Make sense with the Syria situation...

Great Debates
1

This is playing out on a world stage…tens of thousands of people killed, a massive civil war, a rebellion on one hand, a dictatorship on the other…

I am trying to find the path the US is taking here. We are sending Patriot missile defense batteries to Turkey as the Syrian government encroaches onto Turkish soil. There are many players here. Russia, which has a warm relationship with Syria, at least in terms of selling it weapons, Iran, which many would describe as Syria’s puppetmaster, Israel, which is nervous and will not stand idly by for long…

Where does this end? What should the US involvement be? These people are clearly suffering. I know it’s fashionable to point out how the US only involves itself due to it’s own self interest and ignores other dire situations (Somalia), but…I just don’t know where this leaves the region and the United States. We have done nothing other than provide aid so far.

I don’t want to commit ground troops or anything like that, but can’t we do more? And if we do, is there any premise that the rebels will be friendly towards the US if we do? The new Egyptian government is already slamming into a wall of opposition from it’s own people.

What can be done? What should we do? Shouldn’t something be done? Or do we sit this one out and solely provide proxy support, which in other words means fighting yet another proxy war, this time against Iran and Russia?

Egads.

I wish people with more perspective than I could chime in here. This situation has been brimming for quite awhile now but it’s reaching humanitarian proportions. These are a civilized people, not some savage pirates. What do we do?

2

Of course the Syrian rebels won’t be our buddies if we aid them and they win. They will be answerable to their local constituencies, whatever those turn out to be, not to the United States.

The Syrian Civil War is a humanitarian disaster, yes it is. And we are not going to help matters by providing more weapons to one side or another.

The Syrian dictatorship is not a puppet of either Iran or Russia.

How many more wars does the United States need to get involved in? Is it really the case that if there is a war anywhere on the planet that the United States is obligated to support one side or the other? How about we stay the fuck out of it, because it is not our business other than helping our allies (Turkey and Israel) protect themselves against any spillover. Turkey isn’t seriously worried about the Syrian army, their concern is a refugee crisis. And they way they’ll deal with that if it gets too serious is to send refugees back across the border at gunpoint.

If you want us to help Turkey set up refugee camps, then fine. But otherwise, there is absolutely no reason for the United States to become militarily involved. The Syrian civil war is a humanitarian disaster, but there’s nothing the United States can do militarily about it besides making it worse.

3

And I think that was wise of us. It’s painful, especially for the Syrians, but we are just about the last country that SHOULD get involved in this mess. I thought we were walking the tight rope with Libya, but we managed to do it without falling into the abyss. I don’t think we’d be as lucky a second time.

The US is like a sledgehammer. It’s unfortunate, but there it is. If we involve ourselves it’s going to ramp up the carnage, regardless of our intentions. Look at Iraq and Afghanistan as examples. Even in Libya, which I consider one of the boldest and most successful foreign policy gambits of the Obama administration, look what even our peripheral involvement wrought. In the end, it certainly made the difference, even us (and NATO, to an extent) providing air support and intel…I think the Colonel would still be in charge if not for our involvement, and the carnage would still be going on.

A lot COULD be done. IMHO, we are already doing everything we should on this score. We are tacitly supporting the rebels and applying political pressure on Syria. So is the UN and the EU. It’s pretty clear that Assad’s days are numbered at this point…I just don’t see any way he could pull out of this short of a miracle. He’s increasingly isolated in the international community, and cut off from support…and he loses ground every day.

In the end, the Syrians wouldn’t thank us for sticking our oar firmly into their pond…and no one else would thank us either. No one WANTS us to come in and save the day, especially when the Syrian rebels are already grinding their way to victory. It sucks that so many have to be hurt and killed, but that’s reality…it’s always messy when there is change like this, and no way to avoid it except to keep the status quo. Obviously the Syrian rebels don’t want to do that so…it is what it is.

4

Then how do we help them (and guarantee our aid will reach those that need it) without “sticking our oar firmly into their pond”? These types of situations have a long history of a country like ours airdropping aid into contested areas only to be seized by the “wrong” side.

And isn’t there a larger gambit at play here, WRT to Russia, Iran, and others? What will we get ourselves into if we do play a larger role? Will Israel, a sworn enemy of Assad, want a play in this?

5

[QUOTE=FoieGrasIsEvil]
Then how do we help them (and guarantee our aid will reach those that need it) without “sticking our oar firmly into their pond”? These types of situations have a long history of a country like ours airdropping aid into contested areas only to be seized by the “wrong” side.
[/QUOTE]

I think in this situation, Assad is definitely, unequivocally on the ‘wrong side’, so that part’s easy. That doesn’t mean that when the smoke clears and the rebels win that either they will be the good guys OR that they will love us…in fact, I’d guess that they will be neither. I’d also guess that, as in Libya, there won’t be a clear cut finish line and win…but, instead, a mess of rebel factions all vying for power, with almost certainly yet more fighting and death.

If the US gets involved then all it will mean is that we accelerate Assad et al’s leaving this mortal coil…the mess and after game fighting however will still be there, only then the US would be involved too. We’d feel compelled, as we did in Iraq and do in Afghanistan, to stick it out, stay the course, try and create order from the chaos…and as in both of those places, we’d only further muddle a totally muddled up situation.

The best thing we can do is what Obama et al ARE doing…support for the rebels, especially food and medicine, but probably covert intelligence, probably training and almost certainly some sort of monetary and military aid…and to keep up the pressure on Assad on the political side. THAT will, in the long run, be more help to the Syrian people than the US going in and directly attacking, even through air strikes, targets in Syria. Oh, no doubt we could take out much of Syria’s C&C, infrastructure and military in fairly short order, and probably hasten Assad’s departure. But then what?

Certainly the Russians have a stake in the status quo. Syria is a good trading partner for them, and Russia has a measure of influence with the current regime…influence they will surely lose if Assad goes down. As you noted, Iran has even more at stake, since Syria is probably their main and key ally in the region. I don’t think that either of them is the reason we shouldn’t get involved though…if it was only that I’d say fuck em and send in the Navy and Air Force.

As for Israel…no way will they play a role in this. They will stay completely out of it, unless Syria does something monumentally stupid like directly attack Israel…and even then I’d say that they would stay out of it, aside from perhaps some retaliation (which the US would do everything we could to prevent…sort of like in the First Gulf War when Saddam was tossing missiles at Israel and we were doing everything we could to keep them from getting involved).

6

We want to do the least we can to bring about the fall of Assad. The less involvement we are seen to have, the better off we’ll be. We’ll deal with what happens in the aftermath when we get there.

7

I think we’re trying to avoid a situation where the cure is worse than the disease. Yes, it’s a humanitarian disaster. But will it be better or worse if we jump in? Syria is even more complicated, ethnically, that Iraq is. Much more complicated. Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? We don’t know.

8

Well, Assad appears to have made bitter, determined enemies from so many different ethnic groups, religious groups, political groups, etc., of his people that he probably is not one of the good guys.

9

You’re right. We know who some of the bad guys are, but we don’t who the good guys are, if there even are any.

10

Drudgereport says that Assad was killed by a bodyguard-no confirmation. Anybody able to confirm this?

11

I’m pretty sure it’s just a rumor because so far it’s not been reported by CNN, BBC or Al Jazeera.

12

I tend to agree with this.

I will add that we are involved in that via the CIA we are providing intelligence to some rebels. However, it’s not necessarily to topple Assad, but to keep other rebels (mostly al nusra front) from gaining control should the Assad Gov’t be toppled.

Too many factors for me to know what can or should be done.

13

The opposition appears to be going through a leadership crisis. Assad can take heart from that, at least.

14

An approach which seems to have served well enough in Libya: Obama applied just enough force to tip things the rebels’ way, while otherwise leaving them to win their own war, without committing the U.S. to any on-the-ground troop presence.