Should we worry that the Saudis are arming the Syrian opposition?
Jonathan Schanzer laments the fact that the Saudis are arming the Syrian opposition:
The last time the Saudis decided they had a moral obligation to scuttle Russian policies, they gave birth to a generation of jihadi fighters in Afghanistan who are still wreaking havoc three decades later...Of course, a Saudi-led insurgency would not be in the cards if the Obama administration were not so opposed to empowering the opposition. But the longer Obama waits and the deeper the humanitarian crisis worsens, the more likely it becomes that other actors will tip the balance in Syria. Using history as a guide, none would be more dangerous than Saudi Arabia.
The Iranians and Russians may yet pay a price for propping up Assad in Syria. But if the Saudis have their way, the world may pay a price too.
Certainly the precedent here is pretty worrisome, but this reasoning doesn't sound right to me. First, weapons are fungible. A U.S. decision to send weapons into Syria isn't suddenly going to deprive potential jihadists and radicals of arms - it's going to make weapons easier to procure. Second, is there really such a neat distinction in the opposition between radical forces of the kind the Saudis would promote and the opposition groups the U.S. wants to see empowered? It seems that, at a minimum, there is going to be some overlap between the two. Nor is it clear that the U.S. is going to be in a position to distinguish who gets weapons and who doesn't once the supply chain starts rolling (see point one).
Schanzer makes an even more debatable point here:
The Saudis know how to procure and move weapons, and they have no shortage of cash. If Riyadh wants to arm the opposition, armed it shall be. And those who receive the weapons will likely be at least amenable to the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam that has spawned dangerous Islamist movements worldwide.
So those who receive U.S. weapons would be amenable to Jeffersonian democracy? Really? To borrow a phrase, guns don't make jihadists. If someone is predisposed to radicalism, does it really matter where they're getting their weapons from?
(AP Photo)
