Zalmay Khalilzad, former U.S. ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan, said today the “decision has to be made” for the U.S. to arm the opposition in Syria, but cautioned that the weapons should be ones that wouldn’t be used against Israel if they fall into the wrong hands.
“That’s not us fighting. (The Syrian opposition is) fighting, they’re dying, and they should be given as much a chance as possible to do it,” Khalilzad told me, after a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, in which he harshly criticized the Obama administration for what he called a failed strategy to “appease and engage adversaries” in the Middle East.
While it’s critical for the U.S. to do what it can to influence the situation in Syria, the idea of arming the opposition is controversial. Not only is there concern about who the opposition actually is, and whether they’re a group the U.S. would want to help bring to power, there’s also a distinct possibility the weapons could fall into the wrong hands. Khalilzad said this could be addressed by limiting our material support to purely defensive weapons.
“We need to be careful about what kind of weapons we give in terms of our regional interest. And we wouldn’t want to give them things that could be useful against our friends and allies,” he said. “I would think more in defensive weapons would be very helpful. Like anti-tank weapons because (the Assad regime is) using tanks to mow people and bomb.”
Outside of arming the opposition, there are also other–albeit, less effective–steps the U.S. can take. Khalilzad proposed reaching out to Christians and Kurds in the region to persuade them to join up with the opposition. He also suggested working with the Iraqis to block Iran from using Iraq as a corridor to channel supplies and weapons to Assad.
But in the end, Khalilzad said, “The will and decision has to be made that we will give them weapons, because this is important and the outcome will be important.”
Do we? And what happens if the "opposition" gains the upper hand and the Alawite versions of Gaddafi's murder starts playing across Youtube and cable news like a bad flipcard of ethnic cleansing screenshots. As noted, we are blind here. Victimhood today does not guarantee sainthood tomorrow when the shortest distance between two points is a surplus weapons dump. Is the proposal to send in "advisers" to provide some C&C for the process or just to shove munitions off the back of trucks? What we get in these situations are jerry built second-best alternatives to actual plausible responses that are felt to be undo-able for whatever reason (such as direct U.S. or U.S.-Nato, or US-Nato-Arab League intervention). But if the more logical path is a no-go why should the runner-ups prove to be somehow better options than the already better options we've just discarded?
Syria and Libya are classic examples of what is wrong with U.S. foreign policy today: decisions are being made based on emotional appeals rather than national interest. n nThe reason to intervene, even if it is only covertly as Khalilzad suggests, is not because Syrian civilians are being killed by the Dictator. As Besht points out, that's exactly what happened in Libya and look where things stand now? The reason to intervene in Syria is because it is in our national interest to do so. Does anyone think that Assad was not killing and torturing Syrians all along just as his father did before him? Would it surprise anyone to learn that Assad Jr. killed, jailed and tortured more people overall in his reign of terror than have died in the last 6 months? The fact that the oppression was carried out in secret seems to make it acceptable to world leaders. Obama, Clinton and Co. were hailing Assad as a "reformer" less than a year ago and reopened the U.S. embassy there. He was as much a murdering tyrant then as he is now. The only difference is that the killing is *visible* now and that's what bothers world leaders. It's almost a monarchical attitude by the World Elite that says, "Heaven's sakes, man, if you need to brutalize your people, at least have the decency to do it in private where it doesn't bother the rest of us." n nU.S. foreign policy cannot be dictated by logarithms of civilian casualties. Assad should be toppled because it would be a *huge* strategic blow to Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas. The Obama Administration talks about the dangers of civil war in Syria if we arm the opposition. Fair enough, civil war is brutal and terrible for those going through it, but for U.S. national interests, even a civil war is better than having Assad free to do the bidding of Tehran. Anyone who doubts the value of Syria to Iran should simply take a look at the increasing IRGC that Iran is pouring into Syria to keep Assad afloat. n nCan we guarantee who will wind up governing Syria once Assad is gone? Of course not. But from a strategic point of view, Assad is already the worst case scenario: a puppet of Tehran. The deeper problem is that the U.S. seems to have forgotten how to ensure that a friendly government, or at least a divided government, comes to power in Syria. Arming the opposition doesn't mean handing out weapons like free candy to everyone who claims to be fighting Assad. The weapons need to go to those groups in Syria who are the most pro-Western with an eye to strengthening them not only against Assad but against the Muslim Brotherhood and other undesirables. And we hedge our bets by backing more than one group and having spooks on the ground there to monitor the situation and see whether continued backing is justified. Syria is like Lebanon in terms of minority groups and geographical partitions. Backing the Kurds in one area and backing the Christians in another and the Sunnis in a third is perfectly plausible. It simply requires skill in covert ops. Something the U.S. had better re-learn as quickly as possible.
I am sorry, but in my humble opinion right now; we should not give arms to the Syrian opposition. In the long run, what freaking difference is it going to make to Israel or the West who is running the show in Syria? We can have the Assad regime or we can have a Sunni Muslim/Muslim Brotherhood type regime. Who cares? It is my understanding that Syria's Christians are not supporting the Syrian uprising. Syria's Christians live there. We do not. Perhaps Syria's Christians know something that neo-conservative nation-builders do not.