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Should the US save Syria?

While the situation in Syria worsens and the death-toll rises, there is no consensus in Washington on whether the US should intervene to put an end to the Syrian humanitarian crisis.  The McCain Institute this week launched its “Debate and Decision Series” by gathering four experts on the Middle East and US foreign policy to debate “Should the United States Save Syria?”

The “yes camp,” which supported US intervention, included Robert Kagan and Leon Wieseltier.  The “no camp,” which believed US intervention would be a grave mistake, included Joshua Landis and Aaron David Miller.  CNN’s Elise Labott moderated and Senator McCain’s offered a short introduction, reiterating his belief that the Syria crisis will strong affect the region.

The “Yes Camp”:

Robert Kagan, Senior Fellow at Brookings’ Center on Foreign Policy, member of the Foreign Affairs Policy Board of Secretary Clinton, and a regular columnist for the Washington Post, underscored the importance of the Syrian crisis to the US.  While past US interventions were motivated either by strategic interests or on humanitarian grounds, Syria is a place where strategic interests and humanitarian purposes converge.  If the US does not intervene, the cost will be very high since new threats to US national security will emerge.  Failed states have become breeding grounds for terrorism:

the consequence to us [the American people], directly, of Syria becoming a failed state has huge costs.

Leon Wiesletier, the editor of The New Republic, said the US cannot afford Obama’s policy of transforming the US into a “non-internationalist state.”  Not only does the Syrian crisis involve US responsibility to end a deep humanitarian crisis, but lack of intervention will also put US values into question. In strategic terms,

there could be no bigger strategic blow to Iran and its allies than the overthrow of the Assad regime.

The US should intervene to overthrow of the Assad regime and stop the genocide, prevent the jihadists from winning, and arm the secular opposition.

The “No Camp”:

Joshua Landis, Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma and a frequent blogger on the Syrian crisis, strongly opposed US intervention on several grounds:

• America should not involve itself in what has become an ethnic war since “a new ethnic balance is taking place in the Middle East,” and it should not “pick winners especially in ethnic wars;”
• Only Syrians can save Syria  from radicalization.  The US failed in Iraq and Afghanistan when it tried to nation-build in those countries;
• If the US intervenes and then leaves, as in previous cases, the situation will just get messier;
• Decapitating the Assad regime now would destabilize Syria; it is not clear that earlier intervention would have avoided the current difficulties.

Aaron David Miller, former negotiator and advisor on Middle East issues in the Department of State under several administrations, said the US must realize that it cannot do everything and that it will be incapable of managing intervention in Syria.  He highlighted the risks of getting itself in a crisis that might not end as planned:

there is a correlation between our miscalculated adventures and our own broken-house.

If Washington intervenes to ensure that a pro-US government emerges in Syria, this will delegitimize the new regime.  The Arab Spring is legitimate because it is controlled by the Arabs themselves.  Besides, Aaron said,

so much blood has flowed that it is impossible to think of a negotiated settlement now.

The Rebuttals and Conclusions:

Kagan found Landis’ argument that decapitating the Assad regime would “destabilize Syria” to be illogical since the situation is already unstable.  He criticized the latter’s focus on US failures in Iraq and Afghanistan as a measure for future US failures.  US history extends before 2001 and 2003; it has a “mixed record,” just as any great power does. Kagan rejected Landis’ claim that the ethnic nature of the conflict will inevitably mean American failure.  US intervention in Bosnia has led to stability.  Kagan claimed that doing something is better than nothing.  The US should not wait till Assad deploys his chemical weapons against the Syrian people.

Wiesletier attacked Landis’ claim that the US should not get itself into a conflict that the Syrians should resolve by saying that “other powers are already in the middle:”  Russia and Iran are already determining the outcome.

Landis rebutted the arguments of the “yes camp” by stating that contrary to Wiesletier’s claim that US intervention would prevent the jihadists and help advance the secular, pro-Western opposition, the US is incapable of placing whom it likes as the leaders of any new regime that will emerge.  The Islamists are on top.  The “Harvard-educated opposition” will not take the lead.