Lawrence Korb has some thoughts on Syria. I will certainly agree that the notion that chemical use that kills a small number of civilians should be the definitive red line that triggers American intervention in a conflict that has caused close to 80,000 dead so far is plain stupid. But Korb's attempt to tie that to a policy of inaction over Syria isn't logical. And his attempt to even avoiding a debate by tarring the Syria crisis to Vietnam, President Clinton's strikes on Sudan, and the Iraq War is both wrong and illogical even if Korb is right about his past warning signs.
I hate having to re-debate the past that many have forgotten just to get to the current debate. Let me just say that Tonkin Gulf did not cause us to go to war with North Vietnam. We had many underlying reasons to go to war. Tonkin Gulf was merely the trigger when we were already poised to intervene to protect our interests.
President Clinton's action would be an example if we were just thinking about a one-off to disarm a country of suspected WMD development (and in Sudan, we worried this was al Qaeda related--should we really have taken that chance looking for courtroom levels of proof?). But Syria is not even close to that situation. We know Syria has chemical weapons. This isn't a question of wondering if Assad has chemical weapons and whether we should try to stop him from getting them. It is a pointless historical example for what is admittedly a pointless (and now discarded, anyway) red line.
As for Iraq, this is just stupid (and that would be K-O-R-B, while I'm at it):
A third historical precedent resurfaced on the tenth anniversary of the ill-fated 2003 invasion of Iraq, when Stephen Hadley, deputy national-security adviser at the time of the invasion, wrote that no one on the Bush team ever thought about questioning whether Saddam Hussein was bluffing about possessing nuclear weapons, a possibility because of his fear that the Iranians might seek revenge for his brutal invasion of their country in 1980. Moreover, nobody questioned why, if Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, he let UN inspectors return in late 2002, knowing that the Bush administration’s public agitation for war was justified by Hussein’s alleged attempts to acquire nuclear weapons.
It's our fault that Saddam was good at bluffing? This ignores that Saddam had a positive duty to prove he had no WMD or WMD programs. He failed to do that. And after running inspectors around for years, why would letting them back into Iraq in 2002 be a particular problem for Saddam if we did not compel Saddam to prove he had disarmed? We knew Saddam had hidden programs before--even in the 1990s--until caught, so why would we conclude that because we didn't find anything that Saddam didn't have anything?
Remember that those late 2002 inspections did uncover that Iraq had violated restrictions on missile range. Inspectors were actually destroying banned missiles before we invaded! What else Saddam might have was not a ridiculous notion to have.
Finally, Korb acts as if WMD were the only reason to destroy Saddam's regime. He could read the declaration of war for the full set of reasons that our Congress used to justify war. We only emphasized one reason--WMD--because the CIA said it was a "slam dunk" that Saddam had them, and it seemed easier to focus on that one big reason than discuss the broad array of evil and threat that Saddam posed to us, his neighbors, and his own people.
Which brings us to Syria. I have no interest in sending in our ground forces. Turkey, Jordan, and even Israel have ground forces capable of handling a crisis in Syria and neighboring Lebanon. Indeed, even if I was convinced that we should send in troops, I wouldn't support it because I don't think our country has the determination to finish the fight until victory if we go in. It would not be immoral to intervene, of course. But there is no way we would stay the course to win. We can fill in gaps in capabilities for our friends and allies, but ground combat units aren't necessary in my opinion.
But intervening in Syria doesn't mean we have to invade.
Indeed, since Assad has already worn out his air force, we don't even need to penetrate Syrian airspace to hit Syria's air force and airfields. The Turks, Jordanians, and Israelis have plenty of air power to take down anything that Syria puts in the air.
My main point through all of this violence is that it should be a no-brainer to arm rebels who are trying to hurt Assad who has been an enemy of America with plenty of our blood on his hands. Refusing to help the rebels hasn't "militarized" the crisis as the administration famously put it. That happened without us. And even now, some are complaining that we have "let" the blood bath take place--damned if we're Bush, damned if we're anti Bush, eh?
So we have an interest in intervening in Syria--which doesn't mean it has to be direct intervention with our forces--regardless of Assad's chemical weapons use. And focusing on whether Assad has used chemical weapons as if that is the sole reason to intervene in Syria is just plain wrong.
But we're talking Lawrence "I worked for President Reagan" Korb here. So you don't expect him to offer any good advice, do you? If you want a better critique of intervening, try here. Under the circumstances, there are severe limits to what we can do:
So what is an American leader to do in such circumstances? How can one be a statesman in the face of reduced American influence in a semi-anarchic world and in the face of an increasingly demanding media?
The answer may be exactly what Obama is doing now in Syria: modestly assisting some of the rebel groups, but essentially avoiding the level of involvement that would make him henceforth responsible for events on the ground. In other words, let Iran get sucked deeper and deeper into the Syrian maelstrom, not the United States. The maintenance cost for Iran in a crumbling Syria will grow, even as Iran enjoys less influence there than it did during the era of a strong al Assad regime. At the same time, intensify the economic and diplomatic aid to Jordan, which, with its relatively small population and small economy, may well be possible to save. Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and so forth are all destined to be weak, quasi-chaotic states that the United States cannot put to rights without the kind of gargantuan effort that would undermine its interests elsewhere in the world and at home.
Again, I'd rule out a big American intervention. I have no problem arming rebels yet refusing to commit troops to support them. Nor do I insist on a perfect outcome to call it a victory. Defeat Assad. That would be a victory. Cope with so-called "blowback" later. That's just life. We spent four decades of dealing with the "blowback" of Soviet power in central Europe after defeating Nazi Germany, after all.
Could our current modest efforts work if they get Iran sucked in, bankrupting Iran and still seeing Assad lose? Sure. But I worry that Iran doesn't go bankrupt and instead gets a partial win out of Assad's partial defeat if we don't assist the rebels more.
This isn't engineering with precise rules. I've conceded that Iraq and Afghanistan could work out fine with minimal American assistance after our campaigns--but I think chances are lower without us. So I admit that Syria could work out fine with minimal US assistance to the rebels. But I still think the chances of our success and Iran's defeat are lower without our assistance.
