Syria under Bashir Assad (closed end 2014)

[Dayuhan]

In my mind there is no doubt that Assad's incompetent response to some disgruntled youth acting out resulted in a war that shouldn't have happened, but it is too late to rewrite history. I suspect he was excessively paranoid based on the Arab Spring events throughout the region and cracked down out of fear. He probably would have been more effective if he followed the King of Morocco's approach.

I think you're right, but as you say, water under the bridge.

Perhaps, but based on our recent experience our national leadership and our people may be more receptive to other forms of governance. Democracy works for us, but clearly it does not work in some nations. We can always state our ultimate aim is to help that nation evolve into a democracy over the years, but our first goal is enable an appropriate form of government control to prevent a humanitarian disaster.

Our experience with installing non-democratic governments has not been very good either. Ideally we would be able to avoid situations that would require us to install a government or force us to make decisions about how others should be governed... but that is perhaps too much to ask.

I have mixed feelings on this, I think this conflict is much larger than Syria, it involves the larger Shia-Sunni conflict taking place in the Muslim world, it also involves local state actors, and state actors beyond the region (principally Russia, China, and the U.S.) It certainly isn't about us, but we do have interests in how this turns out. We did a more job of responding to this also. I suspect Kerry's response would have been more seasoned and practical than Clinton's, but that is only speculation.

Agree that this is part of a broader Sunni-Shia conflict. How it turns out will inevitably affect our interests, but I don't see that we have a clear interest in any specific outcome that we have any ability to promote. I don't think wading in and getting involved, in the absence of any clear and reasonably achievable exit strategy, is going to do us any good.

The secret squirrel stuff that was small enough to be kept secret would be too small to be of consequence...to the Syrians. It is very useful for Americans politicians, civilian and military, who want to be seen to be 'doing something'.

If it's secret, it's not going to help anyone who wants to be seen "doing something"... secrets are by definition not seen. That's probably why it's not secret.

That is a very good point about moderates being shy of violence. But I think being personally moderate is a very different thing from being politically moderate. There is no reason a person who is a strong advocate of the rule of law, religious toleration and the other things we associate with 'moderate' polities can't be a hell on wheels fighter. The US military is full of people like that. The Mexican Revolution of 100 years ago resulted in a government that was fairly moderate given what it could have been and evolved into a pretty good example of a western polity now. Those guys fought quite hard. Menachem Begin was a killer and Israel (if you're not Palistinian) is quite the moderate place politically. Those moderates in Syria, moderates being defined as people who will run a gov that will more acceptable to us than the two leading contenders at this time, could probably fight as well as Menachem or the Mexicans if the had the stuff and money to fight with.

I don't see any problem with moderates being able to fight. I suspect that there is a bit of a problem defining who exactly these "moderates" are, and how moderate they are, and who else they're associated with. I'm not convinced that there's a clear and discrete moderate faction that provides a partner that we can work with. I'm sure lots of people will fall all over each other trying to tell us what we want to hear, but that doesn't mean they are really our buddies.

People seem to like the idea of our enemies over there killing each other. Your idea about getting intel is the first time I've heard that one. The problem is that this conflict won't go on forever. Somebody is going to win. And when they do, the way it is shaping up now, we ain't gonna like it. The people that backed the winning side will be that much stronger, and we won't like that either. Then we will really need that intel.

Somebody might or might not win. It's entirely possible that there might be no clear winner. In the Iran/Iraq war our policy was to assure that neither party emerged as a clear winner... cynical, but not unreasonable. It doesn't solve the problem, but it doesn't make it worse... and is there any really credible alternative that does not involve choosing a side and sticking our collective putz into the meatgrinder?