Winners and losers in Syria

The U.S. has little to gain and much to lose from another war

Iapologize for again addressing Syria in a column, but the persistence of our leaders in pursuing plans to attack the country, the way a doomed dog chases cars, leaves me no choice. Let’s try using the “winners and losers” optic.

Winners

1. Maybe Syria. A U.S. attack, in effect punishing Syrians for having killed Syrians by killing more Syrians, might increase that tormented people’s sense of nationality, drawing them together to negotiate an end to their civil war and the destruction of their country. They might even unite in fury against the foreign Crusader devils. The results of the U.S. Navy hurling shells from battleships into Lebanon in 1983 in terms of “winning hearts and minds” convinced me that this approach doesn’t work. Cruise missiles and drones do not encourage people to do what you want them to do. Pakistan is another example.

2. American weapons manufacturers and suppliers. They would make money out of a new Syria war, following on the completion of the Iraq war and the winding-down of the Afghanistan war. One Tomahawk cruise missile costs $1.4 million. The Pentagon reportedly plans to fire them into Syria in bundles of 40. Nobody believes that U.S. military involvement in Syria would be limited to U.S. ships offshore firing whatever. The United States didn’t have sense enough to get out of Afghanistan in 2002 after it had chased out alQaida and replaced the Taliban government. Instead, we are still there, 11 years and a trillion dollars later.

3. Israel. This one is complicated. But some Israelis think that they would be better off if the United States got involved in the Syria war. First, some argue, it would prove that the United States respects the “red lines” it draws and would be more likely to ride to their rescue if they started losing a war with Iran. Second, if the United States were up to its ears in a new war in the Middle East, it would have less time to bother them about settling their differences with the Palestinians and creating a Palestinian state.

Losers

1. Secretary of State John F. Kerry. Mr. Kerry regrettably has shifted his concentration from Israeli/Palestinian peace talks to Syria, lending credence to the idea this is part of Israel’s motivation in pushing hard for U.S. involvement in Syria — particularly by putting pressure on U.S. lawmakers through the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. He is scurrying around the world trying to find support for Mr. Obama’s “attack” project from the European Union, NATO, the Arab League and other countries.

Mr. Kerry’s latest argument, that this is a “Munich moment” for the world, is embarrassing and may remind some Americans why we didn’t elect him president in 2004. He is either ignorant of history or hopes unrealistically that his American, European and Middle Eastern audience is. Bashar Assad is sort of horrible, but he falls far short of Hitler. What he wants to do is hold onto rule in his own country, not invade and occupy the rest of Europe all the way to Scotland. His armed forces are challenged just to keep him and his Alawite minority safe in Syria. The Wehrmacht they definitely are not. Comparing the situation to Munich makes us look stupid.

2. President Barack Obama. He loses either way, although he might be saved if the new U.S.-Russia-Syria “lock up the alleged chems” ploy succeeds. The attack he proposes could knock down more of Syria and kill more Syrians, but it would not be a game-changer. Assad would not surrender or flee. The rebels wouldn’t suddenly win — and we’d better hope that they don’t, given the number and the character of the thousand or so armed groups running loose on the rebel side.

If Mr. Obama sees this as the thin end of the wedge, the toe in the water leading to boots on the ground to bring about regime change in Syria, he is seriously misjudging the American people. If he were to pocket a thin margin of victory in a congressional vote, shoot off the fireworks and then march Americans into a third Middle Eastern war, his already formidable opposition in Congress likely would attempt to impeach him.

3. Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf monarchies. The kind of war an American assault would set off inevitably would include attacks by Syrian government forces, agents and allies on the highly vulnerable states that support it and that fund the Syrian rebels. These include Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. All of them are fragile, increasingly anachronistic monarchies that host U.S. forces — the same U.S. forces which would have struck Syria. All of them also are muted in their approach to Israel, which does not endear them to the more militant elements in the Middle East.

Also provoked by a U.S. attack and pitted against the Gulf states would be Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the occupied Palestinian territories, Iran under the table, Shiite Iraq under the table. And who knows who would wander in from the battlefields of Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan and Yemen.

So, first, both houses of Congress should vote no. Then Mr. Obama should send Mr. Kerry back to work on the Israeli-Palestinian talks and concentrate, with the Russians, on bringing the Syrian parties to the negotiating table to stop killing each other and start rebuilding their country. America could be proud of itself and of its president if we brought the Syrian civil war to an end rather than hurling more explosives into the ruins of yet another nation.

Dan Simpson, a former U.S. ambassador, is a columnist for the Post-Gazette (dsimpson@ post-gazette.com, 412-263-1976).