The Easiest (But Least Useful) Thing to Do About Syria is to Complain About Obama

These days, it's difficult to escape hearing lectures directed at the Obama Administration about what it should do in Syria. Many of the critiques, even by well-meaning and reasonably well-informed individuals, amount to little more than wishful thinking. And of course, there are the fire-breathing partisans who simply want to attack the Obama Administration. On Real Time last week, Niall Ferguson issued a frothy attack on the Obama Administration's record on conflicts in the Middle East while fastidiously ignoring the repeated question of what the Obama Administration should have done. I heard one critic claiming that a year or so ago it would have been possible to support a democratic revolution in Syria, but now the groups fighting Assad are all Islamist - which raises two obvious responses, the first being that if a democratic movement is that easy to squelch it didn't have much of a chance to begin with, and if we're talking about the same groups simply modifying their stated agenda in order to get support from Qatar and Saudi Arabia it's questionable whether they actually supported what we think of as democracy in the first place.

My eye was drawn for some reason to the latest anti-Obama harangue from Richard Cohen, a man who personifies the low-hanging fruit. It's almost embarrassing to pick apart his nonsense, like debating foreign policy with a kindergarten class, but... how to resist. Cohen sneers,

The president is the master of the muddle. He concocted a doozy in Afghanistan when he announced a surge and a date of withdrawal — a marriage and a divorce at the same time.

The think that Cohen should try to remember is that there's a difference between a policy that is "muddled" and one that he is not capable of understanding. Cohen is among those who don't understand that a "surge" is supposed to be a short-term escalation followed by withdrawal, not a long-term escalation with no end date. If you have no plan to end your "surge" then it's simply an escalation. Beyond that, why shouldn't the Obama Administration project an end-date for the longest war in American history, particularly when it seems clear that Afghan factions won't negotiate in good faith while the occupation continues. It may well be that things fall apart after we depart, but unless there's a reason to believe that prolonging the occupation will have a beneficial effect all we're doing is delaying the inevitable - at considerable cost. I understand that Cohen is not a man who cares about the cost of military action that he supports, whether in dollars or human cost, and that he may not even think about the cost, but those responsible for safeguarding the nation and ensuring that we have an effective military don't share his luxury of treating global conflict like an epic session of World of Warcraft, in which losses are measured in bits and pixels.

There's also something else Cohen doesn't seem to grasp about foreign occupation: people don't like it. Even if you can make the convincing case that your military intervention was a good thing, and liberated the people - and even if the people agree with that initial assessment - they want you gone. If it needs to be said, prolonged occupation is not good for relationships with the locals.

Cohen lectures,

For opponents of U.S. intervention in Syria, the instructive precedent is the Iraq fiasco. But that has so little in common with the Syrian situation they may as well cite the U.S. occupation of Nicaragua of early last century and the ultimate victory of the guerrilla leader Augusto Sandino. The more apt comparison is the 78-day NATO bombing campaign in 1999 that ended the bloodshed in Bosnia — and cost not a single American life. (Another apt comparison is Libya where, once again, no American boots were put on the ground and U.S. combat deaths were zero.)

And do you know why, to Cohen, the latter examples are instructive when the former are not? Because (a) he doesn't know spit about the conflicts he's describing (for starters, he's confusing the Kosovo and Bosnia interventions, and seems unaware of the military activity that occurred on the ground) and (b) he's cherry-picking examples that suggest that the U.S. can enter a civil war and achieve its objectives at a minimal cost - like we're playing a live action video game. Cohen doesn't explain why he believes that Bosnia is a better example, nor why the outcome in that region (century-old ethnic rivalries ignited, and a small nation shattered into several tiny nations) would be desirable in Syria. Or perhaps he imagines that a bombing campaign would somehow cause Syria's ethnic and tribal factions to unify? Cohen won't even hear about ethnic or tribal issues, sneering, "The weary recitation of all these ethnicities suggests a colonial-era mentality: those bloody people and their bloody behavior." As if dropping the word "colonial" somehow erases ethnic and tribal tensions from reality - and never mind that he, himself, made one of those "weary recitations" only a few days ago, "I have always recognized the difficulties of any intervention in Syria and the hideous ethnic complexities of the place".

Cohen huffs,

The operative philosophy is that you do what you can when you can. The United States has the muscle. There are few grander causes than the saving of human life.

Apparently our bombs don't kill people. Cohen has lectured his readers that it's "cold-hearted" not to... I guess it's "do something" in Syria, because there's a humanitarian need. And that would be great, if we knew up front that the cure wouldn't be worse than the disease. We helped the Afghan people liberate themselves from Mohammad Najibullah. They ended up with the Taliban. Cohen seems to think that all bloodshed will end the moment the civil war ends. Not to get all "colonial" about it, but there's good cause to believe that absent a significant outside military presence the civil war will be followed at best by ethnic cleansing and at worst by ugly reprisals of the sort he might recall from Lebanon... if he knew any history. Don't just take my word for it,

Mamoun al-Homsy, a former Syrian MP and one of the country’s opposition leaders, has reportedly recently distributed a recorded message to the Alawite community in Syria, in which he warns its members against supporting Assad.

In the message, al-Homsy called on the Alawites to immediately renounce Assad, warning them that if they do not do so, “Syria will become the graveyard of the Alawites.”

He also stressed that Syria’s Sunni Muslims “will not remain silent” over Assad’s crimes, adding that they intend to abide by the rule of “an eye for an eye” and will “teach you (Alawites) a lesson that you will not forget.”

Moving back to Cohen's opening paragraph,

I have written so many columns about the Syrian civil war they are like rings on a tree stump — a way of gauging Barack Obama’s steadfast inaction and what the cost has been. In one of my first columns about that war, I called on the administration to arm the rebels and impose a no-fly zone, grounding Bashar al-Assad’s attack helicopters and his airplanes. At that point — March 27, 2012 — the war had taken the lives of 10,000 Syrians.

For Cohen to relate the discussion back to his first demonstration of ignorance reveals little more than how wise the Obama Administration is to ignore him, even if it causes him to write an occasional angry missive about how they're not showing him the respect he deserves. Does Cohen understand that Syria built its air defenses using Russian technology to defend against an Israeli military? It's not that the U.S. cannot defeat Syrian air defenses - it's that doing so will involve considerable risk, and will necessarily involve bombing targets throughout the country, including in densely populated areas. Even Cohen must know better than to lecture, "Somebody like Assad would never endanger civilians by building air defenses that cannot be taken out without bombing civilian neighborhoods." But then, he seems to believe that bombs don't kill people, so... who knows what he thinks.

More than that, Cohen is ignorant of the fact that Syria is not dependent on aircraft and, just as in Libya, there's no reason to believe that a cumbersome, expensive no-fly zone would create a significant shift in favor of anti-Assad forces. Were Cohen aware of the history of U.S. actions in Libya, he would be aware that the Obama Administration rejected the simple imposition of a no-fly zone because they did not believe that it would result in Qadaffi's defeat. Cohen has incredible faith in no-fly zones because... he imagines them to have a much more impressive history of affecting the outcome of regional conflicts than history in fact indicates. The no-fly zone in Iraq was in effect for a decade and, while preserving the status quo, did not remove Hussein from power nor weaken his ability to maintain control without a full-scale U.S. invasion.

And this magic wish, "Let's arm the rebels" - if it were easy to find rebels worthy of being armed, it would be a no-brainer. As it's not, the only no-brainer in the discussion is again Richard Cohen. There's a reason Israel is fastidiously refusing to publicly take sides in the conflict, and it's not because they want Assad to win or because they don't care about the outcome. In the early column he references, Cohen purports that a rebel victory "would be a boon to Israel". If he's capable, perhaps Cohen should ponder for a while why Israel doesn't seem to share his opinion. Perhaps as part of that consideration, he can ponder the Pentagon estimate that it would take 75,000 ground troops to ensure that Syria's chemical weapons arsenal - which is highly portable and highly distributed - does not fall into the wrong hands.

Here's a thought that should be obvious, even to Cohen: If there were good, easy choices to be made to end this conflict, we wouldn't be wrestling with how to avoid turning an already big mess into a bigger mess. If the sort of magic solution that ends the conflict, replaces Assad's regime with a more forward-thinking, inclusive government, and prevents humanitarian catastrophe were easy, the world would have already implemented that solution. Instead, the only part of the conflict that's easy is to sit at the sidelines with little knowledge of the region, its history or the facts on the ground and complain, "The Administration's not doing things the way I would."

John McCain's Thoughtless Militarism

I was reading about John McCain's views on whether or not we should intervene in Syria and couldn't help but note that he simultaneously wants to launch a massive military assault on Syria to remove the Assad regime, but without putting boots on the ground. Never mind that the Assad regime has distributed caches of chemical weapons throughout the nation, and to bomb them (assuming we can even locate them) would almost certainly involve the release of chemical clouds, causing deaths on top of those of the civilians who would be killed in the bombing raids themselves. I have no doubt that Assad has placed weapons caches in locations that all-but-ensure that a bombing raid would cause civilian deaths. I also suspect that Assad might take the opportunity to set off some explosions and chemical releases of his own, and blame them on a U.S. raid. And if we topple Assad, all those caches are up for grabs - and some very nasty weapons could end up in the hands of factions allied with Hezbollah or Al Qaeda in Iraq, among other anti-U.S. groups.

McCain's recent grandstanding, through his surprise trip to Syria, also highlights both his ignorance of the region and its actors - he wants the Obama Administration to arm "good" Syrian rebels, but didn't know the history of the factions he met with, and doesn't seem to understand that the majority of rebels want to create an Islamist state. He also doesn't seem to be aware, or perhaps doesn't care, that a rebel victory is almost certain to be followed by atrocities or (at best) ethnic cleansing of Alawites. It's also worth noting that the groups he wants to support are not uniformed forces - they're the type of forces he would eagerly label "unlawful combatants" if they were fighting the U.S. or its allies. I'm reminded of this:

I think McCain's heart is in the right place, which is to say that he's in the "peance freeance" faction of the Republican Party - those who think that the U.S. military takes the form of the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers and, once they defeat the evil overlords and their minions, peace and democracy will break out all over. The problem is, he has no apparent interest in non-military solutions, or at least doesn't seem to deem them worthy of consideration or discussion, nor does he have any particular interest in the region or its actors. Why does he confuse Sunni and Shia, why doesn't his staff ensure that he doesn't meet with factions that are opposed to U.S. goals and interests when he grandstands, why does he seem to think that if you decapitate a despotic regime the people will immediately clamor for Western-style democracy? Because, to the extent that the subject matter doesn't make things go "boom", he appears to have given very little thought to pretty much any significant foreign policy issue. His mistakes suggest that he's not even interested, even as he plays the elder statesman and lobbies for war. He shows no sign that he's willing or able to learn from our nation's history, no matter how recent and no matter what role he played in that history.

When I look back at the Bush Administration, and its colossal incompetence on foreign policy issues, I'm reminded of the opportunities George W. Bush squandered in the early months of his regime. That would have been a time to reach out to nations like Egypt (with its aging leader) and to Syria (with its new leader), to try to move the region toward democracy, encourage economic development, and push for the development of institutions and policies that would make those states less oppressive and better able to eventually transition to democracy (e.g., driving corruption out of the civil service, ensuring independent courts, pushing for better respect for human rights). But for all of the talk of Bush's "Freedom Agenda", his actions suggested something else. The "Freedom Agenda" was a cloak for realpolitik - leaders that the Bush Administration wanted to keep in place knew that they were safe, and Bush had no apparent interest in pushing for changes that might upset those leaders or in trying to create bridges to leaders of traditionally hostile nations. That is, when it involves serious diplomatic effort, developing an understanding of the region or its players, or getting up to your elbows in difficult, long-standing factional conflicts, neither Bush nor McCain have much visible interest in advancing democracy. But if you can drop some bombs and call it a "Freedom Agenda", the're all in.

Grandstanding over Syria isn't helpful, because there's no good path forward. If the U.S. intervenes and things don't improve - or worsen - it will be deemed necessary to escalate our involvement. Once we're in, we'll yet again be in a situation where our departure is all but certain to be followed by a civil war or atrocities, but those issues will likely be even harder to resolve than they were in Iraq. So we pour hundreds of billions of dollars, perhaps a trillion or more, into yet another war in the Middle East followed by another indefinite occupation. It's not enough to say "Let's do something, but not put boots on the ground", even if it plays well on Fox News. And it's never enough to view the entire world as a military target, because the only tool in your toolbox is the military. But it seems, that's about all McCain has to offer.

Those Darn Subsidies

Having been wrong, yet again, on the Middle East and his prediction that Hezbollah would be blamed for the damage to Lebanon once a ceasefire took hold, in War on Daddy's Dime, Thomas Friedman takes on subsidies:

I’m not sure yet who’s the winner in the war between Hezbollah and Israel, but I know who’s the big loser: Iran’s taxpayers. What a bunch of suckers.

Isn’t it obvious? As soon as the reckless war he started was over, Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, declared that Hezbollah would begin paying out cash to the thousands of Lebanese families whose homes were destroyed. “We will pay compensation, a certain amount of money for every family to rent for one year, plus buy furniture for those whose homes were totally destroyed,” said Nasrallah. “These number 15,000.”

I guess we'll leave aside for the moment the contradiction between Friedman's opening sentence, asserting that Iran's taxpayers are footing the bill, and his overall thesis, which is that Iran's rulers use state oil revenues to provide massive subsidies to keep their people reasonably content.

I understand why Mr. Friedman is upset. He predicted that Hezbollah would take a post-war P.R. hit and be blamed for the bombing damage, but here they are using Iran's oil wealth in a manner that may well further expand their popularity. It is also beyond obvious that high oil prices provide huge revenue streams to many undesirable regimes. But isn't this really an expression of his upset at having been blindsided by the obvious?

I have to admit that I am amused by statements like this:

To buy public support, Iran’s regime subsidizes housing, gasoline, interest rates, flour and rice.

What sort of nation, after all, would subsidize its oil industry? Offer subsidized housing or interest rates? Or subsidize agricultural products? Why, I even understand that there's a country which instituted subsidies on bee farming during WWII so that they would have sufficient beeswax to waterproof munitions for overseas shipment - and those subsidies remain in place, for no good reason, even today.... Where do you suppose that could be? (More here.) Perhaps Mr. Friedman should join forces with the Club for Growth.

Oh, I'm not arguing that U.S. subsidies are equal in scope, or have the same direct purpose as those in nations like Iran and Syria, but then what about Kuwait - are its subsidies okay, even though it remains a misogynistic dictatorial monarchy, because it isn't belligerent? Last I checked, its subsidies of its population made Iran's look small.

If we could cut the price of crude in half, it would mean that all of Iran’s oil income would go to subsidies — which would be unsustainable and therefore a huge threat to the regime.

Well, in theory.... But in practice, they made it through 2004 and early 2005, so even assuming an unlikely plunge in oil prices to a "mere" $35/bbl I think they would somehow keep up the bad fight.

Lebanon's Army To Control The Southern Border Region?

I may be a proverbial monkey hammering away at the keys, trying to produce Shakespeare, but apparently I actually anticipated what is now being proposed as a (partial) solution to the Israel-Lebanon war:

The Lebanese army called up 5,000 reservists last night to prepare for deployment along the border to try to speed up the departure of Israeli forces, the main hurdle to the United Nations security council adopting a ceasefire resolution.

The Lebanese army will only be deployed when Israel and Hizbullah agree to end hostilities.

The army, regarded as neutral by Israel, has not been involved in the present conflict. Its deployment would mark a significant change in the balance of power within the country: for more than 20 years southern Lebanon has been a virtual no-go area for the Lebanese army.

And so the poor Lebanese Army appears destined to go where any international military force would fear to tread....

Take a Krauthammer, Simmer off the Vitriol, Add a Dash of Chomsky....

And you have a recipe for a very unusual Krauthammer column, in that it's worth reading. As it turns out, when he stops telling us how much he hates everybody he perceives as an enemy of Israel and why we should share his sentiments, space appears in which sapience can emerge.

That dash of Chomsky.... One of Norm Chomsky's consistent points about U.S. Middle Eastern policy is that it is about what is in the perceived best interest of the United States, and to the extent that it is U.S. policy to support a strong Israel it is because fundamentally the U.S. views that as being in its best interest. Krauthammer seems to share that opinion:

Israel's war with Hezbollah is a war to secure its northern border, to defeat a terrorist militia bent on Israel's destruction, to restore Israeli deterrence in the age of the missile. But even more is at stake. Israel's leaders do not seem to understand how ruinous a military failure in Lebanon would be to its relationship with America, Israel's most vital lifeline. ... [In U.S. foreign policy] The question, as always, is: What have you done for me lately? There is fierce debate in the United States about whether, in the post-Sept. 11 world, Israel is a net asset or liability. Hezbollah's unprovoked attack on July 12 provided Israel the extraordinary opportunity to demonstrate its utility by making a major contribution to America's war on terrorism.

Like Chomsky, Krauthammer perceives that self-interest drives U.S. policy toward Israel. Like Chomsky, he overstates his case - I don't think you can look at the recent sense of Congress resolution, passing with a 410:8 vote, and not recognize that Israel's position is far from precarious. But I think they both sense what can happen, and what likely will happen, if in fact the consensus becomes that U.S. support for Israel is contrary to U.S. interests. Even if manifested only through the substitution of absentions for vetoes in U.N. Security Council votes pertaining to Israel.

I should note also that I agree with Krauthammer that Hezbollah is a threat to Israel and to the region, and that it would be a good thing if Hezbollah's military capacities were eliminated. I do differ from Krauthammer in that he apparently believes that Hezbollah could be defeated through a short-term ground war, but very much agree that Israel's air war represents an atrocious choice of tactics.

The United States has gone far out on a limb to allow Israel to win and for all this to happen. It has counted on Israel's ability to do the job. It has been disappointed. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has provided unsteady and uncertain leadership. Foolishly relying on air power alone, he denied his generals the ground offensive they wanted, only to reverse himself later. ...

His search for victory on the cheap has jeopardized not just the Lebanon operation but America's confidence in Israel as well.

I think Krauthammer recognizes but intentionally sidesteps the implications of his position. It certainly isn't the case that Israel cannot roll in the tanks and troops and have its ground war, even after its exceptionally destructive but tactically ineffectual air campaign. To the extent that a military victory can be won on the ground, nothing in the air campaign has limited Israel's opportunity for success, and arguably the destruction of Lebanese infrastructure would help Israel in a ground war. So the defeat Krauthammer perceives as being plucked from the jaws of victory would apparently be one of public perceptions and sentiment. It's not just a loss in the war by proxy against Iran ("The defeat of Hezbollah would be a huge loss for Iran, both psychologically and strategically.") It's that the tactics used have caused a lot of people in the West to question whether Israel holds the moral high ground, and have caused a significant backlash within Lebanon which could lead to a quick resurgence (temporary or long-term) of Hezbollah once the war ends.

A loss to Hezbollah may not mean much militarily for Israel or the West, but it means a lot psychologically. Hezbollah is already being perceived (yet again) on the Arab street as a heroic entity defeating a much more powerful adversary. It would exemplify the attitude we are (supposedly) working hard to change - that fundamentalist, militant Islam can bring pride and victory, even in the face of (decadent) Western imperialism. It of course doesn't help a bit that the Bush Administration eschews diplomacy, and thus rules out any resolution to this type of conflict which might illustrate a better way.

I may be more cynical than Krauthammer, who puts the blame for the poor choice of an air campaign on Israel's political leaders. I don't believe for a second that the U.S., in giving what Krauthammer desribes as "the green light -- indeed, the encouragement" to Israel to embark on this war, was not aware of Israel's intended tactics. Nobody said, "Hey - wait a second, that's not a good plan." Nobody stepped in when it became obvious that Israel intended to defeat Hezbollah primarily through air power and said, "We need to get them to bring in ground troops", or even "We should force a quick ceasefire to give Israel its 'victory' before it becomes obvious that this isn't working." Why? In my estimation, because the U.S. knew what Israel planned, and deemed it an appropriate manner in which to wage war against Hezbollah - perhaps even the preferred manner. After all, wouldn't a victory primarily through air power stand as vindication for Rumsfeld's vision of how wars should be fought?

[Updated to fix broken link.]

A Solution for Lebanon?

Oh, it's probably ultimately unworkable, but so is every other solution.

The context: Israel (and most of the rest of the world, apparently including most Arab states) wants to see Hezbollah disarmed. It could not achieve disarmament through eighteen years of occupation of southern Lebanon, and is now attempting to achieve disarmament through an air campaign which will, in all likelihood, destroy much of Hezbollah's arsenal while increasing Lebanese and Arab enmity toward Israel and sympathies with Hezbollah - like the occupation, a recipe for short-term gain and long-term pain. Israel has never wanted any significant international military force on its borders (and after the last time it was attempted not many foreign militaries have much interest in trying to act as peacekeepers). Israel distrusts the United Nations, and no UN force would be of sufficient size and strength to disarm Hezbollah.

So... How about trying something completely different? Bring in a UN force to monitor Lebanon's borders with Syria. Bring in a sufficient foreign miltary and police force to maintain order and stability in those areas of Lebanon north of the Litani River while the Lebanese military responds to Hezbollah. And make Lebanon and its military, supported by contributions of foreign training and military hardware, responsible for policing and controlling areas controlled by Hezbollah, including Lebanon's border with Israel. (Ideally, subject to practical limitations and security issues, the Arab states which oppose Hezbollah could be enticed to contribute manpower to any police force required as part of this effort, such that under most day-to-day circumstances the man on the street in Lebanon would encounter the face of an Arab policeman rather than a foreign soldier.) The people of Lebanon will see for themselves in Hezbollah is willing to kill Lebanese soldiers in order to maintain its military operations - something that should bring some sense of sobriety to the notion of Hezbollah as fighting for Lebanese independence and freedom from foreign occupation. And it keeps western forces off of the front lines.

If this plan were to work you should end up with a well-trained, well-disciplined Lebanese army which can ultimately maintain control of the entire nation, reducing the likelihood that Hezbollah will again be able to develop a significant militia. Perhaps a Lebanon that looks something like Jordan - but with an elected government instead of a monarchy.