Ever since the protests against Assad's regime spiraled out of control, I've been following developments with anticipation. I have to admit I've always had a sneaking partiality for Syria. While their government is undoubtedly ruthless and frequently brutal, they are also in a way the mutts of the Middle East, beloved of no one, with little oil wealth to attract suitors and a history of embarrassing defeats at the hands of Israel, able to play a major role in Lebanon yet rarely respected by friend or foe. When Bashir Assad succeeded his father, there was a brief hope that he would play the reformer so rarely seen in that corner of the world. Yet in the end, he proved to be neither the redeemer of his people nor the iron-handed autocrat Hafeez Assad was; unwilling to react with overt violence when challenged, yet also unwilling to make a truly bold decision, on Lebanon, Sheba Farms, the Golan Heights or eventually the protests against his regime. A part of me hopes that he will somehow find the courage and statesmanship to end the violence in his land and against his own people in an honorable manner but the realist in me knows that Assad has never been that man and that Syria is headed down the same path as Libya and Yemen.
But what really struck me in the aftermath of the Security Council's failure to act pass a resolution against Damascus was the strange reaction in the United States, with even such realists as Hilary Clinton deploring the inability of the Council and many pundits seeing a diminishing of the United Nations Organization in the wake of Russia and China's veto. This seems like a very shallow response and almost willfully ignorant of both history and cold reality. It's worth recalling that in the first four decades of its existence, the UN was able to pass a resolution authorizing the use of force against a nation once, and that action against North Korea was possible because the Soviet Union was boycotting the Security Council and China's vote was still controlled by the Kuomintang. The next couple of decades saw plenty of resolutions brought before the Council condemning actions in various parts of the world, yet few passed and none resulted in UN intervention. The Council was powerless when Soviet troops crushed the hopes of revolution in Hungary or Czechoslovakia. This was no one way street, with the US wielding its own veto in turn to ensure no censure of its action against Libya in 1986 or Grenada in 1982, and extending the shelter of its power to Israel on numerous occasions. Only after the fall of the Soviet Union did we see an unmatched level of cooperation in the United Nations, fostered in part by a controlled reaction on the part of the victors, the United States and a certain deference in China. However as the relative power of each nation changes, China is becoming just a little more assertive of its own interests.
And understanding the interests of the different players is key to understanding the ways to win their cooperation and furthering our own plans. Our childish reaction to the UN refusal to do the right thing is not just counterproductive, it's also self-defeating. We see our desire to stop the bloodshed in Syria as a just and noble cause. However, as one expert on Democracy Now explained very clearly last night, the Assad regime and its Alawite supporters will fight to cling to power with every weapon they have because defeat for them will mean exile at best (and no one around them really wants them) and bloody annihilation at the hands of the liberated majority at worst. In practical terms then, ending the bloodshed is really a euphemism for replacing the current authoritarian setup in Syria with something more palatable to its people, be it a more inclusive and democratic government or a wholesale replacement of the Baath Party. A kindly view of our interests would be that we have the needs of the Syrian people at heart; but our anguish over the bloody struggle is a contrast to our far less voluble interest in other places and peoples under violent oppression. we've stood fairly silently while our client regimes in Central Asia deny their people rights, we've clucked about the violence in Dafur but made few attempts to push through any real change there, and we've been mostly silent behind-the-scenes actors in places like Bahrain and Kuwait. Little wonder then that other nations look askance at our aims in moving a Security Council resolution on Syria that will likely lead to the end of the Assad regime.
When we obtained UN clearance to protect the population in Libya from Gadhafi's wrath, Russia and China were not excited at the latitude that we interpreted in applying that authority. Syria has been a long term ally of Russia, and Putin faces a skeptical electorate this year - he cannot afford to be seen letting an old client and ally get run out of town while he stands helplessly by. Iran, no Great Power in its own right since the days of Cyrus the Great, nevertheless has pressing interests of its own in Syria. Should Assad's government fall, the new regime will be dominated by Sunnis either religious or secular (most likely the former) but unlikely to be as pliant an ally to Iran or as friendly a patron to Hezbollah. And Iran needs Hezbollah as a key check to Israel, and by extension they then need Assad's government in Damascus. While any new government is likely to be less than cordial to Israel, the turmoil of a revolution and the far more urgent issues thereafter would greatly ease the threat on Israel's northeastern border, and that runs counter to Iran's interests.
China has it's own interests in keeping a very elaborate system of checks and balances in place. Hezbollah is a check on an Israeli strike against Iran, and Iran consumes much of America's attention and resources, especially when they make threats about closing the Straits of Hormuz. There is nothing China would like more than America's attention to fixed firmly on the Middle East, delaying the pivot to the Pacific and giving China a bit more time to improve their position along the western rim. Syria is the key to the complex order, and keeping their regime afloat is then in the interests of nearly everyone else not allied with us. China may well see action on Syria as a harbinger of things to come for their own client in Khartoum; if the logic works at Homs, why not in Dafur?
One hopes that our policy experts advising the President have thought through the conflicting aims of all parties with an interest in Syria and realized that we lost at the Security Council because we asked the rest of the world to set aside their own interests in favor of ours. (It matters little whether we saw toppling Assad as good for Israel and Lebanon; our actions were judged by the potential outcomes, not our stated reasons). We make this mistake over and over and always seem surprised when others see us a bully; we brushed aside the Kyoto Protocol, we invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam Hussein. In part we seem to actually believe our claim that we are acting with purely altruistic motives (or imperative interests), and of course ignore all evidence to the contrary, a dangerous blindness that makes it harder to win skeptics to our side. And win we could if we would frame the discussion in terms that appeal to our opponents. Easing the Assad regime aside is critical, not just because of its crimes against its own people (and let's be real, many outsiders perceive us as just as brutal and ruthless, and perception is as important as reality in this case) but because of the massive refugee problem that would result from the violent overthrow of that regime and the instability that would follow, not just in the delicately balanced neighboring states (northern Iraq with its existing and restive Assyrian minority, Jordan with its fragile balance of Palestinians and Bedouins, Lebanon with a explosive ethnic mix - none of these would wish to see their current problems exacerbated by tens of thousands of Syrian refugees) but the same concerns resonate farther afield too as oil markets are thrown into chaos and the still damaged world economy is battered afresh. Keeping the world stable and spinning is of paramount importance to China, and some deft diplomacy would go a long way to placating their opposition; less heated rhetoric about the Chinese threat would not be amiss either.
But perhaps most importantly we need to heed Polonius' advice, not just in keeping our costume only as costly as our purse can bear, but also in being true to our own self. Our actions are rarely as altruistic as we believe, and we are never as angelic as we claim, and to pretend otherwise is only an exercise in delusion and a sign of extreme naivete or most Machevillian deception to the rest of the world watching us without rose-cored glasses; neither perception furthers our interests. From warring with the Barbary corsairs to protect our trade routes, to standing by while Saudi tanks arrived to protect Bahrain's king from his protesting population, selfishness and self-interest have always guided our actions; we should not be surprised when others do the same.
But what really struck me in the aftermath of the Security Council's failure to act pass a resolution against Damascus was the strange reaction in the United States, with even such realists as Hilary Clinton deploring the inability of the Council and many pundits seeing a diminishing of the United Nations Organization in the wake of Russia and China's veto. This seems like a very shallow response and almost willfully ignorant of both history and cold reality. It's worth recalling that in the first four decades of its existence, the UN was able to pass a resolution authorizing the use of force against a nation once, and that action against North Korea was possible because the Soviet Union was boycotting the Security Council and China's vote was still controlled by the Kuomintang. The next couple of decades saw plenty of resolutions brought before the Council condemning actions in various parts of the world, yet few passed and none resulted in UN intervention. The Council was powerless when Soviet troops crushed the hopes of revolution in Hungary or Czechoslovakia. This was no one way street, with the US wielding its own veto in turn to ensure no censure of its action against Libya in 1986 or Grenada in 1982, and extending the shelter of its power to Israel on numerous occasions. Only after the fall of the Soviet Union did we see an unmatched level of cooperation in the United Nations, fostered in part by a controlled reaction on the part of the victors, the United States and a certain deference in China. However as the relative power of each nation changes, China is becoming just a little more assertive of its own interests.
And understanding the interests of the different players is key to understanding the ways to win their cooperation and furthering our own plans. Our childish reaction to the UN refusal to do the right thing is not just counterproductive, it's also self-defeating. We see our desire to stop the bloodshed in Syria as a just and noble cause. However, as one expert on Democracy Now explained very clearly last night, the Assad regime and its Alawite supporters will fight to cling to power with every weapon they have because defeat for them will mean exile at best (and no one around them really wants them) and bloody annihilation at the hands of the liberated majority at worst. In practical terms then, ending the bloodshed is really a euphemism for replacing the current authoritarian setup in Syria with something more palatable to its people, be it a more inclusive and democratic government or a wholesale replacement of the Baath Party. A kindly view of our interests would be that we have the needs of the Syrian people at heart; but our anguish over the bloody struggle is a contrast to our far less voluble interest in other places and peoples under violent oppression. we've stood fairly silently while our client regimes in Central Asia deny their people rights, we've clucked about the violence in Dafur but made few attempts to push through any real change there, and we've been mostly silent behind-the-scenes actors in places like Bahrain and Kuwait. Little wonder then that other nations look askance at our aims in moving a Security Council resolution on Syria that will likely lead to the end of the Assad regime.
When we obtained UN clearance to protect the population in Libya from Gadhafi's wrath, Russia and China were not excited at the latitude that we interpreted in applying that authority. Syria has been a long term ally of Russia, and Putin faces a skeptical electorate this year - he cannot afford to be seen letting an old client and ally get run out of town while he stands helplessly by. Iran, no Great Power in its own right since the days of Cyrus the Great, nevertheless has pressing interests of its own in Syria. Should Assad's government fall, the new regime will be dominated by Sunnis either religious or secular (most likely the former) but unlikely to be as pliant an ally to Iran or as friendly a patron to Hezbollah. And Iran needs Hezbollah as a key check to Israel, and by extension they then need Assad's government in Damascus. While any new government is likely to be less than cordial to Israel, the turmoil of a revolution and the far more urgent issues thereafter would greatly ease the threat on Israel's northeastern border, and that runs counter to Iran's interests.
China has it's own interests in keeping a very elaborate system of checks and balances in place. Hezbollah is a check on an Israeli strike against Iran, and Iran consumes much of America's attention and resources, especially when they make threats about closing the Straits of Hormuz. There is nothing China would like more than America's attention to fixed firmly on the Middle East, delaying the pivot to the Pacific and giving China a bit more time to improve their position along the western rim. Syria is the key to the complex order, and keeping their regime afloat is then in the interests of nearly everyone else not allied with us. China may well see action on Syria as a harbinger of things to come for their own client in Khartoum; if the logic works at Homs, why not in Dafur?
One hopes that our policy experts advising the President have thought through the conflicting aims of all parties with an interest in Syria and realized that we lost at the Security Council because we asked the rest of the world to set aside their own interests in favor of ours. (It matters little whether we saw toppling Assad as good for Israel and Lebanon; our actions were judged by the potential outcomes, not our stated reasons). We make this mistake over and over and always seem surprised when others see us a bully; we brushed aside the Kyoto Protocol, we invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam Hussein. In part we seem to actually believe our claim that we are acting with purely altruistic motives (or imperative interests), and of course ignore all evidence to the contrary, a dangerous blindness that makes it harder to win skeptics to our side. And win we could if we would frame the discussion in terms that appeal to our opponents. Easing the Assad regime aside is critical, not just because of its crimes against its own people (and let's be real, many outsiders perceive us as just as brutal and ruthless, and perception is as important as reality in this case) but because of the massive refugee problem that would result from the violent overthrow of that regime and the instability that would follow, not just in the delicately balanced neighboring states (northern Iraq with its existing and restive Assyrian minority, Jordan with its fragile balance of Palestinians and Bedouins, Lebanon with a explosive ethnic mix - none of these would wish to see their current problems exacerbated by tens of thousands of Syrian refugees) but the same concerns resonate farther afield too as oil markets are thrown into chaos and the still damaged world economy is battered afresh. Keeping the world stable and spinning is of paramount importance to China, and some deft diplomacy would go a long way to placating their opposition; less heated rhetoric about the Chinese threat would not be amiss either.
But perhaps most importantly we need to heed Polonius' advice, not just in keeping our costume only as costly as our purse can bear, but also in being true to our own self. Our actions are rarely as altruistic as we believe, and we are never as angelic as we claim, and to pretend otherwise is only an exercise in delusion and a sign of extreme naivete or most Machevillian deception to the rest of the world watching us without rose-cored glasses; neither perception furthers our interests. From warring with the Barbary corsairs to protect our trade routes, to standing by while Saudi tanks arrived to protect Bahrain's king from his protesting population, selfishness and self-interest have always guided our actions; we should not be surprised when others do the same.
