid that is optimistic and not reflecting facts on the ground. Predictably, Al Qaeda is again killing Shia in Iraq, trying to overthrow in effect the defacto Iranian control there. Iran WILL respond not the least of which the Iraq-Syria-Iran plans for reconstituting the Persian Empire, American weakness, and Israeli divisions (Kadima walked out of the Netanyahu Cabinet ending the unity government).
Iran has within the last thirty years benefited from war as far as regime people go, because war has solidified control as it always does.
With Iran (and Russia as a backer) intervening to prop up Assad’s control, and Assad desperate not to end up as a meat puppet in a freezer ala Khadaffi, you can expect a response from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states scared to death of the Iranians and desperate for a response.
Syria is much like Spain in the 1930′s, or Germany in the Thirty Years War. A convenient place for opposing forces to fight opening battles. See Assad’s threat to use chemical/bioweapons. Indeed widening the war seems his only option, given that a war of attrition upon an Alawite homeland only is one he will lose, and has ample historical precedent (like say, the Byzantine Empire) for shudders among his regime.
The Kurds (all factions and countries) seem like the clear beneficiaries of all this up till now. They must have many suitors knocking on their door. It will be interesting to see who they ultimately align themselves with.
David – Let’s suppose Assad is holed up in northwest Syria (to which Druze and Christians will presumably flee) and the Sunnis have the rest of the country, so that in effect there are two Syrias. What then happens with Hezbollah? Will Assad continue to funnel arms to it or will it have deal directly with Iran? Also, following up on jgets’ response to whiskey @5 – What is the possibility that the Kurds will peal off northeast Syria where they are (I think) a majority?
I assume (as does Barry Rubin) that the turmoil in the Arab world will give Israel some respite from the Arabs.
The silver lining in all this Jack, if all goes well, is. Hezbollah gets left hanging to wither on the vine,(no direct Shia controlled land route from Iran), the Druze get an “entity” on the Syrian side of the Golan, and Lebanon/South Syrian coast turns into a majority Christian state. The North Syrian coast goes to the Alawis, the Sunnis can have the rest and the Kurds can probably take care of themselves. Nightmare scenario for the Iranians and Turks, best possible outcome for Israel, the “Rest of the West” and Russia.
David, you know how to cheer a guy up.
Syri-usly.
Mr. Goldman:
Channeling Cardinal Richelieu again I see.
I certainly hope you’re right. Every bullet they use on each other is one more bullet they cannot use on the Jews.
Too bad both sides can’t win. (Or lose.) But absent the invent of the Messiah, this is a win-win situation as far as Israel is concnerned.
However, I, too, amd worried about the utter fecklessness of the current occupant of the White House. Hoping that he won’t do something monumentally stupid is probably the best we can do.
Right on spot!
Jack,
I agree with Prof. Rubin, and have made just that argument these past eighteen months:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MD12Ak01.html
A beleaguered Assad would have considerable less capacity to smuggle Iranian arms to Hizbollah, I would think.
Thanks.
You are underestimating both Hezbollah and Iran. They will both use the current anarchy to to find alternative supply routes. The solution lies in having an entity/ies that can interdict the direct supply route from Iran to Lebanon. Assad is just currently convenient for them (he is Alawi, not Shia), it will not preclude them from finding an alternative..
In the short run this makes sense. Nobody wins, it becomes a failed state, broken more-or-less into its French mandate pieces. But Syria is not Somalia, i.e., it has a much greater strategic importance, so I don’t think it will be left to fester that way for years. Isn’t it probable that one of the major regional powers, Iran or Turkey or KSA, will find it too tempting a target and grab for it? Even if they use proxy groups to do the actual grabbing?
Especially if Egypt falls completely into the hands of the MB, won’t other Sunni groups be determined to capture Syria for their faction(s)? KSA won’t want a strong MB in both Egypt and Syria …
That’s just the problem. No-one really wants to win. A Sunni regime would be an MB regime, which the Saudis don’t want; it would be an Arab nationalist regime, which the Turks don’t want. Wiping out the Alawites would bring chemical weapons into play, which nobody wants (at that point, everybody would wade in, including the 1,500 Russian Marines offshore). Who knows what happens a few years from now? But we couldn’t find an endgame scenario within the visible horizon.
The end game scenario is Syria’s partition, along with analogous population exchanges. It is the unfortunate result of unfinished business from the dissolution leftovers of the east part of the Ottoman empire. It just took a hundred years to traverse from the Balkans to the Levant. The Kurds understand this, why are you guys scratching your heads?
To DPG concerning #4
Please do not assume I was referring to only one of the ancient races in the region. It’s an old affliction of both the grandparents that gave birth to Western civilization.
Interesting, that you’d consider Pepe Escobar’s input.
I would’ve loved to be a fly on that wall.
I find your worldly realism to be increasingly comforting.
I’ll be looking for you and Pepe on Asia Times Online (atimes.com)
p.s. ‘Hopeless, But Not Syri-us’ just has to be a riff on
Adam and the Ants’ ‘Desperate, But Not Serious’.
Gotta love Spengler.
“Hopeless but not serious” is an old joke — first characterized the situation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire before WWI.
Yes, it is a difficult call. If your panel at the Gatestone Institute couldn’t see a likely endgame, then my worried puzzlement is understandable. But I’m still trying to scry it out.
I would say that a failed state, broken into warlord controlled zones, is different from a partitioned state. For one thing, the level of zonal conflict is much higher in a failed state, both internally and externally. I suppose the Kurds still dream of the time of Saladin when they ruled the Dar al-Islam. Right now, however, no other Muslim group wants to see them get a unified nation, let alone come back into real power. It’s true they’re tough, but they’re not powerful. The Kurdish dream of a nation-state, an autonomous Kurdistan, has little chance of emerging in the next 3-5 years.
Time flows differently for the local non-Western eye. Three to five years is insignificant in this neck of the woods.
Here is the post WWI, post Ottoman, pre French map of Syria:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mandate_of_Syria.png
I assume that it roughly delineates the territories of the waring factions post Assad.
It is not in America’s interest to take sides in Syria, especially as the anti-Assad side is made up of a lot of MB and AlQ and other Christian haters. Let Muslims be Muslims and kill each other. It takes their eyes off us. Sun Tzu did not say “When your enemies are at each others throats, get in between them”.
You forgot to mention the advantages to Russia of a warm water port
Ports on the Mediterranean were relevant to Russia before the Great War (WWI) because they exported agricultural and forest products. These days Russia exports natural gas and oil to Europe by pipeline.
Fight the fire, or let it burn itself out? This post is a good case for option #2.
The thesis is plausible and much of the discussion is germane and enlightening. My hope is that the situation will be just bad, simöly because it is not terrible. And that is, alas, good. The dialects here would even impress Hegel.There is another question burning in my linquistic soul: Alas, the question requires that I execute a deviation from the seriousness of it all. There is something said that puzzles me. “Blatulating”??? When did that word sneak into English. I cannot find it in my modest dictionaries. Be merciful and satiate my curiosity.
A thousand years from now, “blatulating” and “Bingeaux!” will be all that remain of Spengler’s contributions.
Such is the justice of the gods.
Google wants to know if one meant “flatulating”?
It’s a neologism combining ‘blabber’ with ‘flatulent’ rendered in its verbal form. As for as a more precise definition, you are free to experiment on your own. Be sure to keep the door closed……..
Thanks you all for the enlightenmen! The sum of my conclusion as to the meaning of the term is: I do not have the slightest idea. I do know I do not want it directed at me. Close enough?
“The Russians aren’t going to give up on Assad, and give NATO a chance to attempt another Libyan-style intervention.” Forgive me, but why would the Russians care if NATO intervened? Is it just reflexive anti-NATO feeling; an instinctive belief that if NATO increases, they must necessarily decrease? What specifically is the Russian interest here? Can you spell this out?
End result:
Alawistan, a Christian, Alawi, Druze, Shia state in the Latakia governate area which will include Tartus and other port cities and be supported by the Russians and Shia interests.
Sunni Syria, a damaged conflict state eventually under control of the Ikhwan.
Enlarged Kurdistan, as the Syrian Kurds join Kurdistan.
If you read the whole discussion, David Samuels makes the point that the “Sunni” rump may be outlaw country indefinitely. There are a lot of cooks stirring that pot with partially overlapping and partially divergent interests — the Turks, the Saudis, al-Qaeda, and so forth.
Considering the terrain, that’s a strong possibility. There’s a narrow coastal strip in the Latakia-Tartous corridor (I lived there in 1980). There’s a rather rugged mountain range. Then there’s the east side, which contains the Damascus-Aleppo corridor, and the bread basket, which turns to desert as you go east and south. There’s some population in the coastal strip, but there’s a lot more population in Damascus and Aleppo. If Assad’s going to dig in in the coastal strip, he’ll have the mountains to protect him.
The other possibility to think about is that once Assad’s holed up west of the mountains, he’ll have an easier time projecting force into Lebanon than into inland Syria. Together with Hezbollah, he could end up creating a coastal state out of Lebanon and coastal Syria. Then the rest of Syria will be land locked. They’ll probably have to depend on Turkey for port access.
David, you are a systems-savvy person. You know that there is not enough energy (ammunition, bodies, will) for any conflict to continue for a long time. A tipping point is reached and things gel to a lower energy usage. That is why there are borders between countries and rich families give separate rooms to their children. The only relevant question is whether the chemical weapons will be used, redistributed or destroyed by this conflict.
That is the big question, and everyone involved is very attuned to it (including the Russians, who have marines offshore in part for that reason).
Chemical weapons tend not to be shelf stable. Nor are they all that useful against properly trained and equipped soldiers. If they will be a problem, it will be use against civilians in the next few months. It probably depends on how desperate Assad is, and whether he has suitable targets, such as an all Sunni city.
Events, Dear Boy, Events (Harold Macmillan)
What are the odds of there not being an *event* in the middle east – not least Israel deciding to arrest Iran’s nuclear ambitions, or Obama seeking to impose that moronic manifestation of political correctness: R2P.
“So the civil war will go on indefinitely. And that’s not the worst thing that can happen as far as American security interests are concerned.”
So one bunch of prospective Muslim terrorists is killing off another bunch of prospective Muslim terrorists…..why are we not supplying the ammo?
Perhaps Syria will look like Lebanon did in the 1980s, with several different factions and militias constantly at each other’s throats. Couldn’t happen to a “nicer” bunch of people. As long as they keep slaughtering each other, they probably won’t bother anybody else, assuming Assad keeps his chemical weapons safe. The big question is, if Assad starts to need cash to finance his war, will he sell the chemical weapons to somebody, like Hezbollah or al Qaeda? When people get desperate for cash they do strange and stupid things. I hope Assad isn’t that stupid. If he is, he could be starting a world war, with China, Russia, Iran, Turkey, Israel, and the United States all dragged into this mess.
Sorry, the traditional Russian need for a warm water port is that it must be contiguous to Russia (or Russian owned/ controlled territory with land route to motherland) and not hampered by the Dardanelles. Any port in Syria is just a port-of-call…with friendly chandlers…easily withdrawn.
Post above would not link to original comment higher up. ?????
Well, given your list of positive outcomes for Western and Israeli interests with the looming partition, looks like the delusional democracy debacle is paying off. If the West won’t impose democracy in the classical colonial manner, looks like importing democracy is the next best thing. Maybe Gaza will be the 28th Egyptian province after all, given the new democracy proclivities of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Certainly this dizzying,really….circular complexity of vested interests-”quagmire” (yes, I was there in the 1960′s) or, “cauldron”, my favorite word for this Asian Muslim problem all of us non-Muslims face, given us here by Mr Goldman illustrates what I say at every opening I see….this Asia/Muslim complex is no place for our American young people to be bleeding in any misplaced idea that we Americans are in any way morally obligated to participate there in large numbers…..to protect our national interests.
Let’s fight our war against Muslim encroachment via remote control.
And, let’s not hear any muddied blather about “moderate” Muslims. Either they’re practicing Muslims or they’re apostates…in the latter case their throats are exposed for slitting…..then certainly they’re on our side. But Muslims cannot straddle that “green line”, forgive me, and have things all-ways, as they seem wont to attempt.
It would seem that the most intelligent American foreign policy applied to that region is purely accidental.
Given Churchill’s observation that we always do the right thing after exhausting the alternatives, an accidental foreign policy is likely to be better than whatever we had planned.
“Sorry, the traditional Russian need for a warm water port is that it must be contiguous to Russia (or Russian owned/ controlled territory with land route to motherland) and not hampered by the Dardanelles. Any port in Syria is just a port-of-call…with friendly chandlers…easily withdrawn.” Which is why A) they won’t lose Tartus and B) even if the anti-Russia lobby in D.C. got its dream and tossed them out of Syria, they’d just lend the Greeks $10 billion over 25 years and get a nice port of call at the Pireaus. Orthodox brothers and all that.
So The Alewites around Latakia will be under the same type of rocket attacks and continuous suicide raids and bombings that the Israeli’s receive from the Palestinians.
A never ending war.
Arab Nationalists being beastly to Islamists. Al Qaeda proxies being beastly to Iranian proxies. Alawite oppressors killing Sunni Islamic supremacists. The ayatollahs nervously looking at their likely fate. Meanwhile, Israel is unmolested. The fall of Assad wlll hurt Hezbollah, Iran, Russia and China. His victory will mean the extermination of Muslim Brotherhood sympathisers and a further diminution in the threat to Israel. The only way there is a bad outcome for the West is if we try to prematurely end the violence. With luck, a similarly sanguinary process will unfold in Egypt, and even better, Iran. Henry Kissinger famously said of the two sides in the Iran-Iraq war that it was a shame they couldn’t both lose. Here we have a rare opportunity for two inimical forces to gut each other while we stand on the sidelines and observe. I wouldn’t put it past the stupid Europeans to try to intervene, and as for the hapless, borderline retarded Obama, he would no doubt love to step in and be the hero of the hour. But economics and lack of military capability in the case of the Europeans, and craven fear of angering the Russians in the case of Obama, probably preclude this.
Yes. A deal was clearly cut prior to the U.S. getting directly involved in Libya, with the promise that Lukoil would stay in the good graces of a post-Qaddafi government, even if Russia knew the Gaddafi takedown was in part over rebels that the West (primarily the British and French) and Qatar had armed and funded.
The difference between Syria and Libya is that there is no significant oil to bribe the Russians to go along with an intervention, and as David mentions Syria is a sectarian snakepit with multiple neighboring powers’ interests at stake while Libya is sparsely populated.
In short, I am pleasantly surprised that even the FDD guys are avoiding the Russophobic Demintern/McCain/Graham koolaid on this one.
Syria has one of the biggest reserves of gas of ME, Gasprom knows it, and the Germans too
If Spengler is right, why do the anti-Alewites fight? Merely to die?
Because they are sick of being bled by the Alawites. Living under a tyrannical dictator is not fun and games, no matter what Vogue Magazine says.
… and Syria is a case in point: It resembles one of those Quentin Tarantino standoffs in which everyone has a gun pointed at everyone else.
Looked at individually, every nation in Dar al-Islam, including Turkey, resembles a moving action sequence of a circular firing squad. But real life ain’t a movie, so the acts of devolution inevitable in every Moslem country lurch from time to time, with years in between.
Not so long ago, Secretary Hillary was praising Syria and Assad for stability. She received near unanimous backing from the news entertainment community that programs our opinions. But there’s a new lesson now, and a quick repromming underway.
But, as I watch John McCain et al castigate the Administration for “failing” to act on the “crisis” in Syria, I’m reminded venerable rules that operate behind that line of thought: the U.S. taxpayer must pay for the intervention, we must take the bad press and increased risk of Jihad violence retribution for having intervened, and we are the ones who mostly pay in loss of life and limb. Oh, and we get to absorb a city full of the country’s “refugees” after it’s over. Go visit Dearborn and you’ll see what I mean.
*** 610 *** 622 *** 732 *** 1492 *** 1683 *** 1993 *** 1995 *** 2001
Face it: a dictator in power in a Moslem country is as good as it’s going to get. It can only go downhill from there. Me, I’m rooting for Bashar because I understand that Syria is a Moslem country, and an iron fisted dictator in control is optimal for us.
Thanks…..
…..”32. David Gillies”……
And, permit me to repeat your tersely accurate:
“Arab Nationalists being beastly to Islamists. Al Qaeda proxies being beastly to Iranian proxies. Alawite oppressors killing Sunni Islamic supremacists. The ayatollahs nervously looking at their likely fate.”
We should encourage this intra-AND-inter-Muslim theological double-think-hypocrisy issuing from the mouths and edges of the scimitars of these peaceful Muslims and ought to be encouraging its widest broadcast and application; then we Infidels should stand by…alertly…. and observe the skillful wordplay in English to see just how the Muslim apologists work their way around these word games.
Then, see how the same is played out in Arabic.
Beasts clawing and chewing up their “Brother” beasts. Where’s their “moderation”?…..where’s their “religion of Peace”?
Call me Disgusted.
Another excellent piece by Spengler. This is good news for Israel. Let the Syrians continue their chaotic ways with no end in sight, leaving them in nearly permanent disarray and weakening Hezbollah. As long as they are not moving their WMD or advanced missilery in the direction of Lebanon, Israel couldn’t ask for a better situation.
Having been trained in the sciences, I cannot help but think about events in some form of rational manner. Gravity decreases by the square of the distance between masses.The further away we are from this theater of action (Syria,Lebanon,Israel,Turkey) the more we can afford to be phlegmatic,analyze calmly and come to conclusions that the force of events(gravity) in the nearby area distort to outcomes we cannot foresee. We may see the situation of the weapons of mass destruction from a completely different frame of reference than let us say Israel. We might tolerate what they may not.Same goes for Iran and nuclear weapons and Israel. Although in the Iranian case the mass of nuclear threat is so great that even at a great distance we might feel the effect of its gravity.What I guess that I am trying to say is that viewing events from a great distance and trying to guess their outcomes without actually being on the same frame of reference as the actors in the area might not always give us the correct solutions. Let us hope for the best outcome for the sector of humanity that wants a more civilized world.
How did this piece ever get past the New Republic’s editors? How can so much sanity break out so quickly in what were previously rabidly pro-interventionist circles?
Yes. There are many elements in this world far worse than the Kremlins. A failure to come to grips with that fact is in fact the same failure Jean Kirkpatrick railed against thirty years ago when she distinguished authoritarian but essentially Western-friendly regimes from pro-Soviet anti-Western ones that killed their own people en masse.
Thanks for the New Republic link. Yes, it’s eminently sensible. Putin might be
“Der Geist/Der stets das Boese will/Und stets das Gute schafft.” To the extent the Russians are dissuading the US from intervening and keeping the conflict going, they just might be doing us a favor.
Christians Flee from Radical Rebels in Syria
“Last summer Salafists came to Qusayr, foreigners. They stirred the local rebels against us,” she says. Soon, an outright campaign against the Christians in Qusayr took shape. “They sermonized on Fridays in the mosques that it was a sacred duty to drive us away,” she says. “We were constantly accused of working for the regime. And Christians had to pay bribes to the jihadists repeatedly in order to avoid getting killed.”
Grandmother Leila made the sign of the cross. “Anyone who believes in this cross suffers,” she says.”
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/christians-flee-from-radical-rebels-in-syria-a-846180.html
The racist mainstream Western medias have become a joke, such as the “allahuakbar – allah is the greatest” jihadist-shouting loving CNN, BBC & Sky news – when reporting on the TERRORIST Saudi Arabia/Qatar/Obama’s REGIMES-sponsored Jew/Christian/women/girls-hating Nazi Muslim Brotherhood jihadists to Arabicize absolutely including by sexually enslaving the women/girls in those monstrous Saudi-veil, and rob the OIL-RICH non-Arabic Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Tunisia, Egypt and in the future, Syria and Lebanon! But hey, these racist Western mainstream medias don’t give a care about the enslaved women especially since they’re not Western and that non-Westerners only deserve Jihadists for their ‘democratic’ rulers. This include destroying completely Kofi Annan peace plan despite that Assad has agreed to it, including by staging rebel attacks which include the use of child-soldiers, to make it look like Assad started it and then call it Assad’s massacre including supposedly killing of the children who were the rebels’ child-soldiers, in order to sabotage the peace plan. Now, as in Iraq, ‘weapons of mass destruction’ is the dirty game being played now by that most lying MB Jihadist/War Criminal/Dictator of all, Barack Hussein Obama!
Uh…is that a trick question?
I’m forced to disagree. Asdsad moves into his redoubt and none of the Syrian groups will be able to muster the combat power to remove him. Huge difference between guerrillas in the countryside and assault operations against a fortified bastion. With Russian support, Assad can build a strong enough military to take the offensive when the various rebels groups fall out among themselves. That will be years in the future and by then the people will be tired of the fighting and not support the rebels.
As the song says; “Rebels been Rebels since I don’t know when”.
What America should do is expand the drone campaign to include Assad. We can’t because a drone will not survive facing a high density air defence. The B-2 can. So we need to do in Syria what should have been done in Iraq. There is no need to kill thousands of Syrians, just as there was no need to kill thousands of Iraqis.
Give Assad 48 hours to get out of Syria. If he doesn’t go, we hunt him down and kill him.
Considering America’s record at hunting them down and killing them, Assad has to take us seriously.
The technology is available, the only practical problem is knowing where to send the weapon.
That can be solved by opening a web site. Where in the world is Assad? anyone that spots him posts to that site. Then we have a target. This means Assad has to get lucky EVERY night, we only need to get lucky once.
If this plan had been used against Saddam, thousands of lives would have been saved. Iraq would be pretty much where it is today. One man, One vote, One time. That is about the most we will get out of the Islamic crescent this go around.
The Muslim Brotherhood will control most of the Islamic crescent within the next few years. All that does is give them the chance to rule. If they take care of their people, they deserve to stay in power. If they don’t, they will face the same popular uprising that put them in power.
What needs to be established is that despots who murder their citizens go on the hit list. Assad used military force against his citizens because he thought he could get away with it.
Riots everywhere. Greece, Spain, England, France, California. They don’t get out of control because the Riot police don’t reach for their guns right off.
The Riots in Anaheim are at least as bad as the one in Syria that started this mess;
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57479428/riot-police-protesters-clash-in-anaheim-for-4th-night-over-police-shootings/
The Anaheim police meet the rioters with clubs, shields and courage. If it had been automatic weapons and heavy cannons, California would be headed down the Syrian path today.
So America needs to make a point that any Despot, Tyrant, Dictator (hereafter DTD’s) that mass murders his citizens is looking at a short lifespan.
Democracy cannot be forced upon people but if you kill the DTD’s the people will choose democracy. This policy would find great favor amongst the peoples of the 3rd world. One of the downsides of being a DTD is that not many people morn you when you are gone.
How does auto insurance work in this situation?