Most of his recommendations seem reasonable until we get to the last one.
I agree Assad is a thug that ultimately needs to go. Frankly, it surprised that a man with his level of education responded to the Syrian Spring in such an inept manner, but he did and there is no going back to fix it. I'm not implying education makes one a saint, but from purely practical manner (survival of the regime), his response in 2011 needed to be a different approach than his father's heavy handed approach. The world has changed, and Assad should have recognized that.Until Western powers commit to the ultimate replacement of the Assad regime with a transitional unity or ultimately a secular democratic government — something the original democracy protesters called for in 2011, right at the beginning of the war — it’s hard to imagine any Syrian volunteering to fight with us against Islamic State. In any case, it will be months or more before Iraqi and Syrian forces are sufficiently trained to take the fight forward effectively.
The problem with Kilcullen's recommendation is this is so easy to say, and nearly impossible to do in a country that is divided in multiple factions. We removed abusive regimes in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, but what followed didn't get us closer to our desired goals of reduced radicalization and increased stability. There are multiple reasons why, but those same reasons exist in Syria. Agree we need to completely rethink our strategy, but I don't see answers to the perplexing problem of what follows Assad on the near horizon. It isn't only local politics, but regional and non-regional countries who will keep their fingers in the pie to shape the situation in Syria to their advantage, not the advantage of the Syrian people. As he points out, the solution isn't a country solution, it must be a regional solution, and in some cases a global solution.
Kilcullen identified a threat that I dwell on frequently. We have many people in our ranks who dismiss threats that are not existential, but they only see existential threats as physical destruction. In the U.S., members of the military take an oath to defend the Constitution. If the ideas in the Constitution are threatened with our potential over or even appropriate reaction to threats (paramilitary police forces), then the our founding ideas are threatened, and that is a form of an existential threat. We can't afford to look at this purely in conventional terms of force on force.
Bookmarks