Letter #83: Thoughts on Syria; a case for muscular humanitarianism

The West may be lurching toward armed intervention into Syria.  The stakes are higher than most Americans (e.g., me) can appreciate.  Policymakers live by a combination of historical analogies and, often, the ‘persistence’ method (i.e., repeating the same action as the last intervention).  The arguments have long been aired on this conflict.  The Administration of President Obama, rightfully cautious after the protracted conflicts of Iraq and Afghanistan, however, has hesitated too long.  With the added reticence expressed by the British Parliament, at least for now, the way forward seems difficult for the United States. 

1. If we act alone will we find ourselves in a rabbit hole of the colonial powers' making (i.e., the Sykes-Picot Agreement) of a century ago?
2. If we wait for the rest of the West to catch up, will the situation and misery become that much more unmanageable?

Disclaimer

These are serious questions elevated in the few hours since I wrote this first draft.  The situation is fluid, fraught with hazards for America. Nevertheless, decency has its demands and the Syrian civil war is at a cross-roads.  What I outline and propose in this letter must bear in mind my limited knowledge; my bias; and the 'serenity' prayer of Reinhold Niebuhr (http://skdesigns.com/internet/articles/prose/niebuhr/serenity_prayer/). 

That prayer is as famous as it is helpful.

God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, 

(I.e., we cannot control people's sympathy or enmity toward us or make al-Qaeda play fair.)

Courage to change the things which should be changed, and the

(I.e., we can alleviate suffering, educate children and help others re-build.)

Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

(I.e., we should be open to change at every blind step of the way forward.)

Buster’s last stand

More than half a year ago I wrote a letter home arguing against an invasion of Syria (http://nedmcdletters.blogspot.mx/2012/12/letter-72-why-invading-syria-is-bad-idea.html). Though I am better informed now, I still believe that an invasion would be all wrong for the following reasons.

1. The death toll, especially if these actions actually prolonged the killing, would be beyond the threshold of what civilized men and women, especially the millions trapped in or near Syria, could countenance.
2. Syria is a flashpoint for regional conflict since it is the cultural center of the Levant and Middle East and yet could be the precursor to a much larger Arab-Persian conflict. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/files/2013/08/Levant_Ethnicity_lg-smaller1-zoom.jpg)
3. Logistically, the country would be hard to conquer and harder to occupy.
4. The United States can not afford another expensive conflict for anything but existential threats; this is not one.
5. The geopolitical challenges of the current-day Levant are of Franco-British making from a century ago.
6. U.S. actions in leading the eventual killing of Colonel Gadhafi in Libya go a long way toward explaining President Assad’s behavior now; Assad figures he has nothing to lose since he will likely end up dead no matter how nice he plays.

This ever larger conflict, while dissipating Israel’s enemies for now, may eventually be resolved by scape-goating the Jewish people and state, turning the fury of more than two hundred million people against the only viable, if flawed, but tiny democracy. Israël can still be an example of popular governance to aid people in that part of the world toward liberty.

The context

Before going into any thoughts on what I think will occur and what I think we should do, I would like to review certain antecedents that ought to inform whatever response we take.

1. The most fitting battle-space analogy might be a combination of World War I and the Balkans in the 1990s.  The ethnic groups are interspersed with a lack of secular granularity sufficient to aim missiles at the bad guys on the ground, subjectively targeted.  That fact translates into the current, brutal reality of street-by-street fighting with a lot of artillery and available chemical weapons, much like the trench warfare of 1917. (http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2013/07/20137188552345899.html)
2. A more immediate threat is the spill-over of the conflict.  The mainly Kurdish National Coordination Committee, centered in the northeast, has called for negotiations and may be a moderate voice.  Jordan and Lebanon are at their breaking points with refugees; Turkey feels the strain.
3. The Assad régime, being drawn from one minority has protected other minorities from persecution.  Conflict tends to harden and de-sensitize people.  After two years of truly awful bloodshed, radical Sunni Arabs and, perhaps, their Shi´ite opponents from the outside, have reportedly started persecuting Christians, Jews (if any), Druze, Alawites, Kurds. Wahhabis and their Salafists are particularly menacing since they see Shi´ites as apostates (apparently a deadly sin in Islam), collaborators and, otherwise, easy to bully bloodily.
4. The no-fly zones worked in Iraq.  Karl Rove is wrong in saying that no-fly zones will get us stuck in Syria as they did in Iraq.  What kept us stuck in Iraq was an unwillingness in the mid-to-late 1990s to deal firmly with Saddam Hussein who – like the Assad régime, the religious dictators of Iran and President Milosevich in Serbia – was never materially affected by the sanctions though his people suffered mightily for a decade.
5. Until petroleum became the desert king, Syria (including Lebanon) had been the focal point of U.S. attention in the larger region.  For the better part of two centuries, until the 1950s, various missionary groups set out for the Holy Land, setting up clinics, schools and hospitals.  These activities built up a reservoir of goodwill that has dissipated in the last fifty years.  Nevertheless, the ties remain deep.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power,_Faith_and_Fantasy).
6. Tens of thousands of officers and soldiers of the Syrian Army have deserted and are in refugee camps in adjacent countries, principally Jordan and Lebanon, or hiding with their clans inside the country.  These men are disciplined and can be ideal for a new police force to help maintain order after the fighting stops.
7. Not every Alawite has been living like a King.  At the face of things, one would find this statement stupid.  Truth is that I spent a great deal of time in Iraq stating to Shi´ites in Iraq that every Sunni had not been rich under Saddam Hussein; that many had suffered just as they had.  Such blanket perceptions are serviceable only to those who are bent on sectarian genocide.
8. The United States succeeded in Iraq, not only on the battle-field.  Through the surge of just U.S. troops that represented 0.1% of the Iraqi population, the U.S. prevented a sectarian genocide and empowered the moderates on both sides of the Sunni / Shi´a divide.  The saddening state of affairs now in Iraq has more to do with the current government’s power-grab and corruption opening up an opportunity for blood-drunk terrorists to do what they want to do: kill and maim in the name of G-d and the pursuit of mammon.
9. The United States has planted the seeds of long-term success in Afghanistan, much as she did in Viêt Nam.  That victory will take at least two generations to manifest in Afghanistan.  The key point is that the opportunity to change has been secured for the rising generation and its children.
10. The Afghanistan surge was a political exercise.  The lack of imagination of the surge displayed an insensitivity to topographical and cultural differences between Iraq and Afghanistan. Additionally, relieving two commanding officers in a year doomed the surge, guaranteeing that drone-flown assassinations would become the preferred method of counter-insurgency.  In short, the surge was an expensive and bloody agitprop as a means for the U.S. to appear to give the war 'a good college try' before leaving.
11. Community policing does work.  Since many insurgencies cover for crime-waves, top-down police-training – a worthwhile method for improving or setting standards of professionalism across a country – fails to harness the participation of the townies who know the people and activities of their areas.  That knowledge (i.e., field intelligence and situational awareness) is vitally necessary to stop the hard-to-detect activities of guerrillas, terrorists and less pretentious gangsters.
12. The disregard of Congress in policing actions has enabled presidential adventurism, often guided by political considerations.  Often these undeliberated initiatives have degenerated into quagmires, leading to national trauma in terms of lost treasure and personnel. (http://www.speaker.gov/press-release/boehner-seeks-answers-president-obama-syria)

What we should do

The antecedents and elements taken from my earlier essay, of December 2012, that argued against invasion basically point the way toward what I would like to see.  In previous discussions on Facebook and in counter-insurgency circles, I have stated just about everything that I state below, especially with respect to the very limited deployment of U.S. Special Forces (S.F.). Before that re-hash, I would like to focus upon two elements that have changed in recent days: no-fly zones and peaceful exile for the Assad family. 

That is to say: the efficacy of no-fly zones, if focussed carefully, in creating ink-blots of peace and the rule of law make that option compelling.  With respect to the Assad family, conditions may be ripe for negotiating toward a cease-fire, followed by reconstruction should the cease-fire hold.  The repeated use (of some fourteen instances) of chemical weapons, assuming the régime is primarily responsible, clearly represents a change in kind of warfare beyond the limits of long-standing international law.  But this viciousness may signal that the leadership is falling and desperate. 

As the map shows, such no-fly zones would not be large and could provide the air-cover for the new Syrian police force, basically those deserting soldiers trained by U.S. Special Forces (SOF), to re-enter those enclaves of Druze, Christians, Aramaic Chaldeans, Kurds and Armenians contiguous with Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon.  Later, should outside peace-keepers be deployed and manage to maintain peace in the rest of the country, this core police force could train other community police units, thus expanding the inkblots to counter a crime-wave, not an insurgency. 

Again, if the Assad régime is responsible for recent attacks of chemical weapons, as seems probable though yet to be confirmed, the dictator is likely to be desperate and may be open to exile because he is losing. It is worth a try.  Such an attempt at providing safe-passage and initiating a cease-fire will not take long to resolve one way or the other.  Such a determination will take less time than preparations for military action likely will.  Hence, checking out the possibility of a peaceful exit can be executed concurrently with military mobilization.  There would be conditions for that safe passage:

1. admission of guilt of a crime against humanity, if President Assad or a member of his government deployed those chemical weapons;
2. formation by President Assad an interim council to guide the country toward a new régime;
3. establishment by President Assad of something similar to the Truth and Reconciliation Council employed by South Africa when a minority régime surrendered power to a majority;
4. deployment of what remains of the Syrian Army to secure the stockpiles of chemical weapons; as well as, 
5. presidential order of the police to protect minority populations.

The rest of the scenario remains largely unchanged from previous comments made in other virtual venues (with details added from recent shifts in information and perspective):

• due presidential consultation with, and approval by Congress, per the Constitution, prior to military action;
  
• such congressional authorization to be, preferably, a declaration of war or, at least, an authorization to use military force;
• such declaration of war or authorization to be effective against the régime, not the Syrian people, only after a roll-call vote on prime-time television;
• transparent reporting and timing of deployments required by, or conducted under, any congressional authorization to be tightly aligned with the Wars Powers Resolution of 1973; 
• no-fly zones in the areas noted and enforced by N.A.T.O. air forces; 
• protection of the Alawite strongholds and, perhaps Lebanon, by the British and French navies (now, possibly in doubt, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23892783); 
• American S.F. deployments to the refugee communities in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and, if possible, Iraq to partner with forces from those host-countries to assure the delivery of humanitarian supplies; 
• S.F. partnerships with Jordanian, Turkish and Lebanese forces to police said refugee areas to try to push back on extremist intimidation of any form; 
• S.F. partnerships to train a new police, trained from the soldiers of the Syrian Army who have defected, for post-war Syria with forward deployment into areas protected under no-fly zones; 
• safe-passage, if negotiable and upon the conditions cited above, for the Assad family and those officials not involved in crimes against humanity into West with the aid of witness protection programs and a $10 million, thirty year annuity for the Assad family and $1 million, ten year annuities for the other civilian or military leaders and their families, with all illicit treasure in the national treasury and foreign banks (i.e., billions of dollars) repatriated to a Syrian reconstruction fund described immediately below; 
• freeze all assets of Syria in international financial institutions to be placed under the trusteeship of the International Red Crescent and Red Cross further to be administered by the U.N. aid mission in Syria for future development;
• American S.F. only, together with trained New Syrian police, to escort in peace-keeping troops from Muslim countries outside of the ‘Islamic belt’ (i.e., Middle East, North Africa, Turkey, the Caucasus and east through to Pakistan; that is, troops deployed from nations like Indonesia, Senegal and Malaysia, if they are willing); 
• American S.F.  to leave immediately upon settlement of peace-keepers (or escorting said peace-keepers out if the threat environment be too pronounced) if the number of the latter is adequate to secure and remove the chemical weapons;
• American S.F.  to remove chemical weapons if the peace-keeping force not adequate to the task;
• no further entry into Syria by S.F. contemplated and possible only with a second "prime-time" declaration by Congress; as well as,
• said peace-keepers to assure safe passage in of relief workers from credible non-governmental organizations, including Médecins sans Frontières, Mercy Corps, the International Red Crescent, the Grameen Foundation, etc. to accelerate reconstruction.

What I am afraid of happening
Blow up a few runways; fling a few drones; talk tough; and, bask in the balm of bombs with the pyro-theatrics of 24 / 7 television reporting.