Do I need to adjust my thinking on Syria? Well, my thinking merely amounted to a series of warnings and a general sense of shock at how willing some seem to be to rush into Assad's magic kingdom as if having learned nothing at all from Iraq and Afghanistan - not to mention Libya, which the American media ignores [more water carrying for Dear Leader I assume] but is settling into yet another abject lesson on just how badly you can screw yourself attempting 'to do good' in the lands of Allah.
But of course intervention is or would not simply be about a Susan Power-like obligation to do nice things or whatever that foolish, ill-conceived UN ex cathedra chant was that ginned up the absurd incoherence of Libya - no, would also putatively be about strategic line drawing, and the pluses and minuses of such a calculation deserve serious consideration.
Ah, for the good old days when you simply backed the strongman dictator willing to do your bidding and the strategic puzzle fell together with a logical precision - well, a logical precision relative to what we have now - for the phoney cry of freedom and attending hollow affirmations of a kind of democracy have thoroughly muddled the dynamics by enabling once marginal or erstwhile suppressed players - in Libya, various criminal gangs and Islamist tribes - but after the liberal press announced a day after Qadaffi met maker that Obama had won a great victory for... well, for something everybody stopped paying attention so Libya doesn't matter again apparently - in Egypt, where supposedly democratic passions were in full flower, they hold a vote and only 50% of eligible voters bother to exercise the privilege and of those, about half chose a new secular soft tyranny ostensibly to be run by one of Mubarak's old pals but with the military ultimately pulling the strings in the background, and the other half an Islamist sham democracy otherwise known as a theocratic autocracy a la Iran to be 'run' by the Brotherhood but that may or may not, depending on deals struck, end up being controlled by, you guessed it, the military - or you're gonna get a civil war - or a military crack down - or... anyway, what you're not gonna get and what none of this is definitely gonna end up being is a democratic revolution regardless of whether or not Reuters still insists on calling it that. Like I said, strategic picture muddled and options not obvious.
And then there's Syria, where not only do you have the muddle of reviled dictator versus Islamist radicals masquerading as freedom fighters and champions of democracy, but you also have highly combustible sectarian hatred and distrust that could possibly erupt into a regional war, strategic imperatives and ambitions by key local players which again could precipitate a regional war, and in the background pushing and prodding in known and unknown ways competing powerful geopolitical interests that could lead to outcomes of both immediate and long term strategic import. In short, Syria has the potential of morphing from small stage into a very big one - as the nexus of a variety of long brewing and unresolvable animosities, competing interests and strategic ambitions of both the limited and extremely expansive kind, untold demons could crawl from the depths of this pit.
So back to the original question: should I change my thinking on staying out of Syria? I think those arguing for a humanitarian intervention are... misguided - that didn't work in Libya and it could not work in a much bigger and badder way in Syria - a civil war that metastasizes into a regional war is lurking just beneath the surface here, so even if there's a demonstrated humanitarian claim to be made, which I'm not sure that there is, the threat of an attempt to 'do good' turing into something very, very bad is too real thus rendering the humanitarian option inert. Unfortunately, this 'non-action' is complicated by Obama going into Libya for humanitarian reasons that probably pale in comparison to Syria, with the result being America looking confused and feeble - but I'm not sure how you correct that misstep by now going into Syria, especially if you're not going to see it through to the bitter end - 'leading from behind' is most decidedly not an option in Syria. If we're going to start a civl war in order to stop a humanitarian crisis we are then obligated to fight that civil war in order to prevent a humanitarian crisis - you could fool yourself [and the world] into thinking that wasn't the case with Libya - such rationalizing won't work in Syria.
So what about the arguments that the only way to facilitate an exit of Assad was for the US to get involved, or, failing that, to facilitate the empowering of a Sunni/Isamist faction we might be able to work with was for us to get involved? As for the first, I don't see Assad going unless China, Russia and by implication Iran sign off on it, and why would they sign off on it? The only leverage in such a debate would be for the US to threaten to step in on the side of the insurgents unless China and Russia agree - but they know that would be a bluff - they know there's no way Obama is going in there, so again, why would Russia and China sign off on giving Assad the boot? As for the second point, that's highly speculative - and without boots on the ground, how do you possibly influence events in such a directed way? We had trouble enough doing that in Iraq and we occupied the bloody country. People who back that option I think are failing to learn the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan - namely, Muslim polities are extremely fucked up and so if you're gonna get involved your purpose has to be either short term tactical or long term strategic - the middle is just nothing but chaos and confusion.
But should the civil war come, would it then be time to choose sides? This assumes that we're seeing the beginnings of a large scale Sunni/Shia confrontation and in order to balance the China/Russia/Iran side of things we have to back the Sunni regardless of how repugnant they may be. I don't have an answer for that one: stay out and possibly it ends in a stalemate and you keep your hands clean - or possibly you enable a stark shift in the balance of power to the other side resulting in who knows what consequences, but probably a confrontation between Israel and Iran - certainly Israel would not sit back idly; step in and possibly you effect a desired outcome - a civil war that is contained and ends with a stalemate and various trade offs - or you somehow end up in a shooting war with Iran and Russia - maybe Iraqi Shia too - and what about Turkey and the Kurds?
In the end conjecture is moot since Obama ain't getting involved - he may be tempted to try another leading from behind, but I think he got spooked by Libya where he found out there's no such thing as an easy war - and I think he also realizes that it would kill his reelection hopes to make a small scale commitment and then back off should things escalate, as they almost certainly will.
But forget Dear Leader - what would I do? Well... I wouldn't have gone into Libya so me not going into Syria would not have left me looking weak and over matched by events and therefore possibly I'm in a better position with Russia and China viz Assad - or if I had gone into Libya it would not have been from behind and so again my credibility in negotiations with Russia and China over Assad is intact - that being said, don't really think getting rid of Assad changes much of anything on the ground anyway, at least not as things currently stand - so in the end, if I see a full blown civil war is inevitable, and we appear to maybe be getting there, I try and carve out some Sunni faction to back [Saudis I imagine can help here - although their motivations are not to be simply assumed as being in line with ours - same goes with Turkey, even more so with Turkey actually] and then labor behind the scenes to leverage one interest against another to hopefully bring about a stalemate [and I'm assuming Assad's exit too] as soon as possible - I'm kinda thinking that's your best option should this thing really start to escalate.
There are those who cynically opine that we should just stand back and let the Sunni and Shia beat the crap out of each other - or hell, let China and Russia become responsible for this fucked up corner of the world - welcome to the suck, boys - hey, wha' do I know, maybe that's not as crazy as it sounds.
