Tag: Lebanon
Hezbollah in Syria is at risk
Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria has captured media attention and expert analysis around the world. On Tuesday, the Center for Transatlantic Relations (CTR) at Johns Hopkins SAIS and the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique (FRS) organized Hezbollah After Assad, featuring Bilal Saab, executive director and head of research at the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis (INEGMA) North America and Jean-Luc Marret, a Senior Fellow at FRS and CTR and associate professor and senior lecturer in multiple French universities. Ambassador Andras Simonyi, the Managing Director of CTR, facilitated the discussion.
Bilal Saab reminded that a conflict between Sunnis and Shiites in the Middle East is something that Hezbollah has warned against since its own founding. Such a conflict would not only distract Hezbollah from fighting Israel, but could also alienate the Shiite support base for the organization. Despite knowing this, Hezbollah has acted in a way that increases the likelihood of such a conflict. What explains Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria?
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A Wolf in sheep’s clothing?
As the Arab uprisings continue to unfold, it is unclear how countries in the Middle East will act on issues of plurality and human rights. On Monday, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars hosted a talk on the Future of Religious Minorities in the Middle East. Congressman Frank Wolf, co-chairman of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, delivered a presentation on religious minorities in the region, based on a series of visits to the Middle East.
Wolf reminded that oppression of religious minorities is not new in the region. The Iranian government repressed its Baha’i minority since 1979, killing hundreds of its leaders and dismissing tens of thousands from jobs. The recent uprisings in the region have exacerbated the situation. The Arab Spring “devolved into Winter for many of the most vulnerable in these societies—foremost among them the ancient Christian communities,” according to the Congressman.
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Syria options
With Washington still undecided what to do about Syria, it is time to look again at military options. The regime is doing well enough on the battlefield that it won’t be much interested in a serious negotiated solution. The opposition won’t want one on the terms the regime would accept.
I see three basic military options at this point:
- Arm the rebels. It takes time. It will kill more people. The arms may fall into the wrong hands and be used for the wrong purposes. But it makes the Syrians responsible for their own fate and may strengthen relative moderates, if we can get weapons into the right hands. Some might prefer it be done covertly, though it is unlikely to stay secret for long. Nothing does these days.
- Safe haven/humanitarian corridor/no-fly zone. These are all to a first approximation the same thing. If successfully instituted, they would presumably save lives and enable the opposition to begin governing, as the Kurds did in northern Iraq under Saddam Hussein. But they require patrolling by US (or allied) aircraft, which means the Syrian air defenses have to be taken down first. That is an act of war that would provide invaluable intelligence to the Syrians (and therefore also the Iranians) on our operating capabilities and signatures. Safe havens did not work well in Bosnia–it was their failure that led to the bombing that turned the tide of war, not their success.
- Nail the Syrian air force, Scuds and communication nodes. This too would be an act of war, but one that does not require continued patrolling. It might even be possible without taking down the Syrian air defenses (the Israelis don’t seem to have bothered with that in nailing missile shipments to Hizbollah or Syria’s clandestine nuclear reactor). But we won’t get everything. The Syrians will bunker their more precious items under ground and park their tanks and artillery next to schools and mosques, fearing they will be the next targets. If the Bosnian war is to be taken as a guide, it would be best also to go after military communication nodes. The regime’s ability to coordinate its forces, which depends on communications, is a big advantage over the fragmented opposition.
Options 2 and 3 require the use of US forces, which needs to be justified on the basis of vital American interests. Two are most in evidence right now:
- A regime victory in Syria would be a major regional triumph for Iran, ensuring its link to Hizbollah in Lebanon, putting pressure on Iraq to toe ever more Tehran’s line, and endangering Israel.
- Continued fighting will weaken state structures in the Levant, including Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey. The resulting chaos could create a breeding ground for Al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists.
The use of force, presumably without UN Security Council approval, would infuriate Russia and China. Their cooperation is still important to the P5+1 nuclear negotiations with Iran. Russia’s cooperation in maintaining the Northern Distribution Network is important to the drawdown of American troops from Afghanistan.
Then there are the American people. War weary and budget fatigued, they are not anxious for another Middle East war, especially since domestic oil production is up dramatically and dependence on Middle Eastern producers declining.
Not a pretty set of options, but if we do nothing at this point we’ll have to live not only with our consciences but also with the results.
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Power, Power and Rice
While some are predicting (or hoping for) big changes in American foreign policy in the liberal interventionist/human rights first direction with the appointments of Susan Rice as national security adviser and Samantha Power as UN ambassador, I doubt it.
Both have already left marks on US foreign policy, Samantha through the Atrocities Prevention Board and Susan in the Libya intervention and many other efforts at the UN, including the successful use of its Human Rights Commission to report on atrocities in Syria. I wouldn’t suggest these are enormous departures from the past, but they certainly reflect the view that saving foreigners from mass atrocity has its place in US p0licy and needs to be given due consideration along with more traditional national interests of the military, political and economic varieties.
The main “to intervene or not” issue today is Syria. Susan and Samantha have both already been involved in internal debates on Syria, where President Obama ignored the advice of Hillary Clinton, David Petraeus and Leon Panetta. They all advised a more interventionist stance. It is the president, not the advisers, who is choosing not to try to stop the Syrian civil war, largely because of issues unrelated to Syria: Russian support on the withdrawal from Afghanistan and in the nuclear negotiations with Iran, not to mention the American public’s war weariness and the parlous budget situation. No doubt someone at the Pentagon is also telling him that allowing extremist Sunnis and Shia to continue killing each other in Syria is in the US interest. Read more
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Not promising
With the strategically placed town of Qusayr about to fall to Syrian army and Lebanese Hizbollah forces, the Syrian opposition coalition (SOC) is saying it won’t attend “Geneva II” peace talks without an end to the siege of Qusayr and a guarantee that any political settlement will ensure Bashar al Asad steps down. Even if those things were to happen magically, it is unclear who would represent the opposition at peace talks, as the SOC has been meeting in Istanbul and struggling painfully to broaden its base even as revolutionaries inside Syria complain loudly about its ineffectiveness.
The regime, emboldened by success on the battlefield and Russia’s decision to provide advanced air defenses, will not agree to either SOC condition.
Where does this leave the US?
We are left holding the diplomatic bag, trying to deliver a political solution in conditions that are not ripe for a settlement. Moscow and Tehran, while claiming to want a political solution and criticizing the West and its Gulf allies (Saudi Arabia and Qatar) for support to the revolutionaries, have been busily bolstering the Asad regime on the battlefield. President Obama is said to have ordered up plans for a no-fly zone, but there is no sign he is serious about implementing them in the face of continued Russian and Chinese vetoes at the UN Security Council.
There is also no sign as yet that the regime can reassert its authority over all of Syria. Large parts of both the north and the south are in revolutionary hands. But the regime has a good chance of securing the route from Damascus to the Alawite heartland in the west and the port at Tartus. Homs is likely the next big battlefield. Government forces there have been making slow progress against rebels in the city center. It may well fall with a whimper rather than a bang.
Meanwhile sectarian conflict is spreading to Lebanon and Iraq, even as both those countries export fighters into Syria. The involvement of Lebanese Hizbollah has important military implications not only within Syria but also in Lebanon and vis-a-vis Israel. Turkey has long harbored the Syrian opposition forces and has suffered a number of military and terrorist attacks from Syria. The sad fact is that only a quick (and unlikely) end to the civil war in Syria will save its neighbors from refugee flows, terrorist bombs, sectarian conflict,and the risk that they too may end up embroiled in a regional Levantine war.
So what is to be done?
If, like me, you are of the school that says diplomacy is getting other people to do what you want them to do, you’ve got to have doubts whether convening peace talks at this point is going to produce a settlement, however much you might like that to happen. They could be useful in clarifying positions, unifying the opposition, establishing some principles, making some contacts and defining better what is at issue, but it is highly unlikely that you are going to get a settlement when both sides think, however unrealistically, they may gain from more fighting and worry that an agreement to lay down arms could lead to slaughter when the other side fails to abide.
There is no trust at this point between the Asad regime and the revolutionaries. Neither side believes the other is serious about negotiating or about implementing a negotiated agreement. Unless one side or the other manages a military breakout that today seems unlikely, we are a long way from the end in Syria, which means the region will be under serious strain for a long time to come.
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180 miles from disaster
Yesterday’s Friends of Syria meeting occurred in Amman, just 180 miles from the battle for Qusayr, a Syrian town located just off the road from Damascus through Homs to Alawite-populated areas of the west. If the opposition can hold Qusayr and Homs, it will split Damascus from the west. If it can’t, Bashar al Asad will have what he needs to maintain a regime axis that splits the liberated areas of the south from the liberated areas of the north. Either way, the outcome is likely to be a disaster for someone.
The Qusayr fighting involves Lebanese Hizbollah fighting with the Syrian army against mostly Sunni rebels, including Jabhat al Nusra. It naturally has echoes inside Lebanon, where Alawites and Sunnis have clashed in Tripoli. There is a real risk of spillover. While some in Washington may wonder why we should worry about Hizbollah and Sunni extremists associated with Jabhat al Nusra kill each other, it is important to widen the aperture a bit: state structures in Levant are at risk. Were they to collapse, the chaos could be widespread. Syria never has been comfortable with Lebanon as a separate state and established diplomatic relations with it only in the last few years.
It is hard to be optimistic about the preparations for next month’s Syria peace conference. Apart from the parlous military situation in Qusayr, Moscow is insisting not only that Iran be present but that the Syrian opposition come to the table without preconditions (in particular that Bashar al Asad step aside before any political transition). Then and only then is Moscow willing to set a date for the conference.
Iran’s presence is certainly necessary if the conference is going to produce anything like a political solution. The Russians are not wrong about that. Its fighters, and Hizbollah fighters it supports, are very much engaged in Syria. As for Moscow’s pre-condition that there not be pre-conditions, I suppose George Sabra–the current, interim head of the Syrian Opposition Coalition–will figure out a way to fudge that, perhaps by noting the Coalition’s acceptance of the formula already accepted last year at the Geneva conference: a transitional governing body that would exercise full executive powers “formed on the basis of mutual consent.”
More problematic is the Russian transfer of major new weapons systems to Syria and its deployment of warships off the coast. Russian thinktankers claim
non-intervention is now a basic Russian principle…
but that is neither true nor new. Russia is certainly intervening in the Syria conflict on the side of the regime it considers the legitimate sovereign. And it intervened on behalf of rebel forces in Georgia, when that suited its preferences. Russian policy might better be stated as preventing Western intervention in areas it regards as within its sphere of influence. We would no doubt return the favor if they were to muck in the Gulf.
The most sensible comment yesterday comes from Salim Idris, titular head of the Free Syrian Army. He is quoted as saying in a letter to Secretary Kerry:
For the negotiations to be of any substance, we must reach a strategic military balance, without which the regime will feel empowered to dictate … while fully sustained logistically and militarily by Russia and Iran…Such untenable situation requires that the Unites States, as the leader of the free world, provide the Free Syrian Army forces under the Supreme Military Council with the requisite advanced weapons to sustain defensive military capabilities in the face of the Assad forces.
He is said to be seeking anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons. He is correct that a mutually hurting stalemate, which the opposition has not so far been able to reach, is needed before the Syrian regime will negotiate seriously. If Bashar thinks he can do better by continuing the fighting, he will.
Secretary Kerry has limited himself so far to feints: he said yesterday Friends of Syria would consider arming the opposition and supported an effort to lift the European Union arms embargo. He is a man used to the niceties of the US Senate, where sparring is a verbal activity. The Russians, Iranians and Syrians certainly understand what he is threatening, but they doubt he is willing to do it or that his doing it will be effective in the time frame available.
President Obama is fond of saying he doesn’t bluff. It is time for him to play a stronger hand, one way or another.
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