Beginning to do the right thing

John Kerry ‘s  first trip abroad as Secretary of State is focusing on a problem the Obama Administration has been trying hard to ignore:  what to do about Syrian President Bashar al Asad, whose recent use of Scud missiles against civilian population centers is just the latest of his war crimes.  His indiscriminate shelling of Homs, Hama, Aleppo and smaller Syrian towns will long be remembered as crimes against humanity that went on for far too long.

Washington has so far preferred to focus on the humanitarian crisis in Syria. A million Syrians are now refugees in other countries, several million are displaced inside Syria, more than 70,000 are dead and half of those alive and still inside the country are in need of relief.   The U.S. government has committed upwards of $365 million already on humanitarian assistance, hoping an opposition military victory would determine the political outcome.

It has not worked out that way.  The Asad regime has cracked with myriad defections but has not crumbled.  Its core, based on an Alawite minority that has reason to dread its fate if the regime fails, remains intact.  Iranian and Russian military and financial support remains solid.  Scud missiles and the Syrian air force have provided the regime the means to challenge the opposition even in liberated areas.  The regime is unable to “clear and hold” territory, but it can still prevent the opposition from doing so.

The flow of military assistance is increasing.  Saudi and Qatari funding has flowed mainly to Sunni Islamist groups, some of them affiliated with Al Qaeda.  This tilts the playing field against the more moderate opposition, now more or less unified in the Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces.  It is fractious, but has managed to put forth parameters for a political solution that would allow talks with the regime while reaffirming that Bashar al Assad and his coterie have no role to play in Syria’s future.  The Coalition will appoint a provisional prime minister on Saturday.

The Obama Administration has hesitated to provide lethal assistance to the Coalition for good reasons.  It fears anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons would fall into the wrong hands and be used against civilian targets outside Syria.  This would amount to “fast and furious” (an operation in which guns provided by the U.S. were used in the murder of an American border patrol agent) on steroids.  The Administration also worries about the Russian reaction.  It needs Russia to keep open the routes through which American withdrawal from Afghanistan will occur this year and next.  It also needs Russia to maintain sanctions and UN Security Council unity against the Iranian nuclear push, promising talks on which occurred this week in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

While others (including some Europeans) supply arms, President Obama should support the Syrian Coalition with the resources it needs to begin governing liberated areas inside Syria.  At Thursday’s meeting of the Friends of Syria, Secretary Kerry announced that the United States will provide $60 million to the Coalition, for use in supplying humanitarian relief, essential services and law and order through the local administrative councils that have been set up in liberated areas of Syria.

As soon as the provisional Syrian prime minister is named, Secretary Kerry should also announce that the Syrian embassy in Washington, already in the hands of employees sympathetic to the revolution, will be turned over to the Coalition.  These gestures would give the Coalition credibility and legitimacy with Syrians that it has all too obviously lacked in the past.  They would also signal to Bashar al Assad as well as his Russian and Iranian sponsors that the Coalition will eventually become the internationally recognized authority in whatever territory it is able to liberate.

Washington today is focused mainly on its own budget problems.  Convincing Americans it is a good idea to shell out hard cash for a Syrian revolutionary government that has yet to prove itself is a hard sell.  But there are members of Congress on both sides of the aisle who find the situation in Syria intolerable.  And there is every reason to believe that the bill for humanitarian relief in Syria will grow by far more than $60 million if the fighting continues.  If there is even a 50/50 chance that strengthening the Coalition will shorten the war, the investment is likely to be a good one.