Can things get worse in Syria
Elliott Abrams argues that whatever follows the Assad regime won't be worse:
What kind of Syria might follow the fall of the Assad regime? For many years, a significant percentage of American and Israeli military officers thought things would get worse. A new regime would be dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, many saidâ??including some of the highest-ranking American generals.I have always thought this was a foolish position, given what Assadâ??s Syria was actually doing. How much worse could things get than a regime that was Iranâ??s only Arab ally, gave Iran a port on the Mediterranean and a border with Israel (through Hezbollah in Lebanon), helped Iran arm Hezbollah to the teeth, built a nuclear reactor with North Korean help, brought jihadis to Iraq to kill American soldiers, and viciously repressed the Syrian people. Moreover, the notion that the Muslim Brotherhood would rule after Assad was just that, a notion, never supported with hard evidence about their level of internal support.
This seems a tad glib - things can always be worse! For instance, Syria could devolve into a civil war, with the potential for instability to spread to her neighbors and for another off-shoot of al-Qaeda to take root in the country. That said, there's no question that the current regime in Syria is loathsome and the U.S. shouldn't be going out of its way to prop them up or offer them support (as it is doing in Bahrain). At the same time, it's difficult to see what the U.S. could do to alter Syria's internal dynamics to bring forces we favor into power. Sanctions against the regime are fine - but I don't think they're likely to topple Assad.
(AP Photo)
