Syria under Bashir Assad (closed end 2014)

[carl]

Very true, and Luttwak's demand that the US "lay some ground rules for the endgame" seems to me an exercise in fantasy. Various rebel groups will make whatever promises they think will get them equipped by the US. If they win, they will do what they want to do, not what they agreed to do. The idea that helping someone allows us to control that someone is utterly specious.

The way we do it, yes. And that is probably true in some cases no matter what. But I still think that if we played the game hard enough, we could exercise much much more control than we think possible.

But that is really here nor there because we are so inept that we will be in effect slinging in weapons blindly. That isn't such a good thing.

True to some extent, but great or not, the Russians have sufficient leverage (nuclear and hydrocarbon) to be able to do as they please in the region without fear of direct repercussions. They don't have to be particularly great to provide the "equal and opposite reaction" that is feared. They can provide arms and assistance, and they can get away with it. Iran and Hezbollah aren't great powers either, but they can and will intervene, and the US capacity to control them is limited by domestic political imperatives. Deploying US forces against either is not something Americans are going to want to do, for excellent reasons.

Yes but what power they have I think is really a function of what we allow them to exercise, at least in Russia's case. That doesn't make it any less real on the ground in Syria, but it is what we allow.

There are a lot of things we could do that don't involve troops on the ground. One thing that comes to mind is approving multiple LNG export terminals here in the US. That would be very bad for Russia because a few years after that, no more blackmailing the Europeans.

Our Navy could be a bit of a lever too. There is lots of precedent for shoving people around, to be blunt about it, at sea without getting close to shooting.

The whole mess illustrates why drawing red lines is such a bad idea. When those lines get crossed, you have to act, or seem impotent. That puts you in a position where your action is purely a response, and you're acting without clear, practical and achievable goals and in circumstances where no compelling US interest is at stake.

Yep, to an extent. I fear ultimately our interests will be very much at stake, but I can't think of any good way, that the US leadership would actually do, to affect things.

J. Wolfsberger's central question remains rather conspicuously unanswered. Why intervene at all? What desirable and achievable end state are we pursuing here?

In an ideal world, turn Syria into Malaysia, but that ain't gonna happen. Or at least keep the thing from spreading too far, prevent an AQ emirate in east Syria and west Iraq and install a regime (not PC for sure) that wouldn't slaughter too many people and cause a lot of trouble. But we ain't capable of achieving that given our leadership. So it is a moot point.