United States policy in Syria is at a
crossroads. The current situation is untenable:
the bloodshed continues unabated, while spillover
threatens all the neighboring countries, and by
extension, US interests. Powerful
ethno-nationalist movements are stirring, most
importantly among the Kurds, and are threatening
to confront the international community with a new
reality on the ground. Rival powers Russia and
China (each in its own way), sensing American
weakness following the embassy attacks and riots
throughout the Muslim world in the last week, are
positioning to cash in.
On the other hand,
there are simply no easy solutions in the country
where a civil war is becoming more violent and
intractable by the day. Such wars, as former CIA
analyst Kenneth Pollack put it, end "in one of two
ways: One side wins, typically in
murderous fashion, or a
third party intervenes with enough force to snuff
out the fighting." [1]
Newsweek's
Christopher Dickey, arguing against an American
intervention, took this analysis further: "What
Pollack does not say explicitly, but other
intelligence officials involved with past
conflicts in the Balkans and the Middle East
remember, is that it's hard to end a civil war
even with an intervention unless both sides are
exhausted by the carnage. That took 15 years in
Lebanon; three horrible years in Bosnia. Such are
the savage wars of peace." [2]
The murder
of the American ambassador in Libya last week, in
the city he helped liberate, illustrates the
danger of supporting rebel movements. (It bears
noting that the precise circumstances of
Christopher Stevens's death remain the subject of
much speculation - the investigation is being
conducted in secret, while wild rumors circulate
in the Arab press, going as far as to claim that
was gang raped by his assailants.)
Paradoxically, however, and especially in
the context of the presidential election campaign,
it could be that the tragedy will have the
opposite effect on Washington. US President Barack
Obama, feeling the pressure to show a more
assertive face and to vindicate the policy choices
he has made in the past four years, may deepen
cooperation with the Syrian rebels and perhaps
even consider some limited military intervention.
The latter could take several forms such as a
no-fly zone over the country or buffer zones which
would allow the rebels to organized undisturbed by
the government forces.
Arguing for a
limited intervention in Foreign Policy Magazine,
analyst Mark Katz points out that helping the
opposition is also a way of retaining leverage
with it:
[M]any have expressed fear that al
Qaeda and its allies are gaining ground with the
Syrian opposition. Clearly, though, America and
the West can do more to prevent this through
getting involved in the Syrian conflict than not
doing so and thus clearing the field for al
Qaeda. It should be recalled that in the 1990s,
one of the aims of the Clinton Administration in
aiding the Bosnian Muslims was not to let Iran
be their principal external supporter. The same
logic applies now. [3]
Obama's choice
is not an enviable one. He has sided with the
rebels so far, but not only have they committed
plenty of atrocities of their own - their ranks
infiltrated by foreign jihadists - but they have
time and again failed to unite in a coherent
political and military body.
The Syrian
army, despite numerous signs of strain, seems to
be gaining momentum. On Monday, it allegedly
recaptured Midan, a key district of the commercial
northern hub Aleppo, where fighting has been
raging almost two months. The formidable Syrian
anti-aircraft defenses remain intact, and combined
with the chemical weapons stockpiles of the regime
serve as a powerful deterrent to any international
intervention. The German magazine Der Spiegel
reported that Syria had tested shells designed to
deliver poison gas last month. [4]
Friends
and foes alike are pressuring Obama to back down -
with the exception, perhaps, of some European and
Gulf Arab powers. Iran has hardened its tone: on
Sunday, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary
Guards Corps, General Mohammed Ali Jafari,
acknowledged the presence of his men in Syria, and
threatened to intervene more directly "if Syria
came under military attack".
Russia is
reportedly trying a different route, seeking to
cajole Washington into seeing the Arab World its
way in the wake of the Libya disaster and halting
its efforts to oust Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad. An Eastern European analyst suggested to
the Asia Times Online that the Kremlin may pursue
increased cooperation with the US in hopes of
carving out for itself a new sphere of influence
in the Middle East.
Most importantly,
however, Turkey is shifting its course. Amid
growing unrest in the Kurdish areas - some of the
bloodiest fighting in at least 12 years - Ankara
seems to be getting a bad case of cold feet in its
support for the Syrian rebels. It has reportedly
started to resettle Syrian refugees further away
from the border, where they will be less useful in
the armed struggle against the Syrian regime. [5]
The reason for this, beside the flaring
sectarian tensions in southern Turkey
(specifically between the Sunni Muslim refugees
and the many native Arab Alawites who support the
Damascus regime), is that Assad turned the Turkish
idea of creating buffer zones near the border on
its head. He pulled his forces back over the last
couple of months, leaving much of northern Syria
in the hands of Kurdish separatists allied to the
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) - which is at the
forefront of the armed struggle against the
Turkish government.
Now if the Turks
decide to establish a safe haven for the Syrian
rebels near the border, many of the people they
would be protecting would be their own worst
enemies. The Kurdish Supreme Council in Syria has
already announced plans to establish an organized
military wing, [6] and given that Kurdish militias
in the area have resisted calls to join or even
ally themselves with the rest of the rebels, it is
doubtful even that the Free Syrian Army (or its
successor acronym, the Syrian National Army) would
benefit much. Turkey would veritably shoot itself
in the foot.
Paradoxically, this situation
also creates a possibility for cooperation between
Assad, should he make a comeback, and the Turkish
government in the future. It is unlikely that the
Syrian president would surrender territory to the
Kurds if he has a choice, and it also seems
improbable that the Kurds would give in without a
fight. In such a hypothetical scenario, Assad's
natural ally would be Turkey, which could join in
squeezing the Kurdish militants from the north. It
bears noting that the relationship between the two
neighbors has already undergone at least two
180-degree turns in the past decade or so.
In other words, if Obama decides to side
more forcefully with the Syrian rebels, he would
be making a bold statement and setting a precedent
that could upset his future relations with one of
his key allies. It would be hard down the road not
to support the democratic aspirations of other
peoples such as the Kurds.
Various more
exotic scenarios also remain open: for example,
the recent meeting in Cairo between Turkish,
Iranian, Egyptian and Saudi Arabian officials
underscores the possibility of a more pronounced
Egyptian role in the conflict, discussed on these
pages in the past. As the largest and perhaps most
popular Arab country, Egypt is best suited to send
peacekeeping forces into the Levantine country.
In all, it is improbable that the US
administration will break off ties with the Syrian
rebels - at the very least since the survivability
of the Assad regime is far from assured and
Washington needs leverage with whomever comes next
- but it is very hard to forecast how far exactly
it will go in its support. Absent a bold move to
break the stalemate, we can expect a protracted
civil war, which the neighboring countries and
more distant powers will try to contain inside the
country. Their success is not guaranteed.
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