Portraits of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. Credit: james_gordon_losangeles/CC by 2.0

By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Aug 30 2013 (IPS)

U.S. President Barack Obama indicated Friday he would soon conduct what he called “very limited” military action against Syria to punish its alleged use of chemical weapons which, according to the White House, killed more than 1,400 people in several Damascus suburbs last week.

At a brief press appearance, Obama insisted that he still was consulting with lawmakers on Capitol Hill and foreign leaders and had not yet made a “final decision about various actions that might be taken” to enforce the international norm against the use of chemical weapons. The options he was considering “would be very limited and would not involve a long-term commitment or a major operation,” he said, and would “in no event…involve boots on the ground.”

“But we are looking at the possibility of a limited, narrow act that would help make sure that not only Syria, but others around the world, understands that the international community cares about maintaining this chemical weapons ban and norm,” he said, stressing that U.S. “national security interests” were at stake.

Obama spoke shortly after his secretary of state, John Kerry, read a lengthy statement summarising the unclassified evidence about the alleged attack and the Syrian government’s responsibility for it and stressing the importance of Washington and the world’s reaction.

Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons not only threatens international arms-limitations accords and potentially the security of neighbouring countries, notably Israel, Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon, according to Kerry, but it also “matters deeply to the credibility and the future interests of the United States of America and our allies.”

“It is directly related to our credibility and whether countries still believe the United States when it says something. They are watching to see if Syria can get away with it because then maybe they too can put the world at greater risk,” he said, explicitly citing Iran, Hezbollah and Iran.

“It is about whether Iran, which itself has been a victim of chemical weapons attacks, will now feel emboldened in the absence of action to obtain nuclear weapons. It is about Hezbollah, and North Korea, and every terrorist group or dictator that might ever again contemplate the use of weapons of mass destruction.”

As Kerry was speaking, the White House issued a four-page briefing paper apparently cleared by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) about the alleged Aug. 21 attack. It concluded “with high confidence” – one level short of “confirmation” – that the Syrian government was responsible and that it was “highly unlikely” that opposition forces could have carried it out.

The paper said U.S. intelligence had intercepted communications involving a senior official who confirmed the regime had used chemical weapons and was concerned with the U.N. inspectors in the country at the time finding evidence. It also charged that in subsequent days Syrian artillery greatly intensified its shelling of the affected neighbourhood in an effort to cover up the evidence.

The paper, which was based on “human, signals, and geo-spatial intelligence, as well as a significant body of open source reporting”, including 100 videos, made what it called a “preliminary” assessment of 1,429 people killed in the attack, including at least 426 children.

Friday’s developments followed multiple setbacks to Obama’s efforts to rally support here and overseas for any military action he may undertake and which some observers believe could come as soon as Saturday, when U.N. inspectors are expected to leave Syria and report back to the world body.

While the Arab League earlier this week denounced Syria for the alleged attack, it did not endorse military reprisals, calling instead for the “Syrian regime [to be held] fully responsible.”

And, in a vote Thursday evening that stunned the administration, the British Parliament rejected a watered-down motion by Prime Minister David Cameron calling for consideration of international military action on humanitarian grounds in response to the chemical attack.

According to commentators, the vote – which means that, for the first time in the post-Cold War era, Britain is unlikely to join the U.S. as part of a military “coalition of the willing” – was attributed in large part to the legacy of distrust, especially about Washington’s misuse of intelligence, left by the George W. Bush administration in its drive to war in Iraq ten years ago.

That leaves France and Turkey as the only U.S. allies that have said they are willing to take action along with Washington, although some U.S. officials said Friday they believed more countries would join.

Back home, meanwhile, lawmakers, including some who were briefed by top administration officials in a 90-minute telephone conference call Thursday evening, appeared deeply divided both on the strategic wisdom of the kind of “limited” attack that Obama appears to be planning for and on whether he should be required to seek Congressional authorisation before an attack takes place.

More than 160 members have signed letters calling for Obama to ask Congress for authorisation. Particularly notable were statements issued over the past two days by the far-right senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe, opposing any military action due to the “financial crisis in our military”.

Democrats have also voiced concern that even the “very limited” actions Obama is considering – reportedly “stand-off” strikes by ship-based cruise missiles against selected military targets – could create a “slippery slope” toward greater involvement in Syria’s civil war, particularly if Assad or his allies retaliate in some way, either by escalating the war or striking out against possible targets in other countries, notably Lebanon or Iraq both of which have seen an upswing in sectarian violence.

Still, faced with the shocking videos of the aftermath of last week’s alleged attack, an otherwise war-weary public appeared to be moving more in favour of military action, so long as it was indeed limited. Thirty-one percent of respondents in a poll taken earlier this week agreed with the proposition that the U.S. has a responsibility to prevent Syria from using chemical weapons.

In an NBC poll released Friday, 42 percent said the United States should take military actions against Syria’s government if it used chemical weapons against its citizens, while 50 percent said it should not. But when asked if the military action was limited to air strikes by cruise missiles against Syrian military units and infrastructure used for chemical warfare, 50 percent agreed, while 44 percent disagreed. Nearly 80 percent of respondents said Obama should be required to gain Congressional approval before taking military action.

In his remarks, Obama stressed both his understanding for what he called a “certain suspicion of any military action post-Iraq”.

“My preference obviously would have been that the international community already acted forcefully,” he said. “But what we have seen so far at least is an incapacity at this point for the [U.N.] Security Council to move forward in the face of a clear violation of international norms.”

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has repeatedly said that the Syrian crisis can be solved only politically. Credit: IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 30 2013 (IPS)

If and when the United States launches a military attack on Syria, one of the biggest political losers would be the United Nations.

The administration of President Barack Obama will not only bypass the Security Council, the only body mandated to declare war and peace, but also rebuff Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who has repeatedly said the Syrian crisis can be resolved only politically, not militarily, even as he continues to underscore the importance of the U.N. charter.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters Friday, “We believe in the United Nations,” but still complained the U.N. investigative team in Syria is not mandated to confirm who used the chemical weapons, only whether or not they were used.

“The U.N. cannot tell anything…we don’t already know,” Kerry added.

U.N. spokesperson Martin Nesiry told reporters Friday the focus is on completing the analysis of the incident of Aug. 21.

“Everybody concerned, including the Syrian authorities, agreed that this should be a priority, that there should be the focus on this, but I have just made clear that the team will be returning to continue its work on those other incidents to be able to complete a final report.”"If [the ICC] decided that crimes against humanity had been committed, the entire political landscape would change."
-- Jonathan Granoff

The military attack on Syria will also prove once again the ineffectiveness and irrelevance of the 15-member Security Council, which has remained deadlocked because of threatened vetoes by Russia and China, who have refused to endorse the impending U.S. invasion.

But the council, the most powerful organ in the world body, could have still played a relatively significant role by urging the International Criminal Court (ICC) to move against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, says Jonathan Granoff, president of the Global Security Institute.

“There would be a different political dynamic if the ICC were to determine that sufficient evidence for a prosecution exists,” he added.

“If it decided that crimes against humanity had been committed, the entire political landscape would change,” said Granoff, who is also an adjunct professor in international law at the Widener University School of Law.

He told IPS the use of chemical weapons is a war crime within the terms of the ICC Statute only if they are used in an international armed conflict, which the conflict in Syria is not. However, their use is illegal as a war crime if intentionally directed against a civilian population in a non-international armed conflict.

Such a crime can be prosecuted by the ICC, said Granoff.

Syria is not a member of the ICC nor is it a party to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), but for the ICC to formally investigate allegations of criminal conduct, such as mass indiscriminate killings or the use of chemical weapons, the Security Council could “refer” Syria, or the rebels, or both, to the Court.

References by the Security Council to the court have been made in the recent past – including Darfur, Sudan in 2005, and Libya in 2011.

Frank Jannuzi, deputy executive director of Amnesty International USA, believes the best course of action would be for the United Nations to complete its investigation into this latest outrage and for the Security Council to refer all evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity from this and other incidents to the ICC.

“Those responsible must be brought to justice. The walls of impunity must come down,” he said.

It is also not too late for the Security Council to consider other measures, including targeted economic sanctions and the deployment of international human rights monitors, to reduce the ripping apart of families and the bloodshed of this protracted conflict.

Targeted sanctions (namely a freeze on the assets of President Bashar al-Assad and others who may be involved in ordering or perpetrating crimes under international law), a referral of the situation in Syria to the ICC and the deployment of international human rights monitors would help contribute to conditions for fruitful negotiations aimed at a solution that respects the human rights of all Syrians, he declared.

Without Security Council authorisation, coercive military intervention in Syria would not be legal, Granoff told IPS.

Since the fighting in Syria is not threatening another country, the circumstance of self-defence, which would allow the immediate use of force against Syria by the threatened country without approval of the Security Council, is not applicable.

The actions of the Assad regime are horrible, but international law should not be set aside with impunity, he said, pointing out that alternative routes exist.

Mass atrocities are not new for the Assad regime. The U.N. Human Rights Commissioner, Navi Pillay, as early as December 2011, called for the ICC to investigate mass killings. She was correct then, he noted.

It is worth noting, said Granoff, that she has recently called for ICC investigations of rebel slaughters as well. There is firm legal foundation for ICC involvement.

Although Syria is not a party to the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, prohibiting the use of chemical weapons, that does not matter, said Granoff.

Customary international law prohibits the use of such weapons of indiscriminate effect generally, and Syria would be responsible, especially if they were used against civilian populations regardless of whether they are party to the Treaty, he added.

The legal hurdles to such a reasonable course of action are not as high as the political ones.

However, advancing world security through the rule of law will provide much greater benefit than such short-term political posturing that does little to stop the brutality the people of Syria are experiencing, Granoff said.

One problem of a referral to the court is that if it commences prosecuting, it might make the horse-trading negotiations between the various rebel groups and the Assad regime difficult. If either faces prosecution in the event of losing militarily it could diminish incentives to achieve peace, he added.

“The status quo is worse than this risk. It is certainly preferable to risking very dangerous unintended consequences of an illegal military strike now,” Granoff declared.

A U.S. strike on Syria could be launched from navy destroyers in the Mediterranean. Credit: Official US Navy Imagery/CC by 2.0

By Lawrence Wilkerson
WASHINGTON, Aug 30 2013 (IPS)

Now that we have heard Secretary of State John Kerry’s emotional plea for us to believe the still rather ambiguous intelligence on chemical weapons use in Syria, there are far more substantive answers to be sought from the Obama administration.

Putting aside the remaining ambiguities as well as all the experience those of us over 60 years old have with any administration’s unequivocal assurances preceding its use of military force, the basic context surrounding that use against Syria still requires intense analysis.

Forget about those prematurely-born babies stripped from their cradles in the maternity wards in Kuwait, later demonstrated as a figment of war advocates’ vivid imaginations; forget about the utter certainty with which every principal in the G. W. Bush administration assured Americans of Saddam Hussein’s WMD; and forget about for a moment John Kerry’s overly emotional remarks about Syria. Just examine some pertinent facts.

First, tens of thousands of North Koreans have died from hunger imposed by at least two of the latest DPRK dictators.  Is dying of hunger somehow better than dying of chemicals?  Or might it be that the DPRK has no oil and no Israel?  Of course, there are other examples of dastardly dictators and dying thousands; so where does one draw the line of death in future?

Second, how does one surgically strike Syria, as the Obama administration asserts it wishes to do?  That is, to use military force without becoming a participant in the ongoing conflict, simply to send a signal that chemical weapons use will not be tolerated?

Kosovo is a lousy example – where the promised three-days-of-bombing-and-the-dictator-will-cave turned into 78 long days and a credible threat of ground forces before he actually did cave. Not to mention all the death and destruction wrought by Serbia while much the same was being hurled at it.

Libya is a lousy example because Libya is now a haven for al-Qaeda and next-door-neighbour Mali is destabilised because of it.  Libya itself is hardly stable – except in the eyes of those who no longer want to look at it. Of course the light sweet crude seems to be getting out and to the right people…

Egypt is dissolving; Iraq is returning to civil war; Lebanon is becoming destabilised by the refugees pouring into it from Syria; Jordan is looking dicey having absorbed countless Iraqis from that country’s war-caused diaspora and now taking on Syrians.

How are cruise missiles and bombs and whatever else we choose to send to Syria short of ground forces, going to ameliorate this mess?

Moreover, what do we do when President Bashar al-Assad ignores our missiles and bombs and continues right on with his war?  Even, perhaps, uses chemical weapons to do so? Hit him again? Remember, we are not going to become participants in the civil war, we are not going to own Syria.

The man or woman who believes that he or she can be surgical with military force is an utter fool. No plan survives first contact with the enemy. No use of military force is surgical. It is blunt, unforgiving, tending to produce results and effects never dreamt of by the user. In for a penny, in for a trillion.

Go ahead, President Obama. Strike that Syrian tarbaby. If your hands, feet, and head are not eventually stuck in its brutal embrace – if you stop, reconsider, back out and are allowed to get away with it – what have you accomplished?  Preserving your credibility?

U.S. credibility in this part of the world is shot to hell already – largely by the catastrophic invasion of Iraq (not Obama’s fault, to be sure; but just as surely, America’s fault – foreigners do not differentiate presidents.) Credibility has been further shredded by continued drone strikes, by a failure to take any actions against the flow of arms from Saudi Arabia into Syria; by tacit support of the Saudi reinforcement of the dictatorship in Bahrain; and most powerfully by the failure to remain balanced – and therefore of some use – in the issue of Israel and Palestine.

When I survey that long, sunken black granite wall near the Lincoln Memorial and consider the over 58,000 names etched on it, and the two and a half million Vietnamese who, if they had such a wall, would be similarly inscribed, I get angry.

I know that President Johnson’s team, notably his national security advisor, McGeorge Bundy, assured the President that U.S. prestige was at stake in Vietnam. LBJ’s team knew they could not win the war, but they thought they could preserve U.S. prestige.

I just wish they had had to tell that to the families of every name on that wall – and every Vietnamese who would be on that country’s wall if it had one: you all died for prestige.

*Lawrence Wilkerson served 31 years in the U.S. Army infantry. His last position in government was as secretary of state Colin Powell’s chief of staff. He currently teaches government and public policy at the College of William and Mary.

The United States cannot legally intervene militarily in Syria without the backing of the United Nations Security Council. Credit: Bomoon Lee/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 28 2013 (IPS)

When the administration of President George W. Bush launched a military attack on Iraq in March 2003, it was nearly 18 months before Kofi Annan, then-U.N. secretary-general, described the invasion as “illegal” and in “violation of the U.N. charter” because the United States did not have Security Council authorisation.

But Annan paid a heavy political price for his words, recounts James A. Paul, who has closely monitored the United Nations for nearly 19 years as executive director of the New York-based Global Policy Forum. The Bush administration was so furious that Annan soon came under attack and virtually his entire senior team were driven out of their posts by U.S. pressure, he said.

Asked if current Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon would follow in Annan’s footsteps should the U.S. military attack Syria without the blessings of the Security Council, Paul told IPS that “however much international law is disregarded, we can expect Ban Ki-moon to act cautiously and say nothing of substance.”

“This is his own proclivity anyway, but he will also be looking over his shoulder and noting what happened to his predecessor,” Paul added.

As the administration of President Barack Obama has started beating the war drums, there is speculation that the United States may bypass the Security Council – primarily because any resolution invoking Chapter 7 of the U.N. charter, endorsing military action, is expected to be vetoed by Russia and possibly China.

A draft resolution on Syria, initiated by the United Kingdom, is currently circulating but may be shot down before it reaches a formal council meeting or is vetoed at a meeting.

A strong supporter of the beleaguered Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Russia has already exercised its veto three times, along with China, preventing sanctions against Damascus.

The United Nations also appears to be heading towards a political confrontation with the United States, which has already declared that Syria had used chemical weapons, upstaging a team of U.N. inspectors inside Syria still trying to establish the facts.

At a press conference in the Peace Palace in the Hague, the secretary-general said the use of chemical weapons by anyone, for any reasons, under any circumstances, would be an atrocious violation of international law."International law says that military action must be taken after a decision by the Security Council."
-- Lakhdar Brahimi

But it is essential to establish the facts, he said, taking a dig at the United States. “A United Nations investigation team is now on the ground to do just that,” he added.

Just days after the attacks, the team has collected valuable samples and interviewed victims and witnesses, but it needs time to do its job, Ban said. His request for more time comes amid reports from Washington that the United States has already asked Ban to withdraw his inspection team.

Paul told IPS the chemical weapons attack in Syria and the debates in the Security Council recall previous episodes when Washington sought backing for war. “Who can forget the presentation by [then-U.S. Secretary of State] Colin Powell to the council on Feb. 5, 2003, a presentation riddled with falsehoods, he later said he felt regret about?”

The leader of the U.N. inspection team in Iraq at that time, Hans Blix, has commented tellingly on the rush to war in Syria.

Recalling how the U.S. and the UK preempted the U.N. inspection process, he has warned that this time “we cannot rely on the self-interested pronouncements of powerful states and the facts must be considered dispassionately.” The United States is not the world’s policeman, Blix added.

At his press conference in the Hague, Ban implicitly called for Security Council, not unilateral, action against Syria, saying, “Let us adhere to the United Nations Charter.”

He said it was necessary to pursue all avenues to bring parties to the negotiating table and that the joint envoy of the United Nations and the Arab League, Lakhdar Brahimi, continues his efforts. Above all, he added, the Security Council must uphold its moral and political responsibilities under the U.N. Charter.

But at a press conference in Geneva, Brahimi was more forthright in stressing the primacy of the Security Council. “International law says that military action must be taken after a decision by the Security Council,” he said. “What will happen, then again, I don’t know.”

He tempered his comments by pointing out that “President Obama and the American administration are not known to be trigger-happy.”

Citing legal precedence, Paul told IPS the Syria situation under international law is clear: The U.N. Charter allows only two cases of military action against another state: in self-defence against an imminent attack and in response to a Security Council resolution.

Neither will apply in this case, because a resolution, if brought, would be vetoed, Paul predicted.

So Washington is reaching for other justifications and looking at past interventions for recycled rationales. One is the concept of moral policy and the related “just war” idea, promoted by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair in his famous speech in Chicago in defence of the Kosovo NATO bombings in 1999.

This dangerous approach enables powerful countries to attack others on the basis of supposedly ethical judgments, “judgments which we know are always rooted in their self-interest”, said Paul.

Another approach is the less appealing idea that military action is illegal but legitimate, proposed after Kosovo by a panel of jurists but widely regarded as dangerously vague and subjective.

Yet another rationale, currently more faddish, is the idea of “responsibility to protect” (R2P). It is the idea that if states fail to protect their citizens, the international community should act. But here, too, the ground is very shaky, Paul noted.

R2P, as spelled out in 2005, is vague and does not justify action outside U.N. authorisation. So Washington is in a pickle, worsened by the refusal of the Arab League to give regional justification for military action, he said.

Any talk about Security Council paralysis sidesteps the issue of the veto that, used as a threat, blocks council action on a nearly daily basis and is used prolifically by Washington and all other permanent members.

“More bombing will not solve Syria’s problems nor set in motion a new and more responsible government,” Paul declared. “It will only prolong the killing.”

In an echo of the tactics they used to promote U.S. intervention in the Balkans, Iraq and Libya, a familiar clutch of neo-conservatives published a letter Tuesday urging President Barack Obama to go far beyond limited military strikes against Syria in retaliation for its government’s alleged use last week of chemical weapons that reportedly killed hundreds of people.

Signed by 66 former government officials and “foreign policy experts” – almost all of them strongly pro-Israel neo-conservatives – the letter, which was released by the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), called for Washington “and other willing nations [to] consider direct military strikes against the pillars of the Assad regime” as part of more ambitious strategy to support “moderate” Syrian rebels and dissuade Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Any military action should aim to ensure that the government of President Bashar al-Assad will be unable to use chemical weapons and should deter or destroy its “airpower and other conventional military means of committing atrocities against civilian non-combatants,” according to the letter.

The letter’s most prominent signatories included several senior officials of the George W. Bush administration, such as his top Middle East aide, Elliott Abrams, former Undersecretary of Defence Eric Edelman and former Vice President Dick Cheney’s national security adviser, John Hannah, and was given a bipartisan gloss with the inclusion of former Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman and several liberal interventionist commentators identified with the Democratic party who signed previous statements by the FPI and its predecessor, the Project for a New American Century (PNAC).

The letter also called on Obama to “accelerate efforts to vet, train, and arm moderate elements of Syria’s armed opposition” to help them prevail against both Assad and growing Al Qaeda-affiliated or extremist factions. It was released amidst growing indications that the Obama administration, which Monday called the alleged attack a “moral obscenity”, is determined to take limited military action – most likely through cruise-missile strikes launched from naval vessels based in the eastern Mediterranean – against selected targets in Syria for up to three days, possibly as early as this weekend.

It is expected that Britain and France and possibly Turkey will also take part in operations under a NATO mandate and with the support of the Arab League which, meeting in Cairo Tuesday, blamed Syria for the attack and called for its perpetrators to be brought to justice.

Despite the fact that U.N. inspectors, who on Monday visited the site of the alleged attack outside Damascus and took blood and tissue samples from some victims, have not yet submitted their findings, administration officials said they had concluded that the attack did take place and that government forces were responsible.

At the White House Tuesday, spokesman Jay Carney said the administration will release a report detailing the basis for its conclusions later this week and that Obama was currently considering various options prepared by the Pentagon, although he also insisted that any action taken by the United States will not be intended to achieve “regime change” in Damascus.

That assurance will no doubt frustrate neo-conservatives, many of whom have long held the Assad dynasty in their sights and who  had hoped that the 2003 invasion of Iraq – which they promoted through organisations like PNAC, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and the Foundation for Defence of Democracy (FDD) – would lay the foundations for Assad’s ouster, too.

Indeed, a number of neo-conservatives, including signatories of the FPI letter, are insisting that U.S. action aim to end Assad’s regime.

One, Eliot Cohen, argued in a Washington Post op-ed Monday that “a bout of therapeutic bombing is an even more feckless course of action than a principled refusal to act altogether,” a point echoed on the Wall Street Journal‘s editorial page – a favourite neo-conservative forum – Tuesday.

Another signatory, Reuel Marc Gerecht, who promoted the Iraq war at AEI and is now based at FDD, called for a “devastating” attack targeting “elite military units, aircraft, armour and artillery; all weapons-depots; the myriad organisations of the secret police; the ruling elite’s residences; and other critical Alawite infrastructure” in a New York Times op-ed Tuesday.

Founded by two prominent neo-conservatives in 1997, Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan, PNAC published a series of letters and manifestos that helped shape the foreign policy trajectory, especially regarding the Middle East, of Bush’s first term. Among its charter members are eight men who held key posts under Bush, including Cheney; his chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby; Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz; Abrams and the Pentagon’s foreign policy chief, Peter Rodman.

In 1998, PNAC published letters favouring legislation adopting “regime change” as official U.S. policy toward Iraq that was eventually signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton. Nine days after 9/11, it published another letter to Bush signed by 41 policy analysts – virtually all neo-conservatives – that laid out an ambitious agenda for his “global war on terror”.

It insisted that failure to remove Iraq’s Saddam Hussein from power “will constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism.” It also urged that Bush “should consider appropriate measures of retaliation” against Iran and Syria if they refused to comply with demands that they cease support for Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

PNAC faded into oblivion by the beginning of Bush’s second term as the situation in Iraq deteriorated and neo-conservatives lost influence. In early 2009, however, Kagan and Kristol founded FPI and were joined as directors there by Edelman and Dan Senor, a former spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq.

In January 2011, FPI published a letter signed by 40 policy analysts, including more than a dozen former Bush administration officials, calling on Obama to press NATO to establish a no-fly zone over Libya and the country’s naval vessels.

By the following summer, it joined with FDD in calling for tough economic sanctions against Syria and the creation of no-fly or no-go zones in Syrian territory to protect civilians, and in December 2011, it released a letter signed by 58 individuals – most of whom also signed Tuesday’s letter – calling for military aid to opposition forces “whose political goals accord with U.S. national security interests”.

Among the more notable signatories of the most recent letter are French writer Bernard-Henri Levy, who played a key role in mobilising international support for the NATO intervention in Libya; Christian Right activist Gary Bauer, who, with Kristol, was a founding board member of the Emergency Committee for Israel; Bush political adviser Karl Rove; the former head of the Committee to Liberate Iraq, Randy Scheunemann; and former CPA chief, L. Paul Bremer, as well as Kagan and Kristol.

Surprisingly absent from the list were some of the most visible and controversial architects and supporters of the Iraq war and those who had previously associated themselves with PNAC or FPI, such as Cheney, Wolfowitz, Libby, former CIA director James Woolsey, and AEI’s Richard Perle, who chaired the Defence Policy Board under Rumsfeld.

The United States is debating whether to intervene militarily in Syria. Above, Syrian rebel forces. Credit: FreedomHouse/CC by 2.0

By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Aug 27 2013 (IPS)

While some kind of U.S. military action against Syria in the coming days appears increasingly inevitable, the debate over the why and how of such an attack has grown white hot here.

On one side, hawks, who span the political spectrum, argue that President Barack Obama’s credibility is at stake, especially now that Secretary of State John Kerry has publicly endorsed the case that the government of President Bashar Al-Assad must have been responsible for the alleged chemical attack on a Damascus suburb that was reported to have killed hundreds of people.

Just one year ago, Obama warned that the regime’s use of such weapons would cross a “red line” and constitute a “game-changer” that would force Washington to reassess its policy of not providing direct military aid to rebels and of avoiding military action of its own.

After U.S. intelligence confirmed earlier this year that government forces had on several occasions used limited quantities of chemical weapons against insurgents, the administration said it would begin providing arms to opposition forces, although rebels complain that nothing has yet materialised.

The hawks have further argued that U.S. military action is also necessary to demonstrate that the most deadly use of chemical weapons since the 1988 Halabja massacre by Iraqi forces against the Kurdish population there – a use of which the US. was fully aware but did not denounce at the time – will not go unpunished.

Military action should be “sufficiently large that it would underscore the message that chemical weapons as a weapon of mass destruction simply cannot be used with impunity,” said Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), told reporters in a teleconference Monday. “The audience here is not just the Syrian government.”

While the hawks, whose position is strongly backed by the governments of Britain, France, Gulf Arab kingdoms and Israel, clearly have the wind at their backs, the doves have not given up.

Remembering Iraq

Recalling the mistakes and distortions of U.S. intelligence in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq War, some argue that the administration is being too hasty in blaming the Syrian government. "The other side, not we, gets to decide when it ends."
-- Eliot Cohen

If it waits until United Nations inspectors, who visited the site of the alleged attack Monday, complete their work, the United States could at least persuade other governments that Washington is not short-circuiting a multilateral process as it did in Iraq.

Many also note that military action could launch an escalation that Washington will not necessarily be able to control, as noted by a prominent neo-conservative hawk, Eliot Cohen, in Monday’s Washington Post.

“Chess players who think one move ahead usually lose; so do presidents who think they can launch a day or two of strikes and then walk away with a win,” wrote Cohen, who served as counsellor to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. “The other side, not we, gets to decide when it ends.”

“What if [Obama] hurls cruise missiles at a few key targets, and Assad does nothing and says, ‘I’m still winning.’ What do you then?” asked Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (ret.), who served for 16 years as chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell. “Do you automatically escalate and go up to a no-fly zone and the challenges that entails, and what then if that doesn’t get [Assad’s] attention?

“This is fraught with tar-babiness,” he told IPS in a reference to an African-American folk fable about how Br’er Rabbit becomes stuck to a doll made of tar. “You stick in your hand, and you can’t get it out, so you then you stick in your other hand, and pretty soon you’re all tangled up all this mess – and for what?”

“Certainly there are more vital interests in Iran than in Syria,” he added. “You can’t negotiate with Iran if you start bombing Syria,” he said, a point echoed by the head of the National Iranian American Council, Trita Parsi.

“There is a real opportunity for successful diplomacy on the Iranian nuclear issue, but that opportunity will either be completely spoiled or undermined if the U.S. intervention in Syria puts the U.S. and Iran in direct combat with each other,” he told IPS. Humanitarian concerns and U.S. credibility should also be taken into account when considering intervention, he said.

Remembering Kosovo

Still, the likelihood of military action – almost certainly through the use of airpower since even the most aggressive hawks, such as Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham, have ruled out the commitment of ground troops – is being increasingly taken for granted here.

Lingering questions include whether Washington will first ask the United Nations Security Council to approve military action, despite the strong belief here that Russia, Assad’s most important international supporter and arms supplier, and China would veto such a resolution.

“Every time we bypass the council for fear of a Russian or Chinese veto, we drive a stake into the heart of collective security,” noted Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. “Long-term, that’s not in our interest.”

But the hawks, both inside the administration and out, are urging Obama to follow the precedent of NATO’s air campaign in 1999 against Serbia during the Kosovo War. In that case, President Bill Clinton ignored the U.N. and persuaded his NATO allies to endorse military intervention on humanitarian grounds.

The 78-day air war ultimately persuaded Yugoslav President Milosovic to withdraw his troops from most of Kosovo province, but not before NATO forces threatened to deploy ground troops, a threat that the Obama administration would very much like to avoid in the case of Syria.

While the administration is considered most likely to carry out “stand-off” strikes by cruise missiles launched from outside Syria’s territory to avoid its more formidable air-defence system and thus minimise the risk to U.S. pilots, there remains considerable debate as to what should be included in the target list.

Some hawks, including McCain and Graham, have called not only for Washington to bomb Syrian airfields and destroy its fleet of warplanes and helicopter and ballistic capabilities, but also to establish no-fly zones and safe areas for civilians and rebel forces to tilt the balance of power decisively against the Assad government. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, led by Saudi Arabia, have urged the same.

But others oppose such far-reaching measures, noting that the armed opposition appears increasingly dominated by radical Islamists, some of them affiliated with Al Qaeda, and that the aim of any military intervention should be not only to deter the future use of chemical weapons but also to prod Assad and the more moderate opposition forces into negotiations, as jointly proposed this spring by Moscow and Washington. In their view, any intervention should be more limited so as not to provoke Assad into escalating the conflict.

The United States should think twice before intervening military in Syria, says Robert Hunter. Credit: FreedomHouse/CC by 2.0

By Robert E. Hunter
WASHINGTON, Aug 26 2013 (IPS)

President Obama got it right. He was picked by U.S. voters to put the nation’s interests first – not those of any ally, any member of Congress, or the media, even if they clamour for him to “do something” yet do not take responsibility for the consequences if things go wrong, as they have for some time in the Middle East.

Today, the issue raised by U.S. media and some of America’s allies are allegations that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used poison gas to kill or maim thousands of Syrians. The consensus among Western commentators, in and outside of the government, has been built around this proposition, and it may be right.

United Nations inspectors may be able to verify the causes and perpetrators of these deaths and injuries. Let us hope so, before the United States or other countries begin direct military action of any kind that will be crossing the Rubicon.

Perhaps U.S. intelligence knows the facts; again, let us hope so. And let us hope that we do not later discover that intelligence was distorted, as it was before the ill-fated U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the consequences of which are still damaging U.S. interests in the Middle East and eroding the region’s stability.

In addition to being unable to turn back once the United States becomes directly engaged in combat, however limited, is the difficulty of believing that Assad would have been so foolish as to use poison gas, unless Syrian command-and-control is so poor that some military officer ordered its use without Assad’s permission.

If one invokes the concept of cui bono (“to whose benefit?”), those with the most to gain if the United States acted to bring down the current Syrian government would be Syrian rebels or their supporters, including Al Qaeda and its affiliates. Such a move would increase the likelihood of even more killing and perhaps genocide against Syria’s Alawites."It has long been clear that the Syrian conflict is not just about Syria."
-- Robert E. Hunter

But citing the possibility that we are all being misled about who used poison gas – a tactic known as a false flag – does not mean it is true. It does redouble the need for the United States to be certain about who used the gas before taking military action. Obama has gotten this right, too.

So if we become directly involved in the fighting, then what?

This question must always be asked before acting. Sometimes, such as with Pearl Harbour, Hitler’s declaring war on the United States, or pushing Iraq out of Kuwait in 1991, striking back hard for as long as it takes is clearly the right course.

Less clear of a situation was Vietnam. Ugly consequences also ensued from arming and training Osama bin Laden and his ilk to punish the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and, in one of the worst foreign policy blunders in U.S. history, from invading Iraq in 2003.

It has long been clear that the Syrian conflict is not just about Syria. It is also about the balance between Sunni and Shia aspirations throughout the core of the Middle East. Iran, a Shia state, started the ball rolling with its 1979 Islamic revolution. Several U.S. administrations contained the virus of sectarianism, but invading Iraq and toppling its minority Sunni regime got the ball rolling again.

Now Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey are bent on toppling the minority Alawite – a mystical offshoot of Shi’ism – regime in Syria. Even if they succeed, the region’s internecine warfare won’t stop there.

Meanwhile, there is a geopolitical struggle for predominance in the region, principally involving Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Israel. Iran has Shia-dominated Iraq, Assad’s Syria, and Hezbollah as acolytes. Saudi Arabia has the other Gulf Arab states, while Turkey has its regional ambitions extending to Central Asia. And since Israel’s conclusion that its Syrian strategic partner, the Assad family, is doomed, it has thrown in its lot with the Sunni states. But it wants change before Syria is completely dominated by the fundamentalists.

From the U.S. perspective, the regional situation is a mess, and the tipping point that would make things much worse could be direct military intervention in Syria.

It is too late for Obama to take back his ill-considered statement about the use of poison gas being a “red line” in Syria when he was not prepared to go for broke in toppling Assad. It is too late as well for him to reconsider his call for Assad to go, which further stoked the fears of the Alawites that they could be slaughtered.

It is also late for him to tell Gulf Arabs to stop fostering the spread of Islamist fundamentalism of the worst sort throughout the region, from Egypt to Pakistan to Afghanistan, where American troops have died as a result.

It is also late, but let us hope not too late, for a U.S.-led full-court press on the political-diplomatic front to set the terms for a reasonably viable post-Assad Syria rather than sliding into war and unleashing potentially terrible uncertainties. Let us recall what happened in Afghanistan after we stayed on after deposing the Taliban, and in Iraq after 2003. Neither place is in much better shape, if at all, even after the loss of thousands of U.S. lives and trillions in U.S. treasure.

And it is also late, but hopefully not too late, for the Obama administration to engage in strategic thinking about the Middle East; to see the region from North Africa to Southwest Asia as “all of a piece”, and to craft an overall policy towards critical U.S. interests throughout the area.

This week, President Obama should heed the clear wake-up call, resist the call to do something militarily in Syria, and place his bet on vigorous and unrelenting diplomacy for a viable post-Assad Syria and the reassertion of U.S. leadership throughout the region.

*Robert E. Hunter, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, was director of Middle East Affairs on the National Security Council Staff in the Carter Administration and in 2011-12 was Director of Transatlantic Security Studies at the National Defense University.

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Kurdish militias in Syria have controlled the oil rich area of Rumelan since early March. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, May 8 2013 (IPS)

Ten years after right-wing and liberal hawks came together to push the U.S. into invading Iraq, key members of the two groups appear to be reuniting behind stronger U.S. military intervention in Syria.

While the liberals appear motivated by a desire to stop the violence and prevent its spread across borders, their right-wing colleagues, particularly neo-conservatives, see U.S. intervention as key to dealing Iran a strategic defeat in the region.

“…[T]he most important strategic goal continues to be to defeat Iran, our main adversary in the region,” according to Tuesday’s lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal.

“The risks of a jihadist victory in Damascus are real, at least in the short-term, but they are containable by Turkey and Israel,” the editorial asserted. “The far greater risk to Middle East stability and U.S. interests is a victorious arc of Iranian terror from the Gulf to the Mediterranean backed by nuclear weapons.”

The immediate impetus for the reunion between the country’s two interventionist forces seems related primarily to charges that Syrian security forces have used chemical weapons in several attacks on insurgents and growing fears that the two-year-old civil war is spilling over into and destabilising neighbouring countries.

Those fears gained greater urgency this week when Israeli warplanes twice attacked targets close to Damascus and reports surfaced that Lebanon’s Hezbollah has sharply escalated its role in actively defending the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Both developments appear to have emboldened hawks here, particularly neo-conservatives who have sought for more than two decades to make the overthrow of the Assad dynasty in Damascus a major priority for U.S. Mideast policy and now see the conflict in Syria as a proxy war between Iran and Israel.

War-weariness and public disillusionment with U.S. interventions they championed in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as President Barack Obama’s oft-expressed reservations about the wisdom of engaging in yet another war in a predominantly Muslim country, had kept the neo-conservatives and other right-wing hawks at bay.

But a combination of an ever-climbing death toll, Hezbollah’s increased involvement, the rise of radical Islamist groups within the insurgency, and the initial –albeit yet to be confirmed — estimates by U.S., Israeli, and Western European intelligence agencies that Assad’s forces have used chemical weapons, as well as Obama’s apparently offhand public warnings during last year’s election campaign that such use would cross a “red line”, have propelled some prominent liberals – most recently, New York Times columnist Bill Keller and former senior Obama policy official Anne Marie Slaughter — into their camp.

Led by the Wall Street Journal and William Kristol’s Weekly Standard, the neo-conservatives remain the most aggressive among the hawks in their advice, just as they were in the run-up to the Iraq war.

Thus, providing weapons to selected rebel groups – an option which the administration is considered most likely to exercise if the evidence of chemical weapons use by government forces is confirmed – is no longer considered sufficient.

“At this stage, (a better outcome of the conflict), this would require more than arming some rebels,” according to the Journal editorial. “It probably means imposing a no-fly zone and air strikes against Assad’s forces.

“We would not rule out the use of American and other ground troops to secure the chemical weapons,” the editorial writer added in a notable deviation from assurances offered by the hawks’ two most prominent Congressional champions – Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsay Graham – who, in deference to public opinion, have said repeatedly that putting U.S. “boots on the ground” should be off the table.

This echoed Kristol’s own editorial in the Standard published on the weekend. Arming the rebels, he wrote, “could well be too little, too late. …It’s hard to see what a serious response would be short of direct American engagement – perhaps a combination of enforcement of a no-fly zone and aerial attacks. And no serious president would rule out a few boots on the ground…”

The Journal’s Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign-policy columnist, Bret Stephens, weighed in with even more specific advice Tuesday.

He called for Obama to “disable the runways of Syrian air bases, including the international airport in Damascus; …[u]se naval assets to impose a no-fly zone over western Syria; …[s]upply the Free Syrian Army with heavy military equipment, including armored personnel carriers and light tanks; [and b]e prepared to seize and remove Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile, even if it means putting boots (temporarily) on the ground.”

Liberal hawks have been less precise about what needs to be done, but their sense of urgency in favour of escalating U.S. military intervention – beginning with supplying the rebels with weapons – appears no less intense.

Slaughter, who served for two years as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s policy planning chief and, as an influential Princeton University international-relations professor, urged U.S. intervention in both Iraq and Libya, published an op-ed in the Washington Post that warned that Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria brought forth the spectre of the Rwandan genocide.

“For all the temptation to hide behind the decision to invade Iraq based on faulty intelligence about weapons of mass destruction, Obama must realize the tremendous damage he will do to the United States and to his legacy if he fails to act,” she wrote, without prescribing precisely what he should do.

Keller, who described himself as a “reluctant hawk” in an influential 1,500-word op-ed on the eve of the 2003 Iraq invasion, provided somewhat more detailed advice in 1,300-word, very prominently placed op-ed entitled “Syria is Not Iraq” Wednesday in which he quoted Slaughter, among other liberal hawks.

“The United States moves to assert control of the arming and training of rebels – funnelling weapons through the rebel Supreme Military Council, cultivating insurgents who commit to negotiation an orderly transition to a non-sectarian Syria,” he wrote.

“We make clear to President Assad that if he does not cease his campaign of terror and enter negotiations on a new order, he will pay a heavy price. When he refuses, we send missiles against his military installations until he, or more likely those around him, calculate that they should sue for peace.”

Keller, who several years after the Iraq invasion offered a somewhat muted apology for supporting that war, stressed that he did not “mean to make this sound easy,” but stressed that a disastrous outcome “is virtually inevitable if we stay out [of the conflict]. …Why wait for the next atrocity?” he asked.

“Iraq should not keep us from doing the right thing in Syria…,’’ according to the op-ed’s subhead.

*Jim Lobe’s blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at http://www.lobelog.com.

Boys in Al Raqqa, Syria, Apr. 11, 2013. Credit: Beshroffline/cc by 2.0

By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, May 4 2013 (IPS)

Despite renewed pressure by hawks in Congress and the media, U.S. President Barack Obama appears determined to avoid sharply escalating U.S. involvement in the ongoing civil war in Syria.

While administration officials insist that all options for responding to the recent alleged use by the Syrian military of chemical weapons against anti-government strongholds remain on the table, insiders suggest that the likeliest choice will be, at most, to begin supplying selected groups of rebels with “lethal” defensive weapons, albeit nothing like the surface-to-air missiles and anti-tank rockets they have been calling for.

“They’re worried about more-sophisticated weaponry falling into the wrong hands,” said one well-connected Congressional staffer here this week, noting that reports that Islamist groups – at least one of which, the Al-Nusra Front, has declared fidelity to Al-Qaeda – now dominate the overwhelmingly Sunni insurgency.

So far, Washington has provided rebels with only “non-lethal” assistance, including communications gear and food rations. Just before the chemical-weapons charges surfaced, the administration  had decided to add body armour and night-vision goggles.

Throughout the conflict, it has turned a blind eye to supplies of “lethal” equipment from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, even as it became increasingly concerned that the recipients of that aid are almost uniformly Sunni Islamists.

While the public might rally behind stronger action – for example, creating a “no-fly zone” over all or parts of the country, as hawks like Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsay Graham have repeatedly urged — the administration would have to mount a major “information” campaign to get that support, recent polls suggest.

Asked last week whether they would support the U.S. and its allies using force against Syrian forces if their use of chemical weapons is confirmed, a plurality of 45 percent of respondents in a Pew Research Center survey said they would, while 31 percent said they would oppose military action.

In a New York Times/CBS poll taken at the same time, however, 62 percent of respondents said they did not feel the U.S. “has a responsibility to do something about the fighting in Syria…,” while only 24 percent disagreed.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon also appears highly reluctant to take military action.

“Whether the military effect would produce the kind of outcome I think that not only members of Congress, but all of us would desire – which is an end to the violence, some kind of political reconciliation among the parties and a stable Syria …It’s not clear to me that it would produce that outcome,” Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters earlier this week.

While he assured his audience that the Pentagon was constantly updating its contingency plans and could prevail – albeit not nearly as easily as in Libya – over Damascus’s Russian-built air-defence system to set up a no-fly zone, he also raised serious questions about the wisdom of such a strategy. Dempsey pointed out that Assad’s air force was responsible for only about 10 percent of rebel and civilian casualties.

“The other 90 percent are through direct fire or artillery. So the question then becomes: If you eliminate one capability of a potential adversary, will you be inclined to find yourself in a position to be asked to do more against the rest?” he asked.

Meanwhile, Pentagon sources, with the evident approval of their superiors, briefed the Wall Street Journal on just how formidable Syria’s air defences were, noting that Dempsey himself had told Obama it would be very difficult for U.S. aircraft to take out mobile and other systems that were installed after the Israeli attack on a suspected secret nuclear reactor in 2007.

Even many of McCain’s and Graham’s Republican colleagues have failed to rally behind their calls for direct military action, opting instead for arming “moderate”, secular rebel groups, which, according to a major New York Times account last month, scarcely exist in what has become a sectarian conflict similar in many respects to that which nearly tore Iraq apart in 2006-07.

Indeed, neo-conservatives and other Republican hawks have been so disappointed by the tepidness or indifference of their colleagues’ response to Syria’s alleged use of chemical weapons that they have added it to a growing list of charges of creeping “isolationism” in the party.

Of course, most of their fire has been directed at Obama, not only for failing to intervene in the conflict earlier, when “moderate” groups may have been more of a force within the insurgency, but also and, more importantly, for damaging U.S. “credibility” by, first, warning Assad that his use of chemical weapons would be a “game-changer” and cross a “red line” that would provoke “enormous consequences” from Washington, and then by arguing, as he did last week, that he needs more evidence and a broader international consensus that the government did indeed deploy such weapons before taking any action.

Even some more-dovish voices who have long been sceptical about any escalation in U.S. involvement in Syria have argued that Obama has put U.S. credibility on the line and must follow through on his threat, lest Iran and North Korea, for example, draw the wrong conclusions.

“If you draw a line in the sand, especially in the turbulent and passionate Arab world, and dare someone not to cross it, you had better back up the threat when he does,” wrote former Under Secretary of State for Policy Nicholas Burns on GlobalPost this week, although he also defended Obama’s desire to gain confirmation of the chemical-weapons reports.

Anne-Marie Slaughter, a liberal interventionist who served in a top policy post in Obama’s State Department, evoked the memory of Rwanda in appealing in a Washington Post op-ed for Obama to take action. “…(T)he White House must recognize that the game has already changed,” she wrote. “U.S. credibility is on the line.”

Still, other interventionists who had supported more-aggressive action by the U.S. early in the conflict now said they were now much more ambivalent, particularly in light of the reported dominance of more-radical Islamists among the rebel ranks.

“I lean now much more to caution,” said former Amb. Morton Abramowitz, who played a key role in persuading the Clinton White House to intervene in the Balkans in the 1990s and initially favoured a no-fly zone in Syria to protect the peaceful opposition.

That preference for caution – combined with the universal rejection of putting U.S. “boots on the ground” for anything but the most dire humanitarian emergencies (such as the indiscriminate use of chemical weapons against a civilian population or large stocks of chemical weapons falling into the hands of Hezbollah or Al-Qaeda-affiliated rebel groups) – will make it much easier for Obama to finesse his “red line” warning and avoid direct military intervention.

*Jim Lobe’s blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at http://www.lobelog.com.

In Aleppo, Karm al Jabal. This neighbourhood is next to Al Bab and has been under siege for six months. Mar 4, 2013. Credit: Basma/cc by 2.0

By Samer Araabi
WASHINGTON, Mar 22 2013 (IPS)

As the Syrian uprising enters its third year, the United States and its allies are preparing to materially increase their support of the armed opposition in Syria.

Secretary of State John Kerry pledged an additional 60 million dollars in direct aid to the rebels, marking the first time Washington will directly supply rebel forces, but the administration appears as wary as ever to get more directly involved.The CIA is on the ground helping sort out who should get money, and they’re training people in Jordan. The idea is, they don’t want to get involved any further.

The provision of battlefield materiel has been met with some support from hawks who have pushed for greater military intervention, though many policymakers have urged the president to go even further. Exhortations for intervention have increased since rumours began of a chemical weapons attack in Aleppo. Though U.S. officials have largely dismissed the reports, many members of Congress expressed concern about the use of weapons of mass destruction in Syria.

On Monday, Rep. Eliot Engel, the most senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced legislation that would authorise funding for “limited lethal assistance” to Syrian opposition groups, assuming that the groups would be carefully vetted in the process.

Meanwhile, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin concluded a Senate hearing on Syria by stating that a no-fly zone would “be helpful in breaking the deadlock and bringing down the Assad regime”.

During the hearing, Senator John McCain reiterated his long-held position that the U.S. should intervene more directly in the uprising. Levin and McCain have signed on to a letter urging President Obama to establish no-fly zones and provide more military aid to rebels.

Both the House legislation and the Senate letter were applauded in a press release Thursday from the Foreign Policy Initiative, the think-tank successor to the neoconservative Project for a New American Century: “This week, key members of Congress stepped into the void of U.S. leadership on the Syria conflict, calling for action to end the Assad regime’s slaughter of the Syrian people and avoid an even greater regional catastrophe.”

But the boldest military endorsement thus far came from Senator Lindsey Graham, who responded to rumours of the chemical attack by stating, “You’ve got to get on the ground. There is no substitute…I don’t care what it takes…I vote to cut this off before it becomes a problem.”

The Obama administration and senior military officials have pushed back against this type of involvement. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey said earlier this week, “I don’t think at this point I can see a military option that would create an understandable outcome. And until I do, it would be my advice to proceed cautiously.”

Phyllis Bennis, director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, warns that this should not be taken to imply that the appetite for any intervention is low.

“They’re clearly already involved in the armed opposition,” Bennis told IPS. “The CIA is on the ground helping sort out who should get money, and they’re training people in Jordan. The idea is, they don’t want to get involved any further.”

Prominent Republicans from both sides of the aisle have also expressed concern about further militarising the conflict. At a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Wednesday, Chairman Ed Royce concurred with the sentiment that “the U.S. has no good options in Syria,” and Rep. Karen Bass warned that the Syrian opposition leaders are too weak to be credible in Syria.

“Who are those good rebels we want to arm?” asked Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. “The interventionists seem to take for granted that we know them well. The fact is, the interventionists themselves and the U.S. government don’t know squat about Syria and know even less squat about these rebels.”

The Free Syrian Army, the moniker bestowed on disparate militias and defected military units that have become the primary vehicle of the anti-Assad opposition, still lacks a functional central structure, and many fear that it has grown increasingly beholden to extremist Salafi groups such as Jabhat Al-Nusra.

“The very real risk in the U.S. providing arms even to those we believe to be moderate Sunni rebels is that even if they do better, and Assad’s regime is weakened, who would be the real beneficiary?” writes Gelb. “No one disputes that the extremist jihadis are far better positioned to take advantage of defeating Assad.”

The Central Intelligence Agency, Defence Department, and State Department have been vetting opposition elements in Jordan and Turkey, attempting to identify “friendly” groups and individuals to furnish with U.S. support, but the process has been fraught with unknowns.

Though the presence of U.S. officials in surrounding states has become near-ubiquitous, Washington continues to suffer from a significant deficit of information from inside Syria itself. This not only precludes the ability to identify friendly (or antagonistic) actors that remain within the Syrian borders, but also the knowledge of what happens to U.S. materiel after it crosses into Syria.

Nevertheless, the changing U.S. position is a clear indication of a shift away from President Obama’s expectation that the uprising would topple Bashar Al-Assad without added U.S. support.

“Obama would have preferred not to get involved at all,” said Bennis, “but that’s not an option. Others are eager to get involved, but their rationale is political, not based on strategic interests.”

According to Gelb, “There is one path to sensible strategy and to staying out of trouble. It is for America’s leaders in Congress, the media, and, above all, the administration to learn the lessons of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam and get themselves to satisfactorily ask and reasonably answer the tough questions before we selflessly, inadvertently, and foolishly find ourselves in another war.”

But as exhortations to further intervention rise, the tenor in Washington appears to be moving decidedly in the other direction.

Somali government soldiers patrol a street in the newly-seized southern town of Wanla Weyne on Oct. 12, 2012. Credit: Abdurrahman Warsameh/IPS

By Abdurrahman Warsameh
MOGADISHU, Oct 19 2012 (IPS)

A Kenyan military advance into Somali territory to push back Islamic militants has had some measured military success – but is not without controversy.

The capture of the Islamist-controlled southern Somali port city of Kismayo by Kenyan troops and allied forces in late September had been in the making for almost a year since the launch of operation Linda Nchi (Protect the Country) by Kenya.

Hundreds of Kenyan army regulars supported by a local clan militia known as the Ras Kamboni Brigade from southern Somalia and northeastern Kenya joined forces to overrun the front defences of the Al Shabaab militants, following months of slow progress after the Kenyan forces crossed the border between the two countries in October 2011.

Kenya’s Linda Nchi intervention in Somalia has been riddled with controversy since it was launched on Oct. 16, 2011. The stated aim of Kenya’s entry into this war-ravaged Horn of Africa country was the pursuit of Al-Shabaab militants accused of creating insecurity across the border in Kenya.

The radical Islamist group is alleged to be behind the kidnapping of foreign aid workers and tourists and a number of bomb attacks in border areas.

Kenya has reportedly been pushing for the region in southern Somalia known as Azania or Jubaland – where Kismayo is the main city – to be given the status of an autonomous state, to serve as a buffer zone between Kenya and the chaos in Somalia.

The plan is to install an administration in cooperation with a local clan that inhabits both the northeastern Kenyan border regions and Somalia’s southern provinces, with the exclusion or minor participation of other clans who form the majority of the provinces’ residents.

Hassan Mudei, deputy head of the Al Shahid Centre for Research and Media Studies in Mogadishu, says he believes the Kenyan project could fail if local sensitivities are not taken into consideration.

“It will all depend on how local sensitivities and clan differences among the region’s inhabitants are acknowledged and respected. But if the Kenyan troops are seen as occupying forces, I believe they will never win the confidence of the local people, and the project would be doomed,” Mudei told IPS in Mogadishu.

He said that Kenya and the other powers-that-be in the area should give local residents a free hand to work out a formula for sharing power, instead of letting one clan allied with them to try to dominate Jubaland – a move the Somali analyst contended would backfire.

The Somali government, which has small numbers of troops trained by Kenyan forces in the southern regions along the border, has repeatedly voiced its opposition to the Jubaland project, saying it has a sovereign right to decide on the governance of the resource-rich provinces of the south.

Kenya is currently sponsoring talks in Nairobi with leaders of a pro-Kenyan militia and Jubaland. Kenya says the negotiations are aimed at forming an administration for the region, but the Somali government has been sidelined because of its disapproval of the Kenyan initiative.

“We have repeatedly expressed our displeasure at the Kenyan-led political process for the southern regions of Somalia that is now going on in Nairobi,” Ahmed Jama, a member of Somalia’s parliament, told IPS in Mogadishu.

“Definitely we welcome Kenya’s role in helping the Somali National Army (SNA) liberate the country from militant forces, but for the political issues regarding Kismayo, that is only for the Somali government to deal with – and that is not what we are seeing now,” he said.

But Kenyan Defence Forces (KDF) spokesman Major Emanuel Chirchir dismissed claims that the military are helping to prop up an autonomous statelet in Jubaland as “baseless and unfounded.”

Chirchir told IPS that the KDF’s aim under the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) is simply to enhance stability in the region, and that it does not have a political or occupation agenda.

“The allegations are just rumours,” said Chirchir. “Our mandate under AMISOM is clear, and this is bringing about peace and normalcy in Somalia and not to divide the Somali people along clan lines.”

Chirchir added that after the KDF’s mandate is concluded, it will be up to Somalis themselves, with the help of regional bodies, including the African Union and the Inter Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), to chart the way forward on how to govern themselves.

He added, however, that the KDF would strive to bring stability to the Horn of Africa nation, “whatever means it would take.”

The coastal city of Kismayo has been under the control of various groups since the fall of the late Somali ruler Mohamed Siyad Barre in 1991, as alliances between different clans have changed.

Kismayo, which has been under al Shabaab control for the past five years, has the biggest port and airport of all the southern Somalia provinces. It also has the most livestock and the largest amount of arable land in this country.

“This is in essence a struggle for the resources of the region, and after a single clan failed to establish its authority over others, some have gotten the idea of using foreign countries in alliances to impose themselves over others,” Yasin Elmi, a Somali political scientist, told IPS.

“That is what is happening now with the Kenyan intervention, whether Kenya knows this or not. But that arrangement between a foreign country and a local clan is likely to worsen the situation and prolong the local people’s suffering,” he added.

Mudei agreed, saying any administration formed to run the province – and the city of Kismayo in particular – that does not come out of a local initiative is likely to be rejected by the residents.

“I believe foreign forces cannot rule the city, nor can any administration formed in Kenya, because there are a multitude of Somali clans living alongside each other in the region,” said Mudei. “Therefore it is necessary for the local people to be given a fair say in running the city, and the whole province in general – otherwise it will be seen as foreign-imposed.”

Mudei told IPS that the African Union peacekeeping forces, which Kenya belatedly joined in July, should be confined to establishing security in the region as stipulated in their mandate, and should leave political issues to the new Somali government, which knows the intricacies of local clan politics much better than foreigners.

*Additional reporting by Brian Ngugi in Nairobi.

A Syrian independence flag painted on on a government school wall. Credit: Freedom House/ CC by 2.0

By Samer Araabi
WASHINGTON, Aug 23 2012 (IPS)

As violence in Syria spikes after a short lull, the prospect of international military intervention appears to be growing by the day. Earlier this week, almost exactly one year after President Barack Obama first called on Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad to step down, Obama warned of “enormous consequences if we start seeing movement on the chemical weapons front or the use of chemical weapons”.

Though the warning hardly indicated a significant policy shift in the Obama administration’s response to the growing catastrophe in Syria, it does represent the latest step in a slowly shifting willingness of administration officials to consider the use of direct military force against the Syrian state.

Early reactions of the Obama administration – and much of the American public – were largely opposed to yet another foreign military intervention.Still reeling from setbacks in Iraq and Afghanistan, with forces stretched into Yemen, Pakistan, Mali, and elsewhere, administration officials were also discouraged by the lack of political capital gained by the controversial intervention in Libya.

They pushed back against committing the United States to yet another military endeavour in the Middle East, despite strong urging from hawks in both parties that advocated an immediate aerial campaign against the Assad regime.

However, Washington has not been content to sit on the sidelines and wait out the conflict; it has deeply involved itself on all levels of the uprising – from the daily violence to the transitional plans –hoping to mould the process and outcome to suit its own regional geopolitical interests.

Instead of committing U.S. troops, the administration has chosen a different tactic. For months, Washington has been facilitating the arming and coordination of the Free Syrian Army, the loose umbrella group of militia members, foreign fighters and army defectors that has rapidly grown in size and capacity to take on Assad’s security forces.

Reuters recently uncovered covert CIA involvement with the Free Syrian Army in Turkey, and the administration has allowed a U.S. organization to funnel money to Syrian opposition forces. These moves align the administration not only with the anti-Assad opposition writ-large, but with a particular subset of that opposition movement that has prioritised a violent struggle above all other alternatives.

An armed uprising to unseat a dictator is not necessarily an illegitimate course of action; many successful and inspiring revolutions have followed a similar course. However, the armed uprising in Syria is arguably the least legitimate component of the country’s two-year revolution.

From the very outset, “rebels” have had to rely on financing, equipment and even manpower from external sources, often either from other autocratic neighbouring states with non-democratic expectations for a post-Assad Syria, or from international players with disastrous track records of involvement and influence in Middle Eastern political affairs.

In this context, there are no indications that this iteration will somehow be substantively different than the countless others that have come – and failed – before it.

Syrian proponents of international military intervention are well aware of these dangers, yet some have consciously chosen to disregard them. The majority, however, claim that these complications are a necessary price to pay in the absence of any other alternative. Without Gulf and Western involvement, they argue, the opposition is doomed to defeat, which would inevitably result in a bloodbath for the people of Syria.

This claim belies the fact that the conflict does not exist in the black-and-white binaries presented by pro-intervention groups. Armed insurrection is not the only way to bring down the Assad regime, and the strengthening of armed groups directly undermines alternative methods of resolution to the conflict.

The opposition encompasses a number of different forms, with widely divergent tactics, and commensurate variation in efficacy and legitimacy. It is highly telling that popular demonstrations in Syria have all but vanished as the armed insurrection has gained control and prominence.

Anecdotal evidence points to the rapid disillusionment of many Syrians with armed gangs that have “hijacked” their uprising, potentially to advance the interests of some foreign power with designs for Syria. Charles Glass, a former ABC News chief Middle East correspondent who recently returned from Syria, warned that the Syrian popular democratic opposition is being “drowned out in the cacophony of artillery and rifle fire”.

The effects of the armed uprising are also being felt across the region. In addition to sizable refugee outflows into Turkey, Lebanon and Iraq, the Syrian crisis has served as a catalyst to reignite long simmering tensions in its neighbouring states, a particularly dangerous development for the fragile political equilibrium in Lebanon.

In clashes yesterday, at least a dozen individuals were killed in a gunfight between pro-Assad and anti-Assad factions in Tripoli, and Lebanon has been host to a number of kidnappings of Syrian individuals in retaliation for Lebanese kidnapped earlier in Syria.

It is in this context that Washington’s positioning toward the crisis is particularly dangerous; the explicit support for the armed opposition has effectively edged out all alternatives. It has sidelined moderates, nonviolent activists and a large portion of the Syrian population that has no love for Bashar Al-Assad, but no interest in a Qatari, Saudi or American vision for a future Syrian state.

More importantly, it has emboldened the rebels to continue on a course that will inevitably lead to greater bloodshed, animosity and social collapse. The current course of action gives undue power and political legitimacy to outside actors with little to lose in Syria’s continuing descent into chaos; they can afford to hold out for maximalist objectives because they are not the individuals bearing the costs.

The Syrian regime, similarly buttressed by Russian and Iranian attempts to maintain strategic positioning, has openly floated the idea of an Assad resignation, and advocated the beginning of a dialogue with opposition groups.

Based on the regime’s history of reneging on internationally-mediated efforts to end the violence, the sincerity of this pledge is clearly circumspect. It does, however, represent a growing awareness within some Syrian circles that dialogue is the only way out of this stalemate that would keep the Syrian nation intact, a fact that the militarised Syrian opposition refuses to acknowledge.

As the last remaining U.N. monitors depart Syria today amid bombs and artillery fire in Damascus, it seems that the rest of the world has done the same.

Intervention in Syria was “only a matter of time”, wrote Emile Nakhleh in February in the Financial Times. Seven months later, the fighting and divisions within Syria continue to worsen. Now, a diplomatic solution is no longer possible, Nakhleh, a retired CIA analyst, believes.

At the CIA, Nakhleh was a senior analyst and director of the Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program and of regional analysis in the Middle East. During that time, he and his analysts briefed policymakers on how Bashar al-Assad used repression to maintain stability. Since retiring from the U.S. government in 2006, Nakhleh has served as a consultant to the government on national security issues, particularly Islamic radicalisation, terrorism, and Arab states.

Emile Nakhleh, former CIA analyst. Credit: Security & Defense Agenda/ CC by 2.0

An estimated 8,000 to 20,000 people have been killed and tens of thousands of Syrians have fled their homes into neighboring countries. The Obama administration has shown reluctance to become directly involved in the conflict.

IPS correspondent Jasmin Ramsey spoke with Nakhleh about the conflict in Syria and his belief that the longer the West waits to assist the rebels, with NATO and Turkey leading, the bloodier the conflict will become.

Experts from the interview follow, and the complete interview can be found here.

Q: What is your current assessment of the situation in Syria?

A: I wrote an article about Syria in the Financial Times in February and some of the things I wrote about then are happening now. Namely, there’s more talk about a security zone. The regime is basically fraying and is going to fall. The question is how it’s going to fall and what kind of chaos and instability will follow.

I’m not that concerned about these fears of instability and Islamic extremist groups. These fears are being pushed by the regime to scare people. The regime is saying, “We are providing security and stability and the alternative is insecurity and instability.” There are some Jihadist and Al Qaeda elements, but the fact is that those were also in Libya and some of them were in Tunisia.

Q: Why, then, is the United States saying that one of the reasons it’s not directly supporting the rebels is because it’s unsure who they are?

A: That is a legitimate excuse. In fact, that argument was one of the reasons that delayed our recognition of even the Libyan rebels in Benghazi and our action there. It was the same argument in Egypt. We kept hearing the word “leaderless”. Well, they are leaderless, we don’t know what leaders to deal with, and therefore we delay action.

But I suggest that assistance now from the U.S. and its NATO allies, especially Turkey, are crucial. I’m not saying necessarily direct military participation, but I consider the Syrian regime, as one Syrian expert recently said, a mafia. There’s no negotiating with them. They’re going to go down fighting and in the process destroying Syria and killing so many more.

Q: So what should support to the rebels look like?

A: The regime is strong in the air and tanks, so the rebels – through Turkey perhaps – need rocket-propelled grenades against tanks and stinger missiles against planes. They need to even the playing field in those two areas. The rebels also need ammunition.

We could recognise a geographic area, something like a safe haven contiguous to Turkey. Once we recognise that, then through Turkey we can send humanitarian assistance, medical aid, and other logistical assistance. I say Turkey because then we can go around the Security Council by saying that this is a NATO thing. We are members of NATO and so is Turkey, which could argue it feels threatened by the growing insecurity on its border.

Turkey can act, but we should also be wary a bit of Saudi and Qatari support.

Q: So Turkey is waiting for the “okay” from the U.S.?

A: Yes, but I’m not going to speak for anyone. But that’s why Turkey initially went to NATO as well and I think NATO’s role can be increased. I don’t mean flying there or doing a no-fly zone and protecting the people through NATO planes as they did in Libya.

What they can do is arm the opposition with anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons and the opposition can do the job. That’s an important distinction – it also will keep the Western and NATO powers more free to act.

Q: Is a diplomatic resolution no longer possible?

A: That time has passed because the regime is not interested in negotiating with the opposition.

If you listen to their propaganda, the opposition is labeled as foreign terrorists, and yet, what about these thousands of people that have been killed? Most of them are Syrians, they’re not foreigners. Those who are still talking about diplomacy are using it as a delay tactic while providing their own form of assistance. But now it’s time to fully assist the rebels without necessarily putting boots on the ground.

Q: But just to be clear, what should the U.S.’s role be in all this?

A: Encouragement and logistical and communications support. According to media reports, the U.S. already has contacts with the opposition and is perhaps already providing covert support in the areas of control, command, intelligence, and communications.

But I don’t expect the U.S., as we are heading toward the presidential election, to play a major open military role in Syria. Necessary weapons could be provided by Turkey, with NATO’s approval, to help the opposition save their own towns and save lives.

I was never really in favour of direct and massive military action in Syria. I have argued elsewhere that military action should develop gradually. The opposition already controls a safe zone and other geographic areas in rural and urban Syria.

When I wrote the FT column, there were no geographic areas that were under the control of the opposition. Now there are areas that the regime does not control – take the statement made by the prime minister who recently defected, speaking in Jordan, who said the regime now controls 30 percent.

That’s difficult to verify, but most observers agree that there are areas that the regime doesn’t control, next to Turkey, and elsewhere. If that’s true, the opposition obviously controls these areas. So then we can recognise that territory, deal with the opposition that’s there on the ground—civilian and military leadership.

We can engage Syrian politicians in Turkey or somewhere else and the Syrian National Council, and then start providing needed support—humanitarian, medical, food, fuel, munitions, et cetera, in order for the Syrian opposition to be able to defend its own people.