Syria and the "responsibility to protect"

http://www.americaabroad.org/radio/programs/documentaries/?prog=Syria_and_the_Responsibility_to_Protect

After worldwide moral cowardice during the Rwanda genocide, the UN adopted the "responsibility to protect" (RTP) doctrine, which states that global powers have the duty to "take action" when there is evidence of genocide. Two concerns: it leaves it up to the individual nations as to what actions are warranted, and the definition of genocide is pretty hazy. So it's a non-binding statute to say the least.

RTP was used to justify NATO bombing the Serbs over Bosnia, NATO bombing Saddam for gassing the Kurds, and most recently NATO bombing Qaddafi's military (for the record, Qaddafi wasn't really engaging in genocide, unless you consider those rebelling against him as a threatened minority). Of course other genocides have taken place since Rwanda where no one took any action beyond speeches. This inconsistency undermines the credibility of some global powers vis-a-vis RTP.

Last week the Syrian opposition claimed that Assad used chemical weapons on civilians/rebels in a Damascus suburb, and hundreds were sickened and killed. There is a lot of evidence to support that claim. This is the 2nd widely documented chem. attack by Assad in the last 3 months. Earlier in the civil war, Obama threatened that Assad deploying WMDs would cross a "red line" where the US would be forced to act. We did nothing after the first attack, but after this recent attack we have deployed more warships to the area (for possible missile strikes). However, there are several reasons why military intervention (even under the RTP) would be problematic for the specific case of Syria.

Bosnia is the only case on record where military intervention (with no boots on the ground amazingly) actually stopped war crimes. And the NATO bombing stopped it cold; i.e. Serbia rushed to the bargaining table the next day. But the differences with Syria are like night and day, so we can't expect to be that lucky again:

- Assad is locked in an existential internal struggle and major blood feud, while Milosevic was supporting Bosnian Serbs in a proxy war with very little strategic value or reasons to escalate

- There were clear, centralized chains of command in the Balkans, vs. quasi-chaos in Syria

- Bosnia was pretty much the nastiest war in the EU's backyard during a very peaceful period of world history (more attention, outrage, and support for intervention), while Syria is a blip (albeit a very tragic, bloody one) in the protracted War on Terror, failed Arab Spring, and general Mideast unrest that deters foreign powers from decisive action

- Russia and China will really risk a lot to go to bat for Syria, while most of Serbia's "allies" (including Russia) were not that close and easily persuaded to drop support

Then what about Libya? Over 100,000 Syrians have died so far; some in "legitimate" civil strife and others unlawfully. Qaddafi didn't come anywhere close to that (Libya as a nation is only 6M concentrated in a few major cities vs. Syria's 22M). But we helped the rebels topple his ass. Well, the effort was mostly led by the French (who sound more aggressive on Syria as well), so the US could "lead from behind" and not take flak for the consequences. Also we intervened when the Arab Spring momentum was strong and we appeared to be turning a new page in the region. In other words, lots of upside with little cost. Over a year later, we now know there were some major costs: they can't form a coalition gov't, they can't disarm their militias, they can't protect our ambassador, and arms used to oust Qaddafi (some given by the West) are getting funneled to Syria, Yemen, and other hot spots. So even a "no brainer" intervention has its downside.

This puts Obama in a real bad spot, obviously. If we keep talking about war crimes and not doing anything about it, then our credibility sinks even lower than its current abysmal level in the region. Also if we don't respond, innocents will continue to die and the instability/refugee crisis will threaten fragile neighboring nations. If we bomb Assad, then it's possible Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies will attack our forces in the Gulf (and no guarantee it will stop the atrocities). Plus it will further worsen our strategic relations with China and Russia. If we support the rebels (and they win), then Alawites will be persecuted/slaughtered and another Egypt might happen, except this time Al Nusra (overt Al Qaeda affiliates) could lead instead of the "tame" Muslim Brotherhood.

There's no way we put boots on the ground after Obama has campaigned and worked hard for years to pull out of our recent 2 Mideast wars. I believe no-win situations are in fact very rare if parties really give full effort to come to a solution, but Syria could actually be a legit one.

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Oh, forgot to mention... punitive air strikes can really go both ways, though clearly we don't have a big data sampling to study. Bombing worked well in the Bosnia War, but then I guess Milosevic learned and he was a lot less cooperative during the Kosovo War. Whereas we only bombed for a few days in Bosnia, Kosovo required over 70 DAYS of air strikes before the Serbs came to the bargaining table. Good thing too as NATO was running out of military targets, and decided to punish all the people of Serbia by expanding their target list to include irrelevant, peaceful infrastructure like the power grid and chemical plants. Also some accounts suggest that there really wasn't much evidence of atrocities against Kosovar Albanians, and NATO just wanted to teach Slobo a lesson at the time. After the first wave of cruise missiles, sadly the killing of Albanians increased out of retaliation. That's the problem with "long distance war", you have even less influence than conventional chaotic war. And it doesn't help our image, especially considering anger over our cowardly reliance on sometime illegal drone attacks. So even if we effectively and carefully target Assad's weapons (and I'm sure his WMD are carefully protected/hidden), we can't stop his ground forces from slaughtering more dissidents. UN boots on the ground won't guarantee civilian safety either. A recent report slammed the post-bombing UN-NATO peacekeeping mission in Kosovo for failing to protect local ethnic Serbs from revenge attacks by Albanians, and not investigating claims that thousands went "missing." The Alawites know what is coming if their side loses.

We are backing them and Assad into a corner. What is he going to do, capitulate? Slobo was still the popular leader of Serbia, possibly wanted for war crimes, and had something to lose if he didn't bargain to save his neck. Assad knows there is no scenario where he doesn't go to the dock or the morgue, so of course he is not going to respond they way we would like (especially after seeing what happened to other dictators who thought they would be safe by playing ball with America, like Qaddafi). I guess that is why diplomacy is so precious before the streets are full of blood and everyone gets irrational; now we've missed our chance to intervene effectively and are left with only bad options.

But we just can't sit idly by either, refusing to be vigilant after a regime has used WMD on civilians (and likely shot at UN inspectors trying to investigate that). If we stick to our guns, we have to go all-in then. Toppling Assad is the easy part, but we have to make sure to not let Syria become another Egypt, Iraq, or Kosovo. And we have to make sure we can afford to intervene, both financially and politically. Or we hold off and try to bribe Russia/China into permitting a UN mandate, then go in as a coalition and try our best to not F it up again.