You-break-it, you-buy-it scenario in Syria

We must help fix the mess there, Chris Kilford writes.

Canada’s decision to extend and expand our anti-ISIL mission into Syria is, in fact, tacit acknowledgment by the government of the well-known rule of “you break it, you buy it.” And, while the extension of the mission was not unexpected, the expansion of Canadian airstrikes into Syria did create a mild furor, certainly among the opposition in Parliament.

In many respects, I can empathize with the NDP’s opposition to Canada’s participation in the U.S.-led coalition. Anyone with even a passing interest in Middle Eastern politics knows that the region has been in an almost constant state of turmoil since the new states of Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria were created after the First World War. Nevertheless, and despite Thomas Mulcair tweeting that “this is simply not our war,” it is.

It is, because when the Syrian uprising began in March 2011, the Canadian government was quick to join in, calling on Assad to step aside.

Later, after the Canadian Embassy in Damascus suspended operations in March 2012, thenforeign minister John Baird further intensified his anti-Assad language. Canada was, he said in December 2012, doing everything it could to help the Syrian opposition prepare “for ‘Day 1’ of the post-Assad era.”

Certainly, they were intoxicating days back then. It was the dawn of the Arab Spring and Canada was eager to play its part by first helping rid Libya of Moammar Gadhafi. It didn’t matter if both sides in the Libyan civil war committed human rights abuses, torture and extrajudicial executions, Gadhafi simply had to go.

The same fate, so it was thought, would soon be in store for Assad. But apart from wanting to get rid of the Syrian leader, there had been next to no consideration in the Canadian government, or anywhere else for that matter, about what might happen the day after.

There’s no doubt that, back in 2012, the Syrian regime was on the defensive, but when Assad proved more resilient than first thought, what limited support there was for the moderate Syrian opposition essentially dried up.

In desperation, I suspect, a blind eye was then turned in many capitals regarding the influx of foreign fighters in the hope that they would succeed in toppling the Syrian regime — essentially they were the “boots on the ground” that the backers of the Syrian opposition refused to supply. But this strategy didn’t work either, and these foreign fighters, along with Syrian and Iraqi Sunnis and former senior members of Saddam Hussein’s military, found the space they needed to give birth to the so-called Islamic State.

So is extending and expanding our anti-ISIL mission in Iraq and now Syria the right thing to do?

As much as I would advise steering clear of entanglements in the Middle East, I don’t think we have much choice. In part, Canada and all the rest of the anti-ISIL coalition members helped create the mess in the first place, and as a result we now “own it.” Walking away is an easy but certainly not honourable option.

Instead, and in recognition of our own wellintentioned but ultimately misguided mischiefmaking in Syria, there is now a fundamental obligation for Canada to continue supporting the Iraqi government, including with military means, as it attempts to re-establish security. Only then can difficult decisions about the country’s future be made.

As for Syria, the simple fact is that ISIL can never be allowed a safe haven. Will our anti ISIL effort benefit the Syrian regime? Possibly, but I think we are actually witnessing now the de facto partitioning of the country between north and south, as neither side appears capable of gaining the upper hand. As a result, a political solution might eventually be possible between Assad and the opposition.

Perhaps then the millions of refugees and those internally displaced will finally make their way home. And we can too.