There are the Friends of Syria, and there are the Friends of the Syrian Regime. The former, a large group-the United States, the Europeans and the bulk of Arab governments-is casting about for a way to end the Assad regime's assault on its own people. In their ranks there is irresolution and endless talk about the complications and the uniqueness of the Syrian case.
No such uncertainty detains the Friends of the Syrian Regime-Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and to a lesser extent China. In this camp, there is a will to prevail, a knowledge of the stakes in this cruel contest, and material assistance for the Damascus dictatorship.
In the face of the barbarism unleashed on the helpless people of Homs, the Friends of Syria squirm and hope to be delivered from any meaningful burdens. Still, they are meeting Friday in Tunis to discuss their options. But Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad needn't worry. The Tunisian hosts themselves proclaimed that this convocation held on their soil precluded a decision in favor of foreign military intervention.
Syria is not Libya, the mantra goes, especially in Washington. The provision of arms to the Syrian opposition is "premature," Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently stated. We don't know the Syrian opposition, another alibi has it-they are of uncertain provenance and are internally divided. Our weapons could end up in the wrong hands, and besides, we would be "militarizing" this conflict.
Those speaking in such ways seem to overlook the disparity in firepower between the Damascus ruler with his tanks and artillery, and the civilian population aided by defectors who had their fill with official terror.
The borders of Syria offer another exculpation for passivity. Look at the map, say the naysayers. Syria is bordered by Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Turkey and Israel. Intervention here is certain to become a regional affair.
Grant the Syrians sympathy, their struggle unfolds in the midst of an American presidential contest. And the incumbent has his lines at the ready for his acceptance speech in Charlotte, N.C. He's done what he had promised during his first presidential run, shutting down the war in Iraq and ending the American presence. This sure applause line precludes the acceptance of a new burden just on the other side of the Syria-Iraq frontier.
The silence of President Obama on the matter of Syria reveals the general retreat of American power in the Middle East. In Istanbul some days ago, a Turkish intellectual and political writer put the matter starkly to me: We don't think and talk much about America these days, he said.
Yet the tortured dissertations on the uniqueness of Syria's strategic landscape are in fact proofs for why we must thwart the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah nexus. Topple the Syrian dictatorship and the access of Iran to the Mediterranean is severed, leaving the brigands of Hamas and Hezbollah scrambling for a new way. The democracies would demonstrate that regimes of plunder and cruelty, perpetrators of terror, have been cut down to size.
