To put it another way, there exists a distinct possibility that after Assad would come a more militant and more dangerous regime. The option that the Obama administration is pursuing—work with others to put the squeeze economically on Assad while also seeking a diplomatic solution.
Maybe it will work. The immediate US interests are modest. We do have a pronounced interest in regional stability, very much threatened by events in Syria. But our ability to promote stability is limited. Arguably, a no-fly zone would tilt things in favor of the militants. But you come back to that prior question: do we really want them to win? Well, what problem should we be attempting to solve in Syria?
Many observers are understandably appalled by the suffering of Syrians who are fleeing the civil war. That would do more good for more people than dropping bombs on the Syrian army. Recently, the Assad regime has demonstrated surprising resilience.
So at the moment, it appears that the war is likely to drag on for quite some time. Well, at the outset there was a reflexive hope that popular uprisings would quickly and smoothly translate into the emergence of democratic governments.
Come back and ask me in 10 years. We err in lumping the two together, so let me treat them separately. Therefore, we should choose war only as a last resort. The most important lesson of the Afghanistan War is that except in very specific circumstances, nation-building is a thankless task.
Therefore, in choosing war, we would do well to keep our expectations modest. There is no alternative to Islamic majority rule in the Middle East.
Muslims form the vast majority of the people living there. Boston University moderates comments to facilitate an informed, substantive, civil conversation. Abusive, profane, self-promotional, misleading, incoherent or off-topic comments will be rejected.
Moderators are staffed during regular business hours EST and can only accept comments written in English. Instead, the Arab League should work with the opposition and members of the business community and the army within Syria to craft a political transition plan that would create some kind of unity government and a timetable for elections.
Today, the Arab League proposed a plan for Assad to step down and be followed by his vice president and the formation of a national unity government followed by elections; the Syrian government dismissed it out of hand as a violation of Syrian sovereignty and "flagrant interference in internal affairs. Fourth, the intervention would have to receive the authorization of a majority of the members of the UN Security Council -- Russia, actively arming Assad, will probably never go along, no matter how necessary -- as an exercise of the responsibility to protect doctrine, with clear limits to how and against whom force could be used built into the resolution.
Finally, Turkish and Arab troops would have to take the lead in creating zones to protect civilians, backed by NATO logistics and intelligence support if necessary. Openly raising the possibility of armed intervention does not mean that intervention is bound to occur. Much of the diplomatic activity to date has been aimed at getting Assad's supporters -- particularly the Sunni business community of Damascus and Aleppo -- to rethink their allegiances. It is a game of perceptions and assumptions, whereby the international community has tried to make Assad's fall seem inevitable and Assad himself has made clear that he will not be cowed into leaving or making real concessions.
Injecting the possibility of armed intervention to protect opposition protesters into this mix, with the accompanying prospect of a much longer and much more destructive conflict in which more members of the military could defect to the Free Syrian Army, could tip this domestic political balance in favor of a negotiated deal and put real internal pressure on Assad.
It is still true, however, that the credible threat of force requires an actual willingness to make good on that threat.
Panel members discussed the pros and cons of R2P interventions to date and what we might expect in the future. During the question period after the second morning panel , former prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and current International Crisis Group President Louise Arbour said that she agreed with Gareth Evans' the former Australian foreign minister and a member of the original commission that gave rise to R2P analysis that the preconditions for an R2P intervention in Syria were not met.
Arbour said that, in terms of the magnitude of the crimes being committed in Syria over 5, deaths, destruction of opposition towns and the lack of effective alternatives other than force, the threshold for an R2P intervention was met. But she said an intervention in Syria failed the third criterion, whether intervention would do more good than harm. I disagree with Arbour's assessment, if in fact the conditions I spelled out above could be met.
But that's not the point. She made the further point that if the international community is NOT going to intervene, then R2P includes the responsibility to tell protesters on the ground that help will not be forthcoming, so that they can make their own plans accordingly. Arbour is right. But then the U. In a recent Al Jazeera report , the source of the photo at the top of this page, reporter Zeina Khodr quoted one opposition figure as saying that Syria will descend into "endless chaos.
Extremist forces in the region have the most to gain from military strikes, which will use the direct U. Syrian civilians could face greater repression by the government in retaliation for U. If Syria retaliates against U. Further Reading:. Get more news like this, directly in your inbox. Subscribe to our newsletter.
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