Feckless on Syria

May 18, 2012 -- There is a particularly interesting article in today's Washington Post on the situation in Syria. It is closer to news analysis than it is to a straight news article, which explains the sharp discrepancy between today's Post coverage and that in the New York Times.

The latter reports specifically on a group of UN-sponsored observers, in this case hailing from Jordan, and their role in yesterday’s bloody affair in a village named Khan Sheikoun, in Idlib province, that took the lives of more than twenty civilians. The headline on page A9 reads, “U.N Team Sees Clash Between Syrian Protesters and Soldiers”, but if you look into the details of what happened it becomes apparent that the observers catalyzed more than merely saw the violence. This is one of the perpetual dilemmas of humanitarianism, and efforts to use it to make an impact on deeply political circumstances. Humanitarian efforts at first sight always seem to be justified on the basis of human compassion, but it turns out to be impossible to divorce such efforts from the political churn into which they fall. In that churn these efforts can sometimes have profoundly counterproductive effects. They did so in Bosnia some years ago, and they have been having a similar effect lately in Syria. In both cases they have been buying time for tenured murderers and allowing soporific nonsense to seem (very temporarily) like strategic prudence.

But back to the Washington Post’s front-page analysis, written by Karen deYoung in Washington and Liz Sly reporting from Beirut. I don't know much about Ms. Sly, but I do know that Ms. deYoung is one of the paper’s most senior journalists, one with excellent contacts both in and outside of government. Read the article for yourself; as you know, my comments are no substitute for reading the news. They are instead designed to help readers better understand the news, something that those who have not professionally studied this part of the world, have not traveled to it, and have not tried to master any of its languages need more than they usually know. It’s not an easy region to understand, especially so when observers unwittingly project their own frames of reference, developed here in beautiful, pristine North America, onto the Middle East. They mostly don’t fit.

In essence, the WP article points out that weapons are flowing liberally to Syria’s rebels, and that the sources of the weapons appear to be divided by intended point of delivery. Some of the Gulf States, notably Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are trying to get weapons to the Free Syrian Army. Other private individuals are trying to get weapons to the Syrian Muslin Brotherhood, and, as noted in a post on Friday, al-Qaeda in Iraq is also involved. All sources appear to be succeeding in getting weapons into the country, leading the authors of the Post article to note that, “Many officials now consider an expanding military confrontation to be inevitable.”

The other noteworthy deliverable in the article is the attempt by the authors to make it seem that the United States is being far more active in helping the opposition than it has been heretofore. The article quotes unnamed officials crowing about the delivery of nonlethal assistance, and about increased coordination between U.S. personnel and the opposition. According to the authors, this marks “a shift in Obama administration policy as hopes dim for political solutions to the Syrian crisis.”

It’s about time. I certainly hope there’s been some shift. I hope this is not mere posturing-by-leaking to make what has been a depressing and confused passivity seem something other than it has been. But I am yet to be convinced. When a reporter goes and talks to Administration sources, that reporter stands to get spun––whether knowingly or not is always an interesting speculation in the never-ending cat-and-mouse game of trying to write the first draft of history while keeping one's sources available for later use. It's not easy, and I do not presume to judge Ms. deYoung or anyone else on this score.

My interest in the Post article particularly reflects my frustration with Administration policy to date. I think I can best illustrate what I mean by simply juxtaposing five extracts from today's Post article with those from an essay I wrote in this space on March 6––that is to say, nearly ten weeks ago, when more feasible options existed than exist today. So here goes, starting first with the article’s title and then moving on to the quote brought just above.

WP, May 16: “Arms Flow to Syrian Rebels: Gulf Nations Pay for Weapons.”

TAI Online, March 6: “Just because the United States will not supply arms doesn't mean that others won't. Others will. . . and the Saudi regime seems more than willing to finance the effort.”

WP, May 16: “The U.S. contacts with the rebel military and the information sharing with Gulf nations marked a shift in Obama administration policy as hopes dim for a political solution to the Syrian crisis.”

TAI Online, March 6: “All of these efforts [to reach a political solution] have gotten nowhere because they are premised on being able to reason with the Syrian regime. . . . It is not possible to make the Syrian regime relent with words or implausible threats or mere sanctions. . . . In the regime's view its problem is existential. In its mentality any sign of weakness or compromise is tantamount to suicide, and they can make an objectively good case for that attitude. . . . We will minimize our leverage in the eventual reconstruction of the Syrian government to the extent that we stay aloof from the fight now.”

WP, May 16: “Although the [NATO] alliance has repeatedly said it will not become involved in Syria, Turkey has indicated that it may invoke Article IV of the NATO Charter. . . . The Turks, who have grown increasingly anxious about the growing conflict in their neighboring country, have resisted direct military involvement without the international legitimacy of a United Nations Security Council resolution. . . . But Turkey's position has been evolving, with military officials who once opposed any kind of nonpolitical intervention now seeing the region becoming increasingly involved in the crisis.”

TAI Online, March 6: “the Turkish government thus far has not made any threats about moving into Syrian territory. Indeed, it has expressed a great reluctance to think in such terms. . . . But this reluctance could change.”

WP, May 16: “Officials in the region said Turkey's main concern is where the United States stands, and whether it and others will support arm protection for a safe zone along the border or back of her options that have been discussed.”

TAI Online, March 6: “For Turkish reluctance to change. . . . United States and Turkey's other major NATO allies would have to privately assure Turkey that such an operation would be in the interest of the alliance, and that Turkey would not be left hung out to dry if anything went wrong. . . . Whether it becomes a formal NATO operation or not, Turkey’s NATO allies could and should provide all necessary financial and logistical support. The U.S. government needs to lead the effort.”

After writing my March 6 essay, I learned that during the visit of the Turkish Foreign Minister the Turks tried to raise such questions with the Administration in private, but the Administration refused even to discuss such matters. I was forced to conclude that the semi-official reason––that the Syrian opposition was too fragmented and unreliable to back and that Turkey would not agree to take the lead––wasn't the real reason. The real reason was and remains, as I wrote in my April 3 post: “The reason that the Obama Administration has stiff-armed the Turks and refused to arm the Syrian opposition, doing everything it could below the line of sight at the April 1 “Friends of Syria” meeting in Istanbul to harm that opposition, is that the White House has made it clear: no military excitement in or near the region before the first week in November, lest oil prices spike and the President fail to get reelected. That’s the relevant connection here; this is about politics in its rawest form.”

Maybe senior Administration officials believed early on that the Annan mission could succeed, and maybe they didn't. But it certainly has furnished a terrific pretext to do nothing significant on the ground. Thus today's Post article: “The United States and its allies remain formally committed to a UN peace plan being spearheaded by former Secretary-General Kofi Annan. . . . U.S. officials have said they feel constrained from declaring the mission the failure at least until the full complement of monitors arrives.”

Yes, they feel as constrained as they possibly can. But unfortunately for the White House, the Administration is not going to be able to drag out the absurd notion that the Annan mission might save the day all the way to November. I think that may explain the pitch delivered to Ms. deYoung--that there has supposedly been an activist shift in Administration policy.

Perhaps there has been a greater willingness to help the opposition—it’s possible. But either way, it seems to me that the White House is mainly trying to narrow the distance between the appearance of its fecklessness in Syria and its resolute unwillingness to behave there in any way other than fecklessly. Ordinarily, when I see in an article like this the statement, “U.S. officials said there are no American military or intelligence personnel on the ground in Syria”, I take it to be a necessary, out-of-central-casting falsehood. But today I fear it is actually true.