Should the U.S. set a big goal in Syria?
Daniel Byman argues that any intervention in Syria should actually accomplish something useful:
To be of any value, an intervention must end the bloodshed, or at least diminish it dramatically. Syria also must remain an intact state capable of policing its borders, stopping terrorism and providing services to its people. It should not fragment into a failed state, trade Assad for another dictator or become a pawn of foreign powers such as Iran.
Bernard Finel isn't convinced:
Bymanâ??s argument is, essentially, if you canâ??t fix it completely and forever, then you shouldnâ??t do anything. I think this is precisely wrong. Bymanâ??s argument is exactly the sort of logic that got us a massive escalation in Afghanistan. If you insist that any use of the military must achieve maximalist goals, then you inevitably end up with recommendations for massive interventions, state-building, and the like.Instead, we need to be thinking about limited objectives and limited means. There are three reasons:
(1) While raising the bar on intervention may seem cautious, it really isnâ??t. It forces policy discussions into an all-or-nothing logic, when in the final analysis neither one is acceptable. The more we talk about massive intervention as the only option, the more likely that becomes because as the violence continues in Syria, pressure to â??do somethingâ? will mount. Some people argue â??all or nothingâ? because they think â??allâ? is too much and so wonâ??t happen, and the result will be â??nothing.â? That is a dangerous game.
I've been critical of the maximalist goals set in Afghanistan and I think there is something to Finel's analysis here. One immediate problem, however, is how the U.S. will justify an intervention. I think it's very difficult to argue - as Finel does - that a "limited" intervention is acceptable if the stated goal of U.S. policy is the protection of Syrian lives. That's because it's not remotely clear that arming Syrian rebels or bombing Syrian tanks will result, over the medium term, in fewer Syrians being killed. It's not a "maximalist" argument to say that an intervention staged on the grounds of saving human life should actually result in the saving of human lives.
You can argue for a limited intervention, however, on realpolitik grounds. It would go something like this: we don't particularly like the Syrian regime and think that toppling it, or tying it down in a bloody insurgency, would advance U.S. interests in isolating Iran. Therefore, irrespective of the harm done to the Syrian people, we will intervene to give the rebels a fighting chance.
There are problems with this course of action as well - particularly in creating an Afghanistan redux, where the forces we empower turn around and make big problems for us several years down the road. For instance, should we be encouraged that guns are flowing into Syria from Sunni strongholds in Iraq that were home to al-Qaeda in Iraq? There is something of a blase attitude about this in much of the "do something" talk about Syria, but it's worth thinking about.
(AP Photo)
