Russia and China blocked a bid to force regime change. But a negotiated settlement is the only way out of civil war ...
It's been widely claimed that the double veto has given Assad the green light to intensify repression and made full-scale civil war more likely. But by ruling out UN-backed intervention, it could just as well be argued that it puts pressure on the main opposition group, the western-backed Syrian National Council, to negotiate – given that its whole strategy has been based on creating the conditions for a Libyan-style no-fly zone.
Assuming that the author sincerely believes that this is true rather than just being a dictator fan boy (I bring this up since this is a Guardian writer), this highlights a problem of the "no bloodshed" school--they give the most extreme killers the power to decide war or peace.
If more dead is automatically bad and fewer dead is automatically good, logically, the stronger party is more legitimate since it is more likely to quickly defeat the opposition and impose "peace." It isn't "peace" as much as it is the quiet of a cemetery, but if you define "peace" as "quiet" then a regime total victory is peace.
And if one side is either more capable of killing or more willing to kill, achieving what you define as "peace" requires giving the side more willing to kill in larger numbers what they want to stop killing.
This type of "peace" sacrifices justice, of course. But if you don't have to live under that so-called peace, it doesn't disturb your dinner when you have the telly on watching the news. That counts for a lot, right?
Intervention may or may not increase the rate of killing in Syria, in the long run. Obviously, someone has to win the current struggle for the killings to stop. Our intervention in Iraq surely reduced the amount of killing by rapidly getting rid of the Baathists who had a long list of victims.
Unfortunately, Syrian and Iranian intervention in order to insert al Qaeda and support Sadrists following our battlefield victory over the Saddam regime did in fact lead to more killing as we fought to defeat the invaders. The caring class, of course, opposed our initial intervention in the name of saving lives yet also opposed our defense of Iraq against the new intervention--also in the name of saving lives. Funny how that works out.
Thank goodness our Patrick Henry didn't proclaim "Give me liberty, or give me inconvenience!" The peace of King George III isn't what we wanted for our own lives or the lives of our children. I'm not saying the Syrian opposition is fighting for liberty as we understand it in democratic terms, but they are fighting not to be ruled by a narrow ruling class that reserves the wealth of the country to themselves. How many of the caring class advised Nelson Mandela to stop resisting the Apartheid government of South Africa in the name of avoiding civil war and reducing killing?
Heck, by modern standards, our 18th century fight for the right of property owning white males to vote doesn't look like democracy. But it was a start. Some things are simply worth dying for to achieve. It all depends on what you care about, I suppose.
UPDATE: See what I mean?
To be of any value, an intervention must end the bloodshed, or at least diminish it dramatically. Syria also must remain an intact state capable of policing its borders, stopping terrorism and providing services to its people. It should not fragment into a failed state, trade Assad for another dictator or become a pawn of foreign powers such as Iran.
The author says that worry over what can go wrong should merely guide our choices and not preclude them. But the way the issue is framed effectively rules out intervention since we can't meet the standards of value he sets forth. Ending the Assad regime will require more bloodshed before it ends or even diminishes. The destruction of the regime obviously will result in the loss of border control and providing services to their people. Syria already is a haven for terrorism and a pawn of Iran, so I'm not sure what the point of those cautions is.
As for the switching dictators complaint, I'll settle for that just to send the message that an anti-American dictator won't die peacefully in their bed. There's value in that lesson even if another anti-American dictator emerges over time.
But in the end, the only way to ensure that bloodshed diminishes rapidly is for the opposition to simply give up--and let Syria rule a quiet people who are grateful for public services and border control in a unified state that controls (by pointing them in one direction) terrorism. That pawn thing will be reinforced by an Assad victory, but you can't have everything. Oh, and a chance at freedom is thrown away, too. But what value does that have, eh?
