Hard questions, difficult answers

Murdered yesterday, Jo Cox gave this last speech in Parliament on Syria (via @ThomasPierret):

Would that we could all lead lives that guarantee we leave behind such eloquent, upstanding memorials!

I can’t match that, but my readers do ask hard questions about the war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Here are a few, with answers:

Q: Why do the Russians back Assad?

A: Lots of people more knowledgeable than I am about Russia have tried to answer this one. Most take seriously Moscow’s frequent statements that they are not wedded to Assad personally but want an orderly and legitimate transition in Damascus, not abrupt regime change.

Certainly they don’t want regime change, but I’ve seen no evidence the rest of that summary is true. Now that they have doubled down on Assad by joining the fight last fall, the Russians have in fact welded, if not wedded, themselves to Assad or some proxy for him. There is no conceivable successor regime that would be even half as friendly to Russian interests.

Moscow’s tactical gains through its air attacks have guaranteed it eventual strategic defeat in Syria, where the overwhelming majority of the more than 60% of the pre-war population that was Sunni will be forever hostile to Russia.

Q: How about the Iranians?

A: Iran has been 100% committed to Assad from the get-go. They need Syria to maintain their pipeline of arms shipments to Hezbollah in Lebanon, who are Iran’s front-line troops in the confrontation with Israel. Tehran cannot rely on access to Beirut’s airport, and Syria provides strategic depth to Hezbollah.

Iranian strategic defeat is even more certain than the Russian loss of Syria. I would be the first to stand up against retaliation by Sunnis against Shia and Alawites, but the odds of its happening eventually are high.

Q: Why don’t we just go in there any finish off the Islamic State?

A: In some alternate universe where George W. Bush is still president, I suppose we might do that. But the risks of deploying US ground troops to the front lines to fight ISIS are significant. Are we prepared to see 100 American soldiers captured and shot in the back of the head or burned alive? How about 500? Or a thousand? ISIS is significantly more virulent and brutal than even its predecessor, the Islamic State in Iraq during the 2000s.

There is also the “day after” problem. The key question once ISIS is defeated is how the territory it once controlled will be stabilized and governed. Without a solution to that, we can expect ISIS (or something worse) to return. The US didn’t do well as an occupier in Iraq in 2003. How well would we do in Syria or Iraq in 2016? Are we prepared to deploy several hundred thousand troops for years to try to make sure things come out right? And pay perhaps another 500 billion or a trillion dollars for reconstruction?

Q: What’s the solution?

A: I don’t know. The last five years of war have made everything more difficult than it might have been in those first six months of peaceful demonstrations, but the clock can’t be turned back.

There are two propositions I find somewhat appealing now.

One is for the US to extend its war on terrorists in Syria, which in practice now targets only the Sunni variety, to Hezbollah, which is a Shia non-state actor. The first step would be telling the Iranians that Hezbollah must leave Syria. We’d have to be prepared to back that up with air strikes. Getting rid of Hezbollah would significantly affect the military balance in Syria, raise the risks to Russia and Iran, and increase the odds of a negotiated outcome.

The second somewhat appealing idea is creation of safe areas for the non-extremist Syrian opposition to govern, one in the north and one in the south. This would give the mostly Arab opposition an opportunity to prove itself a serious competitor to the regime in dealing with the requirements of Syria’s citizens, as the Kurds have begun to do along the northern border with Turkey. Doing this would entail both protecting the safe areas from the air and providing the opposition with the means to protect themselves on the ground, as we already do with the Kurds.

Neither of these propositions is a slam dunk. The first would likely lead to Hezbollah retaliation against American or allies assets somewhere in the region. The second, safe areas, is an inherently difficult operation that provides the regime, the Russians and the Iranians with target-rich environments they would no doubt attack. Safe areas have more often failed (Bosnia) than succeeded (Iraqi Kurdistan).

Q: What do you think of the State Department dissent message urging air attacks on Syrian government forces?

A: I might agree with its overall thrust, as it appears based on the notion that the Russians won’t help and we have to do something to rebalance the military equation. But I’ll need to see a full text before commenting.