Breaking the Syrian Stalemate
Two years after the beginning of the Syrian insurgency, three facts are clear: The rebels are unable to bring down the government of President Bashar al-Assad, foreign political support and military supplies notwithstanding; Bashar's forces are unable to defeat the rebels and reestablish control over the entire country; and continued third-party advocacy of either one of those two unattainable objectives can only prolong Syria's agony.
The U.S.-sponsored influx of arms and jihadi volunteers, irresponsible in design and self-defeating in consequences, has greatly aggravated the situation. If the term "international community" has any meaning at all, other than the arbitrary will of the hegemon, it is to serve the goals of all social life: to limit violence resulting in death and bodily harm. U.S. Syrian policy has done the opposite thus far. It is up to the new national security team to change the course. A new policy is needed, not only to stop the bloodshed and preserve a modicum of regional stability, but also—primarily, in fact—to serve the American interest in a turbulent part of the world from which this country should finally start disengaging.
Secretary of State John Kerry, on his first overseas trip since taking office, outlined what appeared to be a potentially more nuanced Syria policy in his remarks in Paris last week. Non-lethal supplies to the rebels would be stepped up, he announced, but the customary Hillary Clinton-era demand for Bashar al-Assad’s speedy departure was absent. He "has to go," but we are not told when. According to one usually well-informed Israeli source, the Obama Administration has finally realized that the only way to contain Jihadist forces and retain a degree of American control over the rebels was to catch a ride on Russian President Vladimir Putin plans for Syria—even through they envisage Bashar staying in power at least until next year:
Those plans hinge primarily on establishing armistice lines dividing the country into separate sectors and determining in advance which will be controlled by rebel factions and which by Assad loyalists. This is the first practical basis to be put forward for an accord to end the two-year old civil war between Assad and the Syrian opposition and it is designed to go forward under joint Russian-American oversight.
The teamwork between Washington and Moscow in pursuit of this plan is supposedly "close and detailed." The new American policy for Syria is said to be based on Washington’s recognition of the reality on the ground and the necessity of working with Moscow—which entails acceptance of Assad’s rule—in order to retain some influence within the Syrian rebel camp. Kerry seems to understand that a political solution supported by all five UNSC permanent members is the only way forward. Of course he is well aware that there will be no Security Council resolution that can be misused as a quasi-mandate for NATO or some ad-hoc "coalition of the willing" to stage an outright military intervention in Syria—pace Libya in 2011—and that a realistic scenario demands retreat from Clinton’s preordained outcomes.
Similar signals are coming from other well connected sources. "Those looking for positive statements on the negotiated outcome Kerry prefers have not been disappointed," according to Al-Monitor: "Encouraging comments on diplomatic engagement have been heard from the protagonists themselves." On the Syrian side, they include Foreign Minister Walid Muallem and notably the head of the ‘legitimate’ opposition Moaz al-Khatib:
The differences separating former top members of the ruling elite, now re-branded as opposition men like Khatib, Manaf Tlas and former prime minister Riyad Habib, and from those still in their chairs — Muallem and Foreign Minister Farouk as-Shar'a—seem bridgeable. Assad himself even spoke of returning to his medical practice after (losing) an election in 2014.
Key persons on both sides of the divide apparently agree that the Syrian state and its institutions must be preserved, and that a ceasefire and dialogue on a managed transition to democratic elections provide the path to peace. If the United States is to have a role, however, "Kerry must convince the opposition and their allies in Turkey and the Gulf that dialogue is the key to regime change, while Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov must convince Assad that it is not."
This is a tall order that requires skill and flexibility that Hillary Clinton so patently lacked.
"In the face of such murder and threat of instability," Kerry said on the eve of the opposition meeting in Rome last week, "our policy cannot stay static as the weeks go by." Interesting, and potentially promising. American efforts will be calibrated in order to "change the calculation on the ground for President Assad" in favor of a political solution. The non-lethal aid package for the opposition, in this context, becomes a stop-gap measure that may have been designed to fend off neoconservative and liberal-interventionist accusations of yet another "sellout."
On the other hand, rather than encourage a negotiated outcome—which Kerry seems to support—the latest aid package for the rebels (likely intended as his diplomatic fig-leaf for the interim period) may encourage the hopes of a military victory among radical Islamists who provide the fighting backbone of the rebellion. It is a grim fact that the influx of supplies from abroad into Syria has escalated the conflict to its disastrous current point. As we now know, Western capitals have provided logistics, coordination, political support, and non-lethal aid to the rebels, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have delivered them weapons and money, while Turkey has offered facilities for NATO training as well as safe havens for rebel attacks inside Syria. This is not a civil war between pro-democracy forces and a brutal regime fighting its own people, this is yet another pro-jihadist intervention paid in large part by the American taxpayer.
If Kerry is serious about looking for a solution, he should disregard neoconservative attacks that are certain to follow. That camp’s convoluted thinking is explicitly displayed in "Two Cheers for Syrian Islamists," published by Foreign Policy magazine last August: "So the rebels aren’t secular Jeffersonians. As far as America is concerned, it doesn’t much matter… Islamists—many of them hardened by years of fighting U.S. forces in Iraq—are simply more effective fighters than their secular counterparts."
"It doesn’t much matter…" Cheering seasoned killers of American soldiers in Iraq as American allies in Syria is sick, outrageous, and treasonous—but that has always been the nature of the unpatriotic interventionist beast.
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I'm just wondering how Iraq and Lebanon managed to pass relatively unscathed by the bloody effects of the "Arab Winter" in Syria.. Ok, it stands to reason the United States would have invested heavily in preventing on what indeed appeared to be (to all those who were watching closely, that is) an escalation of tensions in central and northern Iraq that was just edging towards loss of control, following the upheavals in Egypt, Libya and Bahrain consecutively. This was so in order to prevent, amongst other things, an impending shi'ite rebellion in strategically vital Saudi Arabia, yet it is also now evident the "interventionist beasts" were really egging for a massive sunni-shi'ite war that would have somehow "ideally" enveloped Lebanon, Syria and Iran, which was indeed an impossible prospect from the outset (the ominous tone provided by regime change in Egypt and the cold blooded murder of Gaddafi in broad daylight notwithstanding).
Iran seems to be impregnable as far as inciting a popular revolt there is concerned; unless of course there is a clandestine grand master plan which we don't know about, that would have in mind fomenting some kind of intrigue amongst the ruling feuding ayatollahs, which in turn might lead on to a massive blood bath or something, who knows. Relatively recently I read an article by some Iranian exilee, concerning some prominent clerics, one of whom openly called for an assassination of some "blasphemous" Iranian rapper based in Germany, who spoke of 'concerns of many pious people coming to his attention' in his constituency or district or whatever, regarding economic hardship and mismanagement and/or corruption by the authorities making it worse, because of forceful UN economic sanctions. From what I have researched the sanctions are substantially tougher than those imposed against the Serbians during the 1990s. Perhaps a nationwide revolt cannot as yet be completely ruled out in Iran, but what still of Lebanon? Any replies welcome.
Lebanon, more or less, sorted this out in the 1970s. The various confessions are armed and with their own militias and have both formal and informal agreements on territory and autonomy. Flare-ups obviously occur but minorities like the Druze and Christians have the military ability to hang on. Tough lesson, I know, but unless Christians and Alawites do same in Syria, they won't make it. And this does probably mean ceding areas to the Sunnis and Kurds. Sort of like post-Saddam Iraq, too. As for Iran, they've been a pariah to the US since 1979 and under pressure of all sorts since then and are still standing. Often America's belligerence doesn't pay off in pro-American results. The Serbs are by many accounts now the most pro-Russian people in Europe and no poll shows great enthusiasm for the EU or USA. So much for bombing them into compliance. In the end, it might have saved them as a distinct people. Anyway, thanks for your thoughts and I hope this reply was useful.
The Lebanese Govt. is 100% in favor of a negotiated solution, and the country is already coping with a huge influx of refugees. Earlier this week Lebanese FM Adnan Mansour declared that “the Arab League must renew its contacts with Syria,” and called for Syria's reinstatement at the Arab League in order to reach a political solution to end the war. He attacked further transfers of foreign weapons into Syria and added that this could jeopardize Lebanon's stability. The main Islamist force in Lebanon is Hezbollah (Shi'a), which supports Bashar; ditto Lebanese Christians and Druze, as well as many Sunnis. On current form there's simply no political potential for a significant anti-Bashar salafist group to cause mischief in Lebanon, except in the northern city of Tripoli. The clashes between pro-Bashar Alawites from Bab Tabbaneh neighborhood and anti-Bashar Sunnis from Jabal Mohsen have killed dozens over the past year, and the Lebanese Army deployed troops to keep the two neighborhoods apart (divided, ironically by the Syria Street).
Srdja,
Were any of the personal attacks against Chuck Hagel who had actually fought and bled in some of these "dirty little conflicts " justified in your mind ? I thought it was rather unusual that the same line of attack used to impeach your testimony as a character witness at the Hague was also used against Chuck Hagel by the GOP, when in fact you were attempting to justify the conduct of a war, while Hagel was questioning the conduct of another. I guess in the new order it is more a costs/ benefits analysis, and not the old fashioned idea of justice, that is the primary "metric" in evaluating "war in our time" ? If so, I fear we are in for a perpetual state of war without limits as a consequence of our hellish desires to " just do as we please.!"
"How do we know the limits of the identity of the state of Illinois? By its boundary lines. A basketball court? By its foul lines. How do we know our own identity? By limits; by boundaries; by law; by order. And I think we lost all of these at 8:15 in the morning August the 6th
1945 when we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. That bomb blotted out boundaries of life and death, civilian and the military; and trust among nations. And so abortion from that point on is defended on the ground that one may do whatever he pleases."
- Archbishop Fulton Sheen
Judge Reavis,
Hagel's personal suffering in war means nothing – in fact, it is felt as a reproach – to an institution that has never repudiated the New Left's version of Viet Nam. Just compare Hagel's hearing to that of John Kerry (Kohn) for Secretary of State: two decorated Viet Nam veterans, (though Kerry's "decorations" have more in common with, say, the maraschino cherry under an umbrella found atop certain cocktails) up for the government's two highest cabinet posts, handled completely differently. This is because, where Hagel's reservations about war arise from watching his brother nearly incinerated in an exploding APC, and from, perhaps, the maturing of a view that wars are best fought, if they must be fought, under a stricter definition of the national interest than has been the case, Kerry's thoughts on war revolve around its possible utility for a political career. His switch from making his first run for congress as a pro-war war hero, while he still thought the war was popular, to using the war's unpopularity to create a forum for himself as an aggrieved and repentant antiwar antihero, set the pattern. Thus having re-flagged his ship with the correct banner, it's been smooth sailing ever since. Under the "the only bad war is a war in which we liberals and neocons can't get something out of it" flag, Kerry's confirmation was assured.
Even worse than the Viet Nam residue for Hagel were the signs he showed of awareness of Israel's part in sending our children off to war. You can call American troops war criminals all you want, but suggest that their sacrifice is for Israel's interests and it immediately becomes clear who is closer to Capitol Hill, the Marine, or the Knesset member. I just wish Hagel had named a name or three when he was challenged point blank to cite an instance of the Jewish lobby's influencing a vote.
Dr. Trifkovic,
Your article's last paragraph captures the way I and many other veterans felt when Nixon went to China. The vast and disastrous effects on our economy of this move were not yet visible, but we felt the treason of it in our bones. Thousands of Americans had been killed by Chinese made weapons in Viet Nam, including one of my unit's sergeants blown up by a chicom grenade, and were still being killed, as we watched their grinning killers being courted by our commander-in-chief. Chou and Mao must have had a hard time stifling their laughter. Presumably in return for this completely undeserved and unauthorized forgiveness the Chinese were to help their new friends thwart the Soviets and ease America's way out of Viet Nam. This last they did, opening the jaws of the trap just long enough for our escape and promptly letting it snap back shut on the million non-communist Viet Namese who paid our ransom with exile and death.
Mr. Jacobi,
Thank you for your response. I still believe self-sacrifice for persons, places and things is still significant and even lovely regardless of whether it is made by jew or gentile. In our post christian culture the lurking danger is the lost consensus or common culture that assists in defining what those are, or ought to be. There are limits to any human debate and even within my lifetime there still existed such a thing as honorable disagreement. Perhaps there were even slight hints of it from a few Senators during the confirmation process of Mr. Hagel but for the most part it was, as you say, the usual advertising campaign performed by kids dressed in mens clothing for the benefit of their handlers.
I still remember the small tears my father shed for his nephew ( my cousin ) upon leaving for Vietnam and then again upon hearing months later he had been shot and wounded by a sniper three days before his tour was supposed to be over. My cousin survived that fight and many others in his life while still managing to keep his admiration for good things. He arranged a controled pheasant hunt on his small farm in Oklahoma for my father just a year before Dad passed away. They both understood the hypocrisy of politics and the machinations of small men but, thank God, they never allowed it to diminish their love for good things or for their own country, or their own families which they still viewed as part of it. Your own earnest questioning, courage and search for good things reminds me alot of those types of men.