{"id":2618,"date":"2013-06-04T12:36:51","date_gmt":"2013-06-04T12:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/?p=2618"},"modified":"2017-11-14T21:28:38","modified_gmt":"2017-11-14T19:28:38","slug":"syrian-supernova-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/syrian-supernova-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Syrian Supernova?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Doha, Qatar:\u00a0\u00a0Syria is dying.\u00a0 A further tragedy is that there is little the outside world can do to end that war. The struggle between Bashar al Assad’s Alawite-Shia regime and the largely Sunni opposition has already claimed upwards of 80,000 lives and\u00a0turned hundreds of thousands into refugees seeking shelter in less dangerous parts of Syria or in neighboring states.\u00a0 A British Member of Parliament who knows the region well believes that if Assad defeats the opposition, at least 100,000 will perish.\u00a0 And if Assad goes, that number could double or triple in the ensuing bloodbath.<\/p>\n

Despite powerful domestic pressure to act, for the United States and other Western powers, every option is bad. Some are worse.\u00a0 Not knowing the strength and intentions of both the regime and the hydra-headed opposition is the first of many unresolvable problems.\u00a0 Since Assad has nowhere to go, he will cling to power for as long as possible.\u00a0 Yet, is Assad prepared to negotiate as a means of retaining some measure of power and authority even if that led to a divided state?<\/p>\n

Regarding the opposition, it is so diffuse and divided that assessing how any future leadership may evolve is currently a guess.\u00a0 If history pertains, as the French, Russian and Chinese revolutions demonstrated, the ultimate winners will be the most ruthless, ideological and best organized.\u00a0 The Nazis won office in interwar Germany through the ballot box\u2014a caution that democracy is far more than simply elections.\u00a0 Thus, should the Syrian opposition win, history suggests that the elements most hostile to the west and most compatible with Islamic extremism are likely to dominate.<\/p>\n

Washington and President Barack Obama therefore confront a series of very bad choices.\u00a0 Even if supporting Assad would end up killing lesser numbers of Syrians, politically that is impossible for the U.S. Demanding that Assad stand down has about the same effect as King Canuck had in rolling back the oceans.\u00a0 Arming the opposition or establishing no fly zones most likely would accelerate Assad’s fall and the likelihood of radical groups gaining power.\u00a0 With Assad gone, a Sunni pogrom against past regime members and supporters is a very possible outcome given the levels of hatred and motivation to seek revenge.<\/p>\n

Some argue the moral case for intervention.\u00a0 Assad is killing hundreds of innocents every month.\u00a0 Civilized states cannot tolerate that conduct.\u00a0 Thus, as in Libya, the U.S. must side with the opposition to force a regime change even if that means hastening the ascent of more hostile elements to controlling Syria.<\/p>\n

A ground force intervention has been ruled out by the White House and NATO and, in any event, could find that force caught between the fires of the two opposing sides in the civil war. If Syrian chemical weapons were used in large numbers or find their way to Jihadi groups, those calculations might change.\u00a0 However, even limited troop deployments to destroy or take control of these weapons would entail great risk, violate the territorial integrity of Syria and, in the process, become a potential act of war.<\/p>\n

Others have advocated establishing “safe zones” to protect both sides.\u00a0 While superficially this may sound appealing, it is naive.\u00a0 Evenhandedness will not be seen as such and will be perceived as a major step to undermine Assad.\u00a0 And what happens if ground forces are used to attack these safe zones?\u00a0 How would the West respond?\u00a0 Clearly, the risk of escalation would be real.<\/p>\n

A peace conference, sponsored by the U.S and Russia, will convene shortly.\u00a0 Obviously, a negotiated solution is better than continued fighting.\u00a0 But exerting sufficient leverage on Assad to accept negotiations and possibly a partitioned Syria is an uphill fight at best.\u00a0 Controlling the divided opposition could be mission impossible.\u00a0Meanwhile, Russian motives, given the transfer of surface-to-surface anti-ship missiles,\u00a0are understandably suspect and Moscow\u2019s excuse of conforming with existing contractual obligations implausible. However, a negotiated settlement is the least bad option and must be attempted despite the low probability of success.<\/p>\n

In one sense, Syria’s civil war resembles that of Spain\u2019s seventy-five years ago.\u00a0 Clearly, the Spanish Civil War was a precursor of World War II with the Nazis and Soviets supporting the two opposing warring coalitions.\u00a0 Today, Sunni and Shia enemies in the region are waging a proxy war in Syria through their surrogates.\u00a0 Iran, Hezbollah and to some degree Iraq have rallied to aid the regime while Qatar and Saudi Arabia are providing aid to the opposition including Jihadis.<\/p>\n

The key questions are how does this end and when?\u00a0 If negotiations fail and with the remaining options for the West and the U.S. ranging from bad to worse, no one has even a workable solution.\u00a0\u00a0 And that is why Syria could become a supernova.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Doha, Qatar:\u00a0\u00a0Syria is dying.\u00a0 A further tragedy is that there is little the outside world can do to end that war. The struggle between Bashar al Assad’s Alawite-Shia regime and the largely Sunni opposition has already claimed upwards of 80,000 lives and\u00a0turned hundreds of thousands into refugees seeking shelter in less dangerous parts of Syria or in neighboring states.\u00a0 A British Member of Parliament who knows the region well believes that if Assad defeats the opposition, at least 100,000 will perish.\u00a0 And if Assad goes, that number could double or triple in the ensuing bloodbath. Despite powerful domestic pressure to act, for the United States and other Western powers, every […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2616,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,101,76,72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-en","category-general","category-harlan-ullman-en","category-middle-east"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2618"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2618"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4519,"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2618\/revisions\/4519"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}