Ready to go to war in Syria?

Posted By Thomas E. Ricks Thursday, October 18, 2012 - 7:59 AM Share

The fellas over at the Foreign Policy Initiative seem eager to intervene in Syria. They're proposing establishing "a safe zone" that would be protected by a "no fly zone."

They don't go into details of whether there would be boots on the ground.

The board of directors are Eric Edelman, Robert Kagan, William Kristol, and Dan Senor. I know some of youse will get upset by those names, but I think the first three are some of the most thoughtful conservative interventionists around. (I don't know Senor well. I think I have only met him once or twice and have never read much of what he has written.)

Personally, I am sick of Americans being involved in wars in the Middle East. I don't like this plan of keeping on trying 'til we find we all like. That said, I find it a bit awkward to explain why I thought it was the right thing to help intervene in Libya but not in Syria. I find David Ignatius persuasive (as usual) on why we should do more than we are doing, but less than Foreign Policy Initiative recommends.  

Adam Dean/Panos Pictures

EXPLORE:ARAB WORLD, MIDDLE EAST, SYRIA
 

JPWREL

12:38 PM ET

October 18, 2012

Maybe

Tom writes: “That said, I find it a bit awkward to explain why I thought it was the right thing to help intervene in Libya but not in Syria.”

Personally, I don’t think you should feel awkward at all. Libya’s circumstances were different and strategy is governed by circumstances. With Libya there is no Hezbollah lurking in the background, nor spoilers like Russia and China. Iran is not a factor and Libya’s immediate neighbors Algeria and Egypt were cautiously sympathetic to western involvement as long as it was relatively expeditious with no heavy NATO footprint.

Additionally, the chance of a Libyan intervention spinning out of control was much reduced. And of course lastly it was an operation that our allies and we could actually do without undo political messiness or military foul-ups.

Syria is a very different sort of reptile. In fact in my view Syria is the ‘Black Mamba’ of potential problems and lethal blowback. Even still, I have no particular reservations with Ignatius’s modest suggestions particularly increasing the scope of our intelligence effort. But other less benign party’s in this ghastly affair also have interests and options available to them to offset even a modest western escalation.

Therefore, if we do something more rigorous lets be sure it is not Bush/Cheney-like pie in the sky baloney trimmed with deceit. Rather than focusing on all the wonderful things that might happen we must prepare ourselves for all those nasty things that are more likely happen. If we can stomach that then maybe we can do some good.

 

SHARPR

1:27 PM ET

October 18, 2012

Well said

On a broader point, the basic argument from interventionists is our in-action so far on Syria is an example of the Obama administration's weakness vis a vis a consistent regional policy and demonstrating American strength. I'd ask, given our armed and diplomatic performances in Iraq and Afghanistan, how in the world would directly engaging in Syria, with much higher risk involved than Libya and necessarily involving Iraq and Iran, accomplish either goal? To these goals, the same question goes for remaining in Afghanistan at current levels for many more years. Will Iran quake in its boots if the US pops off a few Syrian tanks or sends a boatload of kalashnikovs into Syria via Saudi supply lines? No more than it, or anyone else, feared the US during or after the war in Iraq. Why should a hostile regional actor object to us dumping a couple more tens of billions into the region to re-decorate someone's palace but fundamentally change little on the ground realities?

With the kind of stakes potentionally at play in Syria, what does dropping a few bombs gain the US, the Syrian guerrillas or civilians when there truly isn't an organised uprising capable of defeating the military, which has shown no sign yet of en-masse defections or standing by? Leading from behind will not work at this stage. It is interesting, though, that while the administration was criticised by this lot for it earlier on, now they're advocating for it.

 

JPWREL

1:50 PM ET

October 18, 2012

SHARPR, yours is a good

SHARPR, yours is a good point. “On a broader point, the basic argument from interventionists is our in-action so far on Syria is an example of the Obama administration's weakness vis a vis a consistent regional policy and demonstrating American strength.”

The offset to that is of course that Romney has absolutely no foreign policy credentials at all and indeed made the ass of himself this summer on his European excursion. His foreign policy advisors share the incompetence factor with him largely based upon their enthusiasm for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The ‘basic argument from the interventionist’ is in fact merely political gamesmanship (Democrats do the same) and lacks credibility. While one can have issues with Obama, his willingness to demonstrate American strength is evidenced by his record. Romney musings on foreign policy are at best off the cuff gun slinging and pandering that would (hopefully) disappear if he were elected and had to confront the real responsibility of decision-making in foreign affairs.

 

SHARPR

2:18 PM ET

October 18, 2012

No doubt

"The ‘basic argument from the interventionist’ is in fact merely political gamesmanship (Democrats do the same) and lacks credibility." Quite right, JPWREL, and that's what depresses me, especially on Syria and the talk about what we should/shouldn't do. The discussion in public and to a certain extent the one at pro-intervention think tanks and among the serious thinkers out there is based at times on a dangerously simplistic calculation. Add in that so much of what's out there for the average Joe or Susie to hear is blatantly partisan and you get a really muddy, dysfunctional morass of opinion.

It is just sad to me that so often now the national discussion on anything relating to foreign policy is dominated, like most issues, by the political gamesmanship you mentioned. I'm not naive. I know this is nothing new and, in fact, quite mild compared to what it has been at a few other times in American history. But it does seem especially acute and obvious in the last decade or so. Serious talk from serious people seems to have given way almost completely to campaign-style, dogma-consistent lines from a god-awfully predictable script.

 

MCGANNONMA

3:10 PM ET

October 18, 2012

time for us to stay out of the middle east

I think it’s time for the US to realize we can’t fix the world and that western meddling in the Middle East post WWI and WWI is what created the huge mess we have today and it’s not something we’re going to fix now. It’s time for Syria’s neighbors to step up and take sides and provide support and we simply need to stay out of it.

If the US wants to provide humanitarian assistance to all the refugees who have fled and now reside across the border in turkey and Jordan then that’s fine.

We have no business calling for any military support for the rebels, FSA or otherwise when we have looked the other way for decades in Africa where several genocides over the course of a few civil wars have occurred in places like Sudan.

Was it wrong for Assad to use the military against protestors? Of course, but who is to say what the rebels are doing is any better

 

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military for the Washington Post from 2000 through 2008.

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