Afghanistan where empires die, Syria where empires anguish in hell – Perpetual War and Unquenchable Greed

Americans for Permanent War: Target Syria
14 March, 2012 – Huffington Post – Doug Bandow

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his family have turned his government into an essentially criminal enterprise. For more than a year Syrians have been attempting to overthrow the system.

By some estimates 7500 people have died. Defections from the military have led to creation of a small “Free Syrian Army.” Regime opponents also have turned to terrorism. With no resolution is in sight, the country is sliding toward civil war. Like King Louis XIV President Assad might say, “apres moi, le deluge.”

In America the usual suspects have begun beating the war drums. Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham urged arming the Syrian opposition. More recently McCain called for air strikes against Syria and berated the military for its caution in “standing on the sidelines.” Similarly, the Wall Street Journal editorial page urged establishment of a no-fly zone in Syria, waving aside all opposition.

Others have taken up the cry. For example, Matthew Brodsky of the Jewish Policy Center urged military intervention in order to bring about “an end to the violence, the fall of the Assad regime and the creation of conditions for a stable democratic system.” Roger Cohen of the New York Times called for arming the Syrian opposition and establishing “a rough equality of forces.” Steven A. Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations endorsed military action so as not to leave “Syrians to their fate.” Former Obama aide Anne-Marie Slaughter suggested protecting “civilians through buffer zones and humanitarian cordons around specific cities, perhaps accompanied by airstrikes against Syrian army tanks moving against those cities.”

However, mere possession of the world’s most powerful military does not mean that it should be used irrespective of interests, circumstances, and consequences. Observed Marc Lynch on Foreign Policy online, “Risky, costly foreign policy decisions can not simply be taken to express moral outrage.”

The Journal grandly declared that “the U.S. has a strategic interest in Syria’s future,” but where is that not the case? A gaggle of neoconservative analysts wrote an open letter asserting that “The Assad regime poses a grave threat to national security interests of the United States,” but what interests are those?

Syrian support for Hamas and Hezbollah is a problem for Israel and Lebanon, not America. Damascus is allied with Iran, but that relationship is inconvenient, not threatening, to the U.S. Assad’s collapse would weaken Iran, but making Tehran feel more encircled would increase its incentive to pursue nuclear weapons.

Cohen desires “payback” for Syria “allowing al-Qaeda fighters to transit Syria to Iraq.” However, the Iraq invasion put U.S. troops on Syria’s border with talk in Washington of enforcing regime change in Damascus. The Assad regime responded rather as Washington had by supporting armed insurgents in Cuba, Afghanistan, and Nicaragua. The U.S. might have claimed a casus belli at the time, but not now, months after leaving.

Humanitarian instincts urge action. But war is no delicate tool for sculpting new societies. War means killing and destroying. The consequences usually are far worse than expected — remember Iraq’s famous “cakewalk.” Even the “best” American interventions are not particularly good, like Bosnia, Haiti, Kosovo, Libya, and Somalia, which left ethnic cleansing, violence, instability, and terrorism in their wake. …more