Foreign Policy Blogs

Not so Simple in Syria

The New York Times reported this morning that Secretary of Defense Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey voiced their concerns over a possible military operation in Syria. From the Times:

General Dempsey and Mr. Panetta spoke two days after Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who lost to Mr. Obama in 2008, became the first senator to call for American airstrikes on Syria as “the only realistic way” to stop what he called a slaughter there. Both General Dempsey and Mr. Panetta faced sharp questions during their testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee from Mr. McCain, who is the panel’s ranking Republican.

Senator McCain, who proposed air strikes against Syria’s military targets, cited the example of former President Clinton, who used military force to answer the crisis in the Balkans during the mid 1990s. The problem is that using the model of a previous intervention ignores the realities of the situation on the ground, the international climate surrounding the situation, and assumes that the outcome of the intervention will be similar to the previous scenario. The New Republic’s Lawrence Kaplan best addressed this fallacy prior to last year’s NATO intervention in Libya.

Not so Simple in Syria

Source: Euronews

As for the sober reality:  the Syrian opposition is barely organized, and the conflict on the ground is much more complex than the David vs. Goliath fight being broadly portrayed. The conflict in Syria goes beyond the authoritarianism of the Assad regime, and also involves the complicated interactions between race, religion and economic circumstance. No amount of military intervention can address long term societal problems instantaneously.  If anything, the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan should have taught policymakers that any intervention by foreign forces is rarely an easy, clean cut affair. Instead, good intentions can become painful, drawn out exercises in sorting out fights and maintaining a tenuous peace. Even the “relatively successful” intervention in Bosnia was fraught with difficulties, and had many analysts questioning the future value of the activity.

While many analysts wish it was more convenient, the situation in Syria nowhere resembles that of Libya, Bosnia, Rwanda, etc, and replicating the same strategy would be foolish. An air strike as proposed by Senator McCain may halt the progress of the Syrian army, but the strategy also runs the high risk of civilian casualties, as has been seen in Iraq and Afghanistan. For now, the Obama administration’s use of diplomatic pressure and indirect support for the Syrian opposition will be the best way to ensure that the right thing is done, while waiting for the nature of the conflict to become clearer.

 

Author

Kedar Pavgi

Kedar Pavgi is an international relations and economics analyst and free-lance journalist based out of Washington D.C. He is a former researcher at Foreign Policy magazine, research assistant at AidData, and junkie for the news media. He is a graduate of the College of William and Mary, where he majored in International Relations and Economics, with a specific focus on international finance, political economy and security. You can follow him on Twitter (@KedarPavgi), or on his personal website, The Couch Economist (http://www.coucheconomist.com/)