What can or should be done in response to the continuing Syrian bloodbath? And who, if anyone, should do it?
In a NY Times column, Max Fisher has described “America’s Three Bad Options in Syria” (he leaves out the fourth bad one, which is doing nothing).
His argument is simple: 1) Limited, punitive strikes are ineffectual; 2) escalating aid to Assad’s enemies can easily be matched and exceeded by Iran and Russia; and 3) an intervention that actually collapsed Assad’s government would throw the region into chaos, costing even millions more lives, and risk a military confrontation with Russia.
He doesn’t discuss the consequences of doing nothing. I suspect this might actually shorten the active conflict, since it would result in Assad reasserting control over much of the country, and Iran and Russia becoming the de facto ruling powers in the region. But this is also a bad option, because while it might reduce the bloodletting in the very short term, it would set the stage for future very severe conflicts, which could include Europe and the US (and definitely would include Israel).
There is another option that needs to be considered. It’s based on the understanding that today there is one source of most of the conflict in the Middle East (and it is not the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, which has always been only a proxy for the ambitions of Israel’s larger neighbors or the struggle between the US and Russia).
That source is the Iranian ambition to export its revolutionary Shiite Islamism to the world, and to establish a caliphate in the Middle East. Iran is well on her way to doing so. She has effective control of Lebanon through her Hezbollah subsidiary, she controls the central government and much of the territory of Iraq, and she is able to do almost whatever she wants in Syria (the ‘almost’ is thanks to Israel). Iran also threatens the vital Bab al-Mandeb strait, through her influence on the Houthi regime in Yemen (almost all trade between the EU and Asia passes through Bab al-Mandeb, as does as much as 30% of the oil produced in the Gulf).
The Iranian regime has done all this relatively cheaply and with conventional means. When it obtains a nuclear umbrella, we can expect it to be an order of magnitude more dangerous. It is presently developing missiles that will place Europe under threat of nuclear attack. ICBMs that can reach the US will be the next step.
ISIS, al-Qaeda and similar groups are far less dangerous. They are at most terrorist militias which could easily be crushed by the West (which instead has allowed Iran to use them as an excuse to gain control of parts of Iraq and Syria).
The option that I am proposing is what former King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia advised the US to do back in 2008: to “cut off the head the snake.”
Abdullah may have meant only to destroy the Iranian nuclear program, but I am suggesting that in addition, the present regime should be overthrown and opposition elements helped to take over.
With Iran out of the equation, the Syrian problem is not solved, but at least simplified. The best solution at this point would be a partition that would keep the various religious and ethnic groups away from each other’s throats. Clearly the present situation in Syria in which a Sunni majority is ruled by a small Alawi minority has shown itself to be unworkable.
While Russia can project power there with its air force, it cannot afford to send a large number of ground troops – until now, the cannon fodder has been provided by Iran’s Hezbollah ally and its Iraqi Shiite militias, which will lose their support when the snake is dead. Both Russia and Assad would find themselves much more prepared to compromise when the Iranian muscle has been taken away.
Other conflicts would also lose impetus. Hezbollah, Israel’s most dangerous enemy in the short term, would waste away. Hamas would lose its major source of financial support. Although the Palestinian desire to destroy Israel won’t disappear, the loss of Iranian support will mean fewer hot wars, which may pave the way for eventual reconciliation. The conflict in Yemen also will become amenable to solution without Iranian support for the Houthis.
Iran’s fingerprints have been found on terrorist attacks all over the world, including Latin America and Europe. Hezbollah is heavily involved in illegal drug and weapons trafficking. No other single country is responsible for as much mischief and violence around the world as Iran, and it is on the verge of becoming a nuclear power.
The example of Iraq is often used to argue that attempts at regime change can have unexpected and sometimes unpleasant consequences. There is no doubt that this is true, and that such an enterprise is very risky. But there were clear mistakes made in Iraq: the “de-Baathification” purge of the armed forces, government and civil service, which left no one competent to run essential services; the lack of planning for a temporary occupation regime and police force; the belief that if a tyranny was removed and elections held, democracy would automatically take hold; and of course the biggie – the failure to understand that Iran would walk into the vacuum created by overthrowing Saddam.
The Iranian people are relatively well-educated and cultured. Iran does have home-grown opposition factions that could replace the mullahs that rule the country. The difficult problem would be dealing with the Revolutionary Guard and its paramilitary Basij, who are loyal to the present regime and would resist its overthrow.
Any successful regime change would have to be accomplished by empowering the opposition and supporting its takeover from the present regime. It would need to be accomplished with as little damage to non-military infrastructure as possible. Nevertheless, there would certainly be some military confrontations with the Revolutionary Guard. But the approach taken in Iraq – smashing the country to smithereens and then trying to rebuild it from the ground up – failed there and would fail here as well.
The Western powers that would need to do this would have to push over the old regime, and stand aside – even if what replaces it is not entirely to their liking.
Yes, it would be a risky endeavor. The mullahs could be replaced by something worse (but at least it wouldn’t have an advanced nuclear weapons program). I think, though, that the potential benefits – for the region, for the Iranian people, and for the civilized world – make it a risk worth taking.
@ Edgar G.:
It’s from Robert Heinlein’s “Stranger in a Strange Land” about a human who was raised by Martians and comes back. It was written before the 60’s but it predicted the counter-culture. However, those sections weren’t published until long after, in fact, posthumously, I believe, because his editor thought they were too wild for the public to accept.
Great word, though, isn’t it? Not many people remember it, but it became a common colloquialism for a short time in the early 70s. At least, in my world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land
I guess we’re wandering off topic because it seems like a no-brainer that Iran has to be taken out by somebody, anybody, as soon as possible. I remember a liberal once asking me indignantly if I wanted war with Iran and my sheepishly replying, “no” when I was thinking, yes, yes, yes. In my defence, I was working for her at the time. Almost everybody in the arts is a liberal when it comes to defence, even the so-called conservatives who are only conservative when it comes to taking bread out of workers’ mouths. Lot of Republican legislators like that. It’s incredible that so many of those on Trump’s case, for example with Mueller, are Republicans. They must go. In many races the primary is more important than the general election. In New York, that’s true in a different way. The Republicans don’t have a prayer, but the democrats are divided between pro and anti-Israel forces, even sometimes openly anti-semitic forces such as the last election for city council. This year, Cuomo, who pushed through and signed the state’s first anti-BDS law, is being challenged by leftist tv actress, Cynthia Nixon, who is anti-Israel but claims to be pro-“Jewish,” one more example of the nuttiness of the left wing of the liberal Jewish diaspora which she participates in as a gentile.
https://www.jta.org/2018/04/02/default/cynthia-nixons-bid-ny-governor-sets-clash-israel
Needless to say, I’m sure she wants to go back to cozying up to Iran and giving the cold shoulder to this pro-detente Saudi Arabia, like the rest of her reactionary faux-progressive crowd. She’s in the Bernie Sanders wing of the Dems.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
I had to look it up to see what grokked meant….First time I’ve heard this word.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Yes I used to see them advertised. When I smoked, it was oval shaped Balkan Sobranie, in a flat tin. If you’re interested….and even if you’re not, this is how I quit. I was smoking about 10 a day. Then I felt It was getting a grip on me. I didn’t like that, so I decided to quit. During this time, I was boxing (trained 4-5 times a week) playing Tournament and League competition tennis, table tennis, rugby etc.
My dear late brother had a pipe, which I started to use. It was a one-of-a-kind Kapp and Peterson De Luxe. (I still have it stored away) A very interesting short story goes with that pipe, which, if you’re interested, I’ll tell you. I deliberately smoked less and less. After about 3-4 months I stopped altogether.
And by chance, a year after quitting, (I’d smoked cigarettes for about 7-8 years,) one day, I went to watch my old rugby club play a match. They were short of a man, and persuaded me to play. I had retired over 2 years before. Well, that day, I ran right through the opposing side at will in a way I never did before. My wind was wonderful, and I scored 18 out of the 21 points. But by that time I was deeply into chasing girls So it was a 1 game comeback.
@ Edgar G.:
C’ést rien {pardon my french, must resist the urge to grab me some Freedom Frys.}
The name in question, aptly enough, also reminds me of a cigarette I once tried, back when I was smoker*, called Carlton. It was the lightest cigarette on the market. Not even like inhaling and expelling hot air, more like luke warm air without much substance, like cotton candy.
But, then my tastes were unreliable back then. I liked Turkish State Monopolies and Sputniks!
*In fact, I was a chain smoker until I grokked that tobacco tasted better than chains!
@ Sebastien Zorn:
No face-saving needed. I’ve made REAL errors in the past. But thank you all the same.
@ Edgar G.:
Thanks for availing me of the opportunity to save face. Unfortunately, I am merely a Hungarian-American without a lisp, so it won’t wash. I was probably thinking of Carlton Fredericks whose diet books my grandmother raised my mother on in the 20’s and 30’s.
I appreciate the.correction. Unusual names are hard to keep straight.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
I think you mean “Tucker Carlson”. Unless you’re a Hungarian with a lisp.
As Bolton pointed out in a recent interview on Fox with Carlton Tucker, who did not see the primacy of the Iranian threat, the biggest mistake the U.S. made in Iraq was the withdrawal of U.S. forces. Thanks to the surge, Iraq was largely stabilized when Bush handed it over to Obama who immediately allowed it to fall apart. I agreed with Bolton, including his assertion that Tucker’s analysis was simple-minded. When you have Republicans, like Tucker, talking like Democrats on foreign policy, why even bother to vote?