Bombing expectations

With the United States getting ready to bomb Syria in response to its government’s use of chemical weapons against its population, it is important to keep expectations in check.  Bombing, especially if well-targeted and short duration, does not cause autocrats to give up power.  Apart from a lucky shot that hits Bashar al Asad, the best that can be hoped for in Syria is that bombing may tilt the playing field back in the opposition direction, enabling the rebel forces to regain some lost ground or establish firmer control in areas where the regime has been using aircraft, missiles and artillery to disrupt opposition efforts to establish governing structures and begin to deliver services.  In the best of all possible worlds, which of course is not the likeliest, this could create the kind of “mutually hurting stalemate” that would favor a negotiated outcome.

More likely a short and well-targeted bombing campaign will send no more than the message that future use of chemical weapons will not be tolerated.  But Bashar al Asad wouldn’t be the first autocrat to respond to a well-calibrated message by upping the ante.  That’s what Milosevic did in response to NATO’s bombing:  he intensified the ethnic cleansing of Albanians from Kosovo.  The Obama administration needs to be ready to extend and expand its bombing if Bashar chooses to use even more chemical weapons with greater abandon.  Otherwise the red line won’t hold.

The big question mark is whether a bombing campaign, even of only a few days, will loosen Russian attachment to Bashar, or cause Moscow to hug him even tighter.  Certainly it would be prudent to expect Putin to use the occasion to defy the Americans and continue his effort to reassert Russian great power status.  But if in fact the Russians are convinced that Bashar used chemical weapons, that may put some daylight between them and their protégé.  The Americans would be wise to use all the diplomatic means at their disposal to this end, as Russian withdrawal of support for Bashar could well be decisive in the Syrian civil war.

Another important question is whether bombing will give the Syrian opposition forces more reason to unify, better to win the day, or create incentives for even more violent clashes among revolutionary brigades, which are already too common.  I can’t pretend to know which course they will take, but judging from their behavior thus far it would be reasonable to expect clashes as they compete to establish themselves and expand their territorial control.

Edward Luttwak, in a typically ill-considered piece, suggests in reference to the impending bombing:

At this point, a prolonged stalemate is the only outcome that would not be damaging to American interests.

That is just dead wrong.  None of America’s interests in Syria’s territorial integrity, regional stability, preventing Syria’s use for terrorism or enforcing the prohibition on the use of chemical weapons is served by a prolonged stalemate.  America’s best interest will be served by a stalemate that leads quickly to a negotiated solution, allowing the international community a modicum of say-so in who inherits Syria from the Asad regime.

Can bombing lead in that direction?  Yes, it can, but a great deal depends on whether the opposition can get its act together and find a unified voice to speak for it at the negotiating table.  Bombing brought about negotiated solutions in Bosnia and Kosovo, with semi-satisfactory outcomes many years later.  Bombing in Iraq and Afghanistan led to collapsed regimes and long American military deployments, with far less satisfactory outcomes.  I’ll take the semi-satisfactory outcome any day, though it may well require some sort of international force to stabilize Syria once Bashar is gone.