America is backing away from war in Syria. Considering the massive amount of casualties on the side that used to be "the Arab Spring" it's hard to say this is a good thing. Our US government as well as media from MS-NBC to FOX all seem to be relieved that America has avoided a war... except whether we are involved or not, there is plenty of war going on there, and there has been for a long time.
At risk of my liberal and centrist credentials, such as they are, I'm having a hard time not siding with McCain on this one. If we had imposed a "no fly" and "no tank" zone a year ago, this "war" would have been over long ago.
Prior to that, had we somehow established influence and a cooperative relationship with Assad (who before his gig as "dictator" and "hereditary enemy of the west" was a mild mannered doctor working in the UK) Syria could have avoided the Arab Spring by already liberalizing before the Twitter revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. His ascent to tyrant was probably just a matter of being in the wrong family at the wrong time, or maybe the problem was that the US State Dept was asleep (which happens when you are in bed with Israel too long). If only we had befriended a natural friend long ago and brought Syria towards a more western orientation. But we missed our chance. Blame APAC for that, I guess.
Currently the balance of military power obviously favors Assad's troops. If we want to get him negotiating with his enemies we need to even that balance. The most obvious way to do this would be by involving ourselves there in a way similar to our involvement in Libya; through use of US air power to take out the government's heavy weapons and air power. The risks to American troops are obvious, but they are no more obvious than the risks to our air forces in Bosnia a few decades ago. The rationale for intervention is exactly the same.
Another solution: We used to be a can-do nation, but in the last decades America has taken to outsourcing the hard work. Why not concede our utter laziness in military matters as well? What if we outsourced the necessary air campaign to defected Syrian or other Arab pilots? Syrians who know how to fly Russian fighters should be able to gain a quick competency in flying ours. God knows we've also got plenty of our planes in the region already, under control of our dubious allies in the Arab world. We also have plenty of trained pilots of our aircraft in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, if Syrian defectors can't fill out the necessary numbers. Putting F-16s in the hands of Assad's enemy empowers them a lot more than sending them crates of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles for terrorists later get their hands on later. The benefit in this outsourcing is that it "Vietnamizes" the war, before the first American boot goes on or over the ground over there. Also, Arab forces would be, by definition, much less objectionable to Arabs than American Infidel invaders.
In an odd way that he doesn't mean, Putin is right in saying that nations do not have the right to interfere in the internal affairs of other nations. In fact, when states are engaging in mass murder against their own citizens, other nations don't have a right to interfere, they have an obligation. The Security Council is supposed to be the mechanism for such interventions, but it is broken. That's where McCain and a reluctant Obama come in.
One thing that bugs me about Obama's current conception of
intervention is it's limited scope. Obama wants to intervene in a small way to teach a small lesson about "norms." He doesn't want to change the game. In this McCain is on the money. Wasting arms and killing enlisted men, even if they are draftees to your enemy's military, shouldn't be to reassert norms to no effect. If you are going to go to war, small war purpetuated over a long time isn't the way to go, unless you are an arms manufacturer or other war profiteer. But Obama is not Cheney. So let's go big or don't go. Where is the "the Powell Doctrine" when you need it?
In the absence of successful peace talks ending the Syrian civil war, the only real alternative for Syrian peace seems to be a Pax Americana. Ok, so lets pretend we aren't American exceptionalists. But when the kids are bawling and battling, the old man eventually sets down his beer and threatens to knock both boys heads together so he can hear his TV. If the Security Council can't Dad-up, somebody needs to. Putin, we are willing to let you do this. But if not, let's let Obama do the right thing, or let the Arab nations put this war to bed.
Knocking heads together unless the combatants stop fighting is much better than the alternative: Dad saying, "fight it out, and the winner fights me!"
