David Rothkopf
By David Rothkopf
The reason it is now commonly assumed that it’s only a matter of time before the United States and its allies launch an attack against the Syrian regime is that President Bashar Al Assad has left President Barack Obama with no other choice. He must either attack or lose what little remaining influence he might have both in the Middle East and with potential enemies and friends worldwide.
While the rhetoric around the attack has been — and will continue to be — about the intolerability of chemical weapons, that is hardly the only reason the United States will finally take action. Given that, according to reports like those in Tuesday’s Washington Post, the US and allied military initiative is almost certainly to be both brief and narrow in scope — and therefore of limited effect as a deterrent against future WMD use — one can only conclude that the effort must also serve another purpose.
The pending action is as much intended to protect the president’s credibility as the people of Syria.
Months ago, Obama declared the existence of a “red line” with respect to the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons. Then, despite repeated evidence that such weapons had been used, Obama failed to act as he had implied that he would. As the red line faded, so too did his standing.
Now, with the evidence surrounding the most recent attack, in Damascus, as strong as it is and the death toll significantly higher than in past attacks, were he not to act, the president might as well publicly acknowledge that the United States is accepting a role in the balcony of the theatre of global affairs, as a spectator and no longer a player.
If you doubt this and feel that the US and allied action is based on the principle of humanitarian relief, you need only note that while the estimated toll from this recent attack, according to Doctors Without Borders, is 355, the total death toll from Syria’s civil war has now likely exceeded 100,000. Principle has nothing to do with this. Surely it makes no difference to the families and friends of the Syrian dead whether their loved ones die from chemical weapons, bullets, bombs or disease. The idea that somehow chemical weapons are a special prohibited category of ways by which a government can murder its own people rings as hollow as a crypt.
We have clearly waited too long to act in Syria. The international community bears at least some responsibility for the losses associated with this most recent gas attack, because in failing to respond to prior attacks it sent a message to Assad that such abuses would be tolerated. (Russia’s role as enabler and protector of Assad has earned it a much greater share of culpability.)
And while our guilt over the massive death toll and the suffering caused by the broader humanitarian crisis in Syria is clear, we’ve done precious little to effectively abate it.
It is remarkable how little shame there is among US officials, such that even the paltry commitments we made to assist those fighting the criminal regime in Damascus — including providing light weapons and equipment support — have yet to make their way to the conflict zone.
Such massive attacks as those that took place during the two and a half months of the 1999 campaign are impossible to imagine in the current situation given the will of the United States and its allies.
Based on current reports, it seems that when it comes to planning for the limited use of force in this instance, more emphasis has been placed on “limits” than on “use of force.” This will be a problem if the message to Assad is not clearly that the cost of using WMDs is so high that it must be avoided in future.
One clear lesson of this whole sorry episode is that it’s essential for the international community to set clear standards for the early identification of and response to atrocities.
While it is impossible to set a threshold number of casualties that should trigger action, suffice it to say that 100,000 is too many to die before effective action is taken.
Leaders or insurgents who wantonly slaughter civilians need to know that they will instantly and assuredly become international pariahs, be prosecuted for their crimes, not be acknowledged as leaders, and, should they claim or seek to retain high office, see their governments suffer severe sanctions. Military protocols can be just as clear: The systems and military or paramilitary units that carry out such crimes are legitimate targets, as are the assets that protect them and the economic entities that support them.
Responses also must be severe enough that any would-be war criminal realises that the cost of such behaviour is far too high to undertake. Empty gestures that do more to create the illusion of action than they do to truly deter future wrongdoing — like brief fusillades of cruise missiles — must be avoided.
The current initiative and any undertaking in the foreseeable future in Syria certainly will not have regime change as a goal. Not only is enforcing regime change considered too messy, but the alternatives to Assad are either too unclear or equally as odious. Still, we need to be honest with ourselves: If humanitarian relief is the goal and the regime is a repeated mass abuser of its people, it must go. We will have to come to terms with the possibility of a successor regime we don’t much like sooner or later.
Given the lessons of Syria to date, we should be thinking ahead and crafting what we want a strong international message to that new regime to look like, especially if we want to ensure that it doesn’t pose the same kind of destabilising threat as Assad or this war.
If But if the message we send is too little, too late — as may well be the case with the upcoming attack — we are right to fear transition, because any successor government could also become a threat. In such a case, we may well have to accept the current horrors of Syria indefinitely.
This is the cost of having an international system that, despite the lessons of history, lacks the will or the foresight to have created clear, dependable, potent mechanisms for identifying evolving atrocities and then immediately and assuredly penalising those who undertake them.
Any system of law that protects state actors — or those who cloak themselves in the protections of acting on behalf of a nation state, to the degree ours still does — is fundamentally and profoundly flawed.
Finally, in the case of Syria, we must also consider what the “too little, too late” message sends to others in the region who might consider violating the most important norms of international behaviour — like the Iranians with regard to their nuclear weapons development program — if they assume they can act with impunity with very few real limitations.
Alternatively, if we recognise that early, effective, coordinated, targeted, tough international responses can be a worthwhile investment and a more humane approach to managing global affairs, perhaps there’s still time to make a useful lesson out of the carnage of Syria.
In any event, it must make us hope that our efforts going forward in Syria are not limited to what seems likely to amount to little more than a military gesture, made via cruise missile.
WP-BLOOMBERG
By David Rothkopf
The reason it is now commonly assumed that it’s only a matter of time before the United States and its allies launch an attack against the Syrian regime is that President Bashar Al Assad has left President Barack Obama with no other choice. He must either attack or lose what little remaining influence he might have both in the Middle East and with potential enemies and friends worldwide.
While the rhetoric around the attack has been — and will continue to be — about the intolerability of chemical weapons, that is hardly the only reason the United States will finally take action. Given that, according to reports like those in Tuesday’s Washington Post, the US and allied military initiative is almost certainly to be both brief and narrow in scope — and therefore of limited effect as a deterrent against future WMD use — one can only conclude that the effort must also serve another purpose.
The pending action is as much intended to protect the president’s credibility as the people of Syria.
Months ago, Obama declared the existence of a “red line” with respect to the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons. Then, despite repeated evidence that such weapons had been used, Obama failed to act as he had implied that he would. As the red line faded, so too did his standing.
Now, with the evidence surrounding the most recent attack, in Damascus, as strong as it is and the death toll significantly higher than in past attacks, were he not to act, the president might as well publicly acknowledge that the United States is accepting a role in the balcony of the theatre of global affairs, as a spectator and no longer a player.
If you doubt this and feel that the US and allied action is based on the principle of humanitarian relief, you need only note that while the estimated toll from this recent attack, according to Doctors Without Borders, is 355, the total death toll from Syria’s civil war has now likely exceeded 100,000. Principle has nothing to do with this. Surely it makes no difference to the families and friends of the Syrian dead whether their loved ones die from chemical weapons, bullets, bombs or disease. The idea that somehow chemical weapons are a special prohibited category of ways by which a government can murder its own people rings as hollow as a crypt.
We have clearly waited too long to act in Syria. The international community bears at least some responsibility for the losses associated with this most recent gas attack, because in failing to respond to prior attacks it sent a message to Assad that such abuses would be tolerated. (Russia’s role as enabler and protector of Assad has earned it a much greater share of culpability.)
And while our guilt over the massive death toll and the suffering caused by the broader humanitarian crisis in Syria is clear, we’ve done precious little to effectively abate it.
It is remarkable how little shame there is among US officials, such that even the paltry commitments we made to assist those fighting the criminal regime in Damascus — including providing light weapons and equipment support — have yet to make their way to the conflict zone.
Such massive attacks as those that took place during the two and a half months of the 1999 campaign are impossible to imagine in the current situation given the will of the United States and its allies.
Based on current reports, it seems that when it comes to planning for the limited use of force in this instance, more emphasis has been placed on “limits” than on “use of force.” This will be a problem if the message to Assad is not clearly that the cost of using WMDs is so high that it must be avoided in future.
One clear lesson of this whole sorry episode is that it’s essential for the international community to set clear standards for the early identification of and response to atrocities.
While it is impossible to set a threshold number of casualties that should trigger action, suffice it to say that 100,000 is too many to die before effective action is taken.
Leaders or insurgents who wantonly slaughter civilians need to know that they will instantly and assuredly become international pariahs, be prosecuted for their crimes, not be acknowledged as leaders, and, should they claim or seek to retain high office, see their governments suffer severe sanctions. Military protocols can be just as clear: The systems and military or paramilitary units that carry out such crimes are legitimate targets, as are the assets that protect them and the economic entities that support them.
Responses also must be severe enough that any would-be war criminal realises that the cost of such behaviour is far too high to undertake. Empty gestures that do more to create the illusion of action than they do to truly deter future wrongdoing — like brief fusillades of cruise missiles — must be avoided.
The current initiative and any undertaking in the foreseeable future in Syria certainly will not have regime change as a goal. Not only is enforcing regime change considered too messy, but the alternatives to Assad are either too unclear or equally as odious. Still, we need to be honest with ourselves: If humanitarian relief is the goal and the regime is a repeated mass abuser of its people, it must go. We will have to come to terms with the possibility of a successor regime we don’t much like sooner or later.
Given the lessons of Syria to date, we should be thinking ahead and crafting what we want a strong international message to that new regime to look like, especially if we want to ensure that it doesn’t pose the same kind of destabilising threat as Assad or this war.
If But if the message we send is too little, too late — as may well be the case with the upcoming attack — we are right to fear transition, because any successor government could also become a threat. In such a case, we may well have to accept the current horrors of Syria indefinitely.
This is the cost of having an international system that, despite the lessons of history, lacks the will or the foresight to have created clear, dependable, potent mechanisms for identifying evolving atrocities and then immediately and assuredly penalising those who undertake them.
Any system of law that protects state actors — or those who cloak themselves in the protections of acting on behalf of a nation state, to the degree ours still does — is fundamentally and profoundly flawed.
Finally, in the case of Syria, we must also consider what the “too little, too late” message sends to others in the region who might consider violating the most important norms of international behaviour — like the Iranians with regard to their nuclear weapons development program — if they assume they can act with impunity with very few real limitations.
Alternatively, if we recognise that early, effective, coordinated, targeted, tough international responses can be a worthwhile investment and a more humane approach to managing global affairs, perhaps there’s still time to make a useful lesson out of the carnage of Syria.
In any event, it must make us hope that our efforts going forward in Syria are not limited to what seems likely to amount to little more than a military gesture, made via cruise missile.
WP-BLOOMBERG
