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Root and branch

Last night’s terrific discussion of Righting the Balance here at SAIS’ Foreign Policy Institute with Tom Pickering and Kristin Lord commenting:

Key issues in the commentary and Q and A: Read more

Join Tom Pickering and Kristin Lord

Hasten the day

The Administration’s approach to Syria has seemed to me to focus too narrowly on military attacks (even if others object to the breadth of the authorization for them) and chemical weapons, to the detriment of broader strategy aiming to achieve long-term US interests in stability and avoiding a terrorist haven in Syria.  Thanks to Al Jazeera, we now have the draft Congressional resolution in hand.   While it does focus primarily on authorizing a military response to Assad’s use of chemical weapons, it also includes at least some minimal attention to the broader strategic issues, requiring the president to certify that:

the use of military force is consistent with and furthers the goals of the United States strategy toward Syria, including achieving a negotiated political settlement to the conflict.

Then, like a school teacher trying to make an assignment a bit easier, it outlines what should be in the strategy and requires the President to consult with Congress and submit to it:

a comprehensive review of current and planned U.S. diplomatic, political, economic, and military policy towards Syria, including: (1) the provision of all forms of assistance to the Syrian Supreme Military Council and other Syrian entities opposed to the government of Bashar Al-Assad that have been properly and fully vetted and share common values and interests with the United States; (2) the provision of all forms of assistance to the Syrian political opposition, including the Syrian Opposition Coalition; (3) efforts to isolate extremist and terrorist groups in Syria to prevent their influence on the future transitional and permanent Syrian governments; (4) coordination with allies and partners; and (5) efforts to limit support from the Government of Iran and others for the Syrian regime.

This is good, as far as it goes.  But it fails to deal directly with the key issue:  what kind of military action would further broader US goals?

Here there is a pretty clear answer, at least in the near term.  The Syrian opposition has had a hard time governing and providing services in liberated areas.  Fractiousness is one reason, though I am told that in the one provincial capital the opposition controls, Al Raqaa, the locals have managed a selection process that has put in place a civilian and civic (i.e. non-clerical) administrative council, even as important parts of the area are controlled by Islamist militias.  The trouble is that as soon as one of these administrative local councils gets up and running, the Syrian regime bombards it (using planes, Scuds or artillery), targeting in particular hospitals, schools and other essential services.

Far more civilians have died in these conventional military bombardments than in chemical weapons attacks.  And the bombardments have forced a lot of people to move, perhaps 5 million within Syria and 2 million to other countries, burdening the international community with what is becoming the largest humanitarian relief effort ever (the price tag to the US will $1 billion this year, likely $2 billion next).  The Syrian Opposition Coalition, which the US and many other countries have recognized as the political representative of the Syrian people, does not meet inside Syria partly because of the conditions created by these bombardments of civilian populations, which are a war crime by any standard.

Targeting only chemical weapons capability will send the message that everything else is okay.  But the prohibition of attacks on civilian populations is no less important in international humanitarian law than the prohibition on the use of chemical weapons.  It is not okay.  The issue Congress should be seized with is how we avoid sending a signal we don’t intend but Bashar al Asad will welcome.  He is likely to respond to our failure to target conventional capabilities by using them even more extensively.  In fact he has already ratcheted up conventional attacks, while we are distracted by a discussion focused on chemical weapons.

Some will read this with disgust and denounce me as a war monger.  To the contrary:  I am profoundly skeptical of using military action to solve political problems, but I am also profoundly skeptical of finding political solutions unless the conditions are ripe, which requires at the very least that both the opposition and the regime see no further gains from continuing to fight.  Military action can shape an opponent’s perspective and help determine whether he perceives himself as having a good alternative to negotiating a solution, or not.  But it can also have unintended consequences, signalling that even if chemical weapons use is out he has other options he can use with impunity.

There really is a slippery slope.  I’d rather see us plan with care how to manuever down it than find ourselves slipping and sliding to we know not what.  Those who are telling the President he can do what needs to be done in two or three days and then stop are being disingenuous.  This horrendous war won’t be over until Bashar al Asad is gone, and it may even continue after that day.  Whatever we do should be calculated to hasten the day a stable Syria, able to govern and defend itself, welcomes back all its citizens and rejoins the international community with respect for all the laws of war, not just the prohibition on use of chemical weapons.

Too broad is too narrow

Some of my most respected colleagues (read Fred Hof) are exorcised beyond reason by President Obama’s two week delay in going to war to punish and deter Syrian chemical weapons use. They are conveniently forgetting a lot of history.

Let’s leave aside FDR’s more than two-year delayed entry into World War II, after Germany had conquered a large part of Europe and only in response to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. There is also Bill Clinton, now regarded as a great success because of the Dayton agreements. He delayed 3.5 years after promising he would intervene in Bosnia and only did it once Senator Dole, his re-election opponent, started making political hay on the broken promise. The march to war in Kosovo was a circuitous one, marked by spineless and failed diplomatic initiatives and the undying hope of bringing the Russians on board, who eventually did give us a wink and a nod.

Famously, George W. Bush rushed to war, first in Afghanistan with good early results (but not the same longer-term outcome) and then in Iraq, with well-known and less than satisfactory consequences.

There is nothing unusual, or inherently bad, with delay in going to war. The delays are often forgotten.  The results are always remembered.

The real question is what use the Administration makes of the time it has given itself.  So far it has chosen to focus on a narrow goal:  deter, disrupt, prevent and degrade the ability to use chemical weapons.  But it proposes a wide military mandate, unlimited in time and even permitting boots on the ground.

Here I agree with Fred: a broader strategy is in order.  A broader strategy starts with broader goals.  Use of chemical weapons is not the only US interest in Syria.  We also have an interest in regional stability, which is at risk if the war goes on much longer.  The outflux of Syrian refugees threatens the stability of Lebanon, now the unfortunate recipient of more refugees per capita than any other country in the world, Jordan, Iraq and possibly Turkey.  And we need to ensure that the war does not end with Syria providing help and haven either to Al Qaeda or their Shia analogues like Hizbollah.  None of these goals are achievable with Bashar al Asad in power.

Getting him out will require diplomatic as well as military means, including tighter sanctions, support for the democratic opposition, closer coordination with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and negotiations with Russia and Iran.  Military means, which are a blunt and potentially counterproductive instrument, may nevertheless also be useful, if they tilt the battlefield back in the direction of the opposition.  The Congress can make a real contribution:  by insisting on pursuit of an early political solution, using the full spectrum of instruments of American power to achieve US interests going beyond the goals associated with chemical weapons.

The military mandate the Administration has proposed may be too broad, but its goals, and the means needed to achieve them, are too narrow.