I keep on seeing “pundits” and left-wing politicians complaining about the fact that we don’t have a strategy in Syria. But the lack of strategy is not the issue. The issue is that neither this US administration nor the one before it, have a clear objective there.
Why are we stuck in Syria?
It’s because it’s literally an impossible conundrum to navigate.
Let’s look at some facts first. The most important one, and often overlooked in the West, is that this conflict is nothing less than existential to Assad and his family. He sees it as either staying in total control of the country or being killed. This has to do with the Alawites sect Assad and his family belong to. Syria is a predominantly Sunni country, however, the Alawites are Shiites. In 1970, when Hafez (the father of Bashar) took over the country by staging a coup, he reversed centuries of Sunni leadership over a Sunni population. To ensure his survival as President for life, Hafez basically massacred scores of Sunni dissidents (look up the 1982 Hama massacre for an illustration). This only heightened tensions between already belligerent communities. Bashar has been brought up in the belief that if he doesn’t keep total control of the country, he and his entire family will simply be eliminated by the Sunni majority. This is a major point to take into account when thinking about our objectives in Syria. It also explains why Iran is helping Syria in this conflict (Iran is the leader of Shia Islam and aspires to total hegemony of the Middle East). Finally, although non-existential to Putin, this conflict is very important strategically to Russia, as it represents a once in a lifetime opportunity for Putin to bring back Russia as the main power managing middle east affairs after Obama has left the region with his tail between his legs.
So what should be the West’s objectives in Syria?
I would suggest a few very important ones:
- Bring back stability in the country and thus the region
- Avoid direct military confrontation with Russia
- Eliminate ISIS in Syria
- Deter Assad from using chemical weapons again
- Punish Assad for using chemical weapons
And here’s our conundrum, the last objective is at total odds with the first 4 ones. Indeed, the only real way to punish Assad is to remove him from power, aka regime change. We have seen what regime change in the ME means with our utterly failed Iraki experiment. Regime change would bring more instability, more inter-sect warfare, more ISIS soldiers filling in the vacuum, and would risk a direct military engagement against Russia. So we must forget about regime change, Assad will stay in power, at least the West won’t stop him. But that means that we are allowing a dictator to use chemical weapons, and that is now at total odds with the West’s moral values. Plus letting one dictator use WMDs is a signal to future dictators that they could get away with it. And this dilemma is taking place at a time where ISIS is NOT eliminated, contrary to what our clueless President says. ISIS, a Sunni group, is still very much alive in northern Syria and thus we should expect the next sarin gas attack to happen there.
So even though I salute the latest strike from the US, France, and the UK, we have to be very realistic, it was akin to taking a piss in the ocean. It won’t make the ocean level rise. We struck Assad last year and he did it again last week. We are stuck. Miserably stuck.
What could we have done differently?
The root of all this goes back to Obama’s Middle East policy, which rested on 2 principles:
- Wholeheartedly embrace the Arab “Spring”
- Disengage militarily and strategically from the region.
Obama should have continued the realpolitik approach that has always prevailed in ME affairs. That means choosing stability, and therefore less civilian casualties, by re-assuring Assad of US support and presence as long as he uses less violence against his people. I know it sucks, but it would have saved more than 500,000 innocent Syrians as the Arab spring, except for Tunisia, turned out in the end to be a terrible Arab winter. Something I predicted at the time.
What can we do now?
My opinion is to re-engage the US in the region, not necessarily with boots on the ground, but with a credible strategic presence and a force deterrent. And by that I mean not the twitter folklore of the current WH resident. Unfortunately, we would have to do it through Russia at this point, as Obama has let Putin insert himself credibly as the key intermediary in this conflict. It would mean non-officially giving Assad assurances that we won’t go after him and work with him to drive ISIS away and bring back stability in Syria. I know it sucks, but it’s the only way to minimize civilian casualties going forward, which is now the only objective we could aspire to.
