September 01, 2013
The
vigorous debate about whether an American-led military strike against Syria
would be appropriate and effective is heart-breaking, for it is agonizing to
watch as another important Arab country follows the self-destructive trajectory
of others before it, such as Iraq and Libya. These countries failed to achieve
their full potential, and instead allowed themselves to pursue cruel and
criminal policies that led to their destruction at the hands of international
armies that coupled with the country’s own people who had risen in revolt to
overthrow their hated regimes.
Syria
seems destined to join that list, and helplessly watching this on television is
painful beyond description. Only the pain of the Syrian people themselves is
more acute than that of other Arabs who grieve for the combination of
incompetence, cruelty and criminality that we have seen in Syria for so many
years. We witnessed all this before, in Iraq and Libya, but also in different forms
in Sudan, Algeria, Egypt and other Arab countries whose immense human and
natural wealth was squandered and stolen by corrupt military men who proved to
be both fickle soldiers and lousy governors. The pinnacle of their stupidity
and reckless irresponsibility was to carry out such cruel attacks against their
own people, after mistreating them for decades, that the citizenry rose up in
revolt and foreign powers felt forced to intervene to bring an end to the
cruelty and to the regime itself.
The
broad lines of this legacy are being repeated in Syria, with only some minor
differences in the details, along with one major strategic difference—that
Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and perhaps some other groups will fight hard to keep
the Bashar Assad regime in power in Syria, even if it only controls some
isolated strips of land and a few cities and air bases. The consequences of
attacking Syria, therefore, are far more substantial than was the case in
bringing down, threatening or sanctioning Libya, Iraq, Sudan or even Iran.
We
continue to witness the ripples of the Anglo-American-led war on Iraq a decade
ago, especially in the form of a fractured and polarized Iraqi state, and
organized Salafist militancy and terrorism (with Al-Qaeda links) that plague
Iraq and other countries in the region, especially Syria and Lebanon. An
American-led military strike against Syria would probably generate equally
problematic consequences, including counter-attacks by Syrians and various
parties against targets from those countries that would join the assault on
Syria.
It
is also not clear that a few isolated, pinpoint punitive missile attacks
against a handful of targets in Syria would have the intended effect of making
the Assad regime change its tactics in attacking its own people in order to
remain in power. Previous experiences around the region indicate that such
punitive or deterrent strikes do not force any significant change in behavior
by the target government. Only actions like a ground invasion or imposing a
no-fly zone achieve that aim, and there is no serious talk of those kinds of
moves yet.
Foreign
attacks against Assad without a firm UN Security Council mandate would likely
make the Syrian regime more defiant and reckless, and the Russians more
recalcitrant, because it would escalate accusations that the Assad regime has
been the target of a foreign conspiracy to bring it down. We will also once
again—and rightly—hear many in the region ask why the West so forcefully—and
rightly—enforces international norms in Syria, but winks at the colonization,
annexations, sieges, mass incarcerations, use of banned munitions and other
criminal deeds of the Israeli government?
So,
a military attack against Syria will make many people and governments feel good
about their taking firm action to punish the Assad regime and deter it and
others from using chemical weapons. It should be clear, though, that any
strikes now will likely have to be the first steps in a wider effort to bring
down the Assad regime. This expanded campaign would likely include no-fly zones
and significantly enhanced delivery of advanced weapons to the opposition
forces, with the aim of militarily defeating the regime.
The
problem with this scenario is that it opens up a wild set of possible
post-Assad developments, given the scores of major but disunited armed
opposition groups in the country with secular, nationalist and Islamist
characters, and the sharp sectarian polarization that has occurred in the last
30 months of war. A post-Assad transition 18 months ago could have been
relatively smooth, but today it can only be chaotic, protracted, violent and
ugly. It will also infect other countries around it, with more refugees,
terrorism, extremism and despair.
There
are no easy answers in Syria, and no happy outcomes. The Syrian state has been
disintegrating for the past 30 months. It has never shown any real signs of
being able to reform itself under Assad leaderships, and thus has reached the
current point of inevitable international and regional Arab action to smash it
once and for all, with incalculable consequences to follow.
Rami
G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares
Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American
University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon. You can follow him @ramikhouri.
Copyright © 2013 Rami G. Khouri—distributed by
Agence Global