Why would there be a need for an intervention on this scale?Originally Posted by jmm99
Can you put your finger on where the problem lies?
Why would there be a need for an intervention on this scale?
Can you put your finger on where the problem lies?
Realistically, do you think Assad, his military forces, and his substantial base of civilian support are going to disappear or give up in the face of anything less than an intervention on that scale? Surely you don't really believe that they will tuck their tails between their legs and submit to a foreign will simply because somebody fires a few cruise missiles at them...
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”
H.L. Mencken
Well, if JMA thinks otherwise he's kept it secret. He doesn't ".. support that intervention being carried out by the US (due to their extremely poor record with such interventions)," he doesn't want the rebels armed, and he agreed with Fuchs' summary of the possibility of other actors intervening, so that pretty much takes everything off the table except for his three cruise missile option. Oh, and the usual "viewing with alarm," "strongly disapprove," "condemnation by all civilized people" and useless economic sanctions the Syrians are pretty much already ignoring.
Of course, a decapitation strike in Syria would lead to complete chaos as everyone fought for position in the aftermath, with no telling what kind of resulting state of affairs. I hope JMA will explain to us why this is "good planning" as opposed to what he considers the U.S. record of "bad planning."
Last edited by J Wolfsberger; 03-08-2012 at 01:13 PM.
John Wolfsberger, Jr.
An unruffled person with some useful skills.
Syria is very divided in ethnic and religious groups, almost as bad as Lebanon.
Assad's minority will feel the urge to emigrate when Assad falls, and I suspect the bigger factions will dominate the country "democratically". This requires that they're united (not split in religious extremists and others themselves);
the new regime will likely be ethnically dominated, not religiously or ideologically.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demogra...#Ethnic_groups
I'd expect a Sunni Arab majority gaining control; their religious radicals would likely fail to be a majority nation-wide.
Out of sight, Out of Mind
From Fuchs a few posts back:This reminds me of an issue that has appeared on SWC before and JMM99 has used a nice global map to illustrate his point of view.3,000 people died in inter-tribal violence in province Pibor, South Sudan, at the beginning of this year. We didn't even notice, much less did a Western public discuss the prospect of intervention.
Simply put we all have a very different world map, with assigned, changing priorities and sometimes governments are in parallel with their own public. Sorry who cares about 'province Pibor' ? Very few outside the immediate area and the two Sudan's.
Incidentally I had to search for the location of Pibor:http://earthcatalogue.com/?ecd=SD_HS...er-Pibor-Sudan and a BBC report on the incident(s):http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-16394664
Sadly whole chunks of the world are rarely delivered to our screens, how many viewers let alone editors want to learn about feuding tribes in South Sudan? I'm sure some here will remember the reporting of the famine in Ethiopia, that led to the Band Aid concerts.
Two of us here have already reminded readers of the shame Europe first & foremost has over Bosnia and FRY. The late Michael Foot, a Labour leader, made a startling documentary at the time and IIRC the title was 'Three Hours from Here'. There was endless TV reporting, Martin Bell being one; sometimes grim and even then it took months, years for politicians to get the courage to change the ROE. The UK's record is not good in this respect.
If anyone needs a reminder of humanitarian intervention view the 1999 BBC series 'Warriors', which is awesome - a word I rarely use. It is on YouTube and here are links to Part 1:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGj3cLQKlik and a rather crude snippet:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_Occ...eature=related
Why the outrage over Syria? Well first foremost geography, secondly we have a mass of footage (still) of the year-long protests and check out:http://www.enduringamerica.com/ Add in the calls for "something to be done", even here in the UK by some surprising people - who oppose(d) our role in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I don't know enough about Syria or the Assad regime and what short of "boots on the ground" would affect their decision-making.
That caveat aside what we should do beyond declarations is practical:
- Ensure the evidenceof brutality is collected and is ready for the day when justice can be done.
Boost radio broadcasting to the region.
Reduce all Syrian embassies to consular duties, close all trade offices and UN delegations. Send the staff home PNG.
Monitor all import / export activity and ask those involved why publicly. Yes, publish which ships and aircraft visit.
davidbfpo
Except for the occasional incidents, such as Darfur, the world usually turns a blind eye to bad things happening in primitive places far away. For example, I doubt the general public anywhere in the developed world is aware of the ongoing horror show in the Great Lakes region of Africa.
The UK isn't alone in the poor record department. The list of humanitarian disasters that the post WW II world has ignored begins with Biafra, runs through Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge right up to Syria in the present with lots of stops along the way. And after Syria ...?
Part of my cynicism comes from the realization that calls to intervene don't reflect any desire to build a better world so much as a desire for the caller to feel good about himself for making the call, and as a result he hasn't put much thought into what the intervention entails. (e.g. If you want to stop a slaughter you will have to kill people. And if those people collect human shields, some of them will be killed as well.)
In the instance under discussion, I doubt anyone calling for intervention has thought through what it would cost, or what the aftermath would be if the intervention didn't continue past the immediate goal of toppling the current regime. As much as I believe the whole notion of Nation Building to be complete rubbish, intervention without some long term (decades) commitment to improve on the past is a likely to turn out a wasted effort, almost certain to require a repeat in a few years when the new gang of thugs out lives its "welcome." (cf. Iraq now that the U.S. and allies have pulled out, or Afghanistan a few years after we’re gone.)
All of which would be good things to do, but of only limited value in reducing the carnage. And I suspect, even if they effected a stop, it would only be long enough to let the world move on to its next cause du jour, after which the retribution would continue and finish off the opposition. Quietly, so the world can blissfully ignore it.
Last edited by J Wolfsberger; 03-08-2012 at 05:41 PM.
John Wolfsberger, Jr.
An unruffled person with some useful skills.
90% Arabs
Sunni Muslim 74%
The result would be pretty obvious, yes?
Depends what you mean.
You cannot simply multiply these figures and come up with a figure for relgious radicals.
Arab and Sunni majorities are reflected in the demographics.
I agree that it is difficult to estimate religious radicals as what has been bubbling under the surface in that brutal dictatorship is almost impossible for an outsider to know as the regime itself with a network of informers does not fully understand (otherwise they would have nipped this insurrection in the bud).
This is very immature comment. I am amused that you seek to establish what I think/believe/want. Then you start you put things into my mouth... which is naughty.
My best advice to you is to force yourself to think for yourself. Difficult at first but really worth the effort even at this late stage.
You start with the definite - "would lead to complete chaos" and have no idea of the "kind of resulting state of affairs".
You obviously have no intel and neither do I. So neither of us can tell and given the poor track record of the CIA they are most probably not in a position to advise accurately.
All planning is based on good intel. With no intel you go in blind. This is perhaps the reason for the US failure in such foreign interventions.I hope JMA will explain to us why this is "good planning" as opposed to what he considers the U.S. record of "bad planning."
Put the intel on the table and take it from there.
Last edited by JMA; 03-09-2012 at 06:31 AM.
Just run your military credentials past me so I can try to understand where you are coming from here.
OK, no takers
on my question, Question for Military Experts. That's fine. Keep the question in mind. If you run into a military resource which bears on a Turkish-Syrian conflict per my hypothetical, please post it.
TZ is running a Turkish geopolitical analysis of "Who's on First" in the Middle East, ‘Ankara is Iran's rival whether it likes it or not’ (8 Mar 2012):
This article leads me to a second question for military experts (the first one - a Turkish-Syrian 1 on 1 - is still on the table):Turkey and Iran are two countries in the region that have not been paralyzed by the events of the Arab Spring. “I believe that Iran, the oldest imperial regime of the region, will try to preserve its position in the region at all costs,” Çağaptay added.
While Turkey turned its back on the East and tilted toward the West, Iran strengthened its hand in the region, Çağaptay noted. But when Turkey refocused its foreign policy on the Middle East 10 years ago and began deepening its relations with other countries in the region, Ankara became Iran's rival.
“If the Arab Spring had never occurred, there would have been secret competition,” Çağaptay posited.
He pointed to the two countries' conflicting stances on the regime crisis in Syria, which he said has taken the Turkish-Iranian rivalry to an unprecedented level. “While Turkey supports the Syrian opposition, Iran has decided to support Syria's Assad regime. In the end, either the Syrian opposition or the Assad regime will win. In other words, either Turkey or Iran will win.”
The Turkish preference (based on what TZ and its columnists have been saying for the last few months) appears to be a Turkish-brokered diplomatic deal involving Turkey, Iran and the Arab League (Saudi and the Gulf states as the money partners) being the "peacekeepers" and guarantors of limited negotiated external interests (Russia-China; US-NATO) - a reverse Sykes-Picot, in effect.If Turkey were to proceed with a conventional armed intervention into Syria, and Iran responds with a conventional armed attack on Turkey - a 2 on 1 with full commitment of military forces by all three states, who would win ?
No US-NATO support of any kind for the Turks; and Russia and China stay out of it completely (other than making noises about "aggressive war", etc.).
Regards
Mike
JMM,
I do not claim to be an expert on Turkish, Syrian or Iranian military strength. I am inclined to believe that, no matter what, Iran is unlikely to become directly involved in any military intervention in Syria, especially against Turkey. For a start, Iran has worked long and hard to cultivate goodwill among populations of the Sunni Arab states (though not necessarily with the governments of those states). I do not believe that it will be prepared to squander that by attacking another Muslim state in order to protect a regime that is probably doomed anyway. Iran is acutely aware that whatever goodwill that it has managed to build in the Sunni Arab states (mostly through the rhetoric directed at Israel and the West), is fragile. If it takes too strong a stance on supporting Assad then it runs the risk of fomenting a big anti-Shia/anti-Persian backlash, something that more than one Sunni Arab government would be more than happy to support. On top of this, Iran is still faced with the possibility of a military intervention on its own soil. It more likely to want to conserve both its military forces and any goodwill on the part of its Sunni Arab neighbors as a hedge against such an eventuality. I believe that the keystone of Iranian foreign policy has been to keep Arab animosity focused on Israel and the West, and therefore off of Iran. Direct action against Turkey could undo that rapidly. For all their bluff and bluster, I believe that Iran is far more rational than they are given credit for.
That said, I do believe that Iran would have no problem quietly stirring up the Kurds against Turkey. They need little enough stirring as it is. That could create all sorts of problems for Turkey. If the Kurds were to ratchet the violence up against Turkey it would almost certainly invite an even more brutal crackdown by the Turkish military, which needs little provocation anyway. Such crackdowns are damaging to Turkey's carefully cultivated image of a rational, moderate and enlightened modern state. For the time being, Turkey seems to have lost some of its enthusiasm for joining the EU (which is rapidly becoming damaged goods anyway) but that does not mean they have shut the door on the possibility. Kurdish problems do not help them on that regard and Iran knows that and who is better at operating through proxies than Iran?
That is my take anyway.
“Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.”
Terry Pratchett
Hi Uboat509
A professional answer from a professional. Thank you.
Timely in view of your comments is, in TZ, Russia says it won't intervene militarily in Syria:
Regards14 March 2012 / AP, MOSCOW
Russia's foreign minister says Moscow is providing Syria with weapons to fend off external threats but has no intention to use military force to protect Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Sergey Lavrov said Wednesday that Russia isn't supplying any arms that could be used against protesters.
He told lawmakers that a military intervention in Syria would contradict Russia's national interests.
Mike
You never know when you might need your military forces to "shore up" public support for the regime. Just sayin'...
“Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.”
Terry Pratchett
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks