Rather than help curtail the slaughter and pave the way for
serious peace talks, limited strikes risk re-empowering Assad while undermining
the credibility of President Trump.
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| Strike Assad, Sanction Russia, Support Rebels and Hold Peace-Talks in Geneva! |
Despite the wag-the-dog appearance of President Trump’s about-face
on Syria—that is, the possibility that his primary motivation has more to do
with his desire to distract attention from his growing domestic problems than
with a genuine concern for Syrian babies—the President’s action last week has
opened a small and narrow window that, with the proper political vision, could
help end the conflict in Syria and with it, the suffering of the Syrian people.
Trump was right in deciding to take on Assad, and his decision was
hailed by both Republicans and Democrats. As a Syrian-American who has urged
action against the regime for years, I am not going to ask too many questions,
legitimate though they may be, about how and why Trump came to represent
action, rather than standing by while beautiful babies get killed.
But the afterglow of credibility, legitimacy and strength in which
Trump is currently basking will prove all too ephemeral unless he backs it up
with a strong plan for Syria. The fact that the airport the U.S. targeted
in central Syria was back in use mere hours after the
strike took place comes as clear indication that a limited, one-off strike will
not do the trick, and constitutes a serious test of the administration’s
resolve, especially in light of UN Ambassador Nikki Haley’s assertion that the U.S. is “prepared
to do more.”
Without a clear strategy in place, one that includes a political
vision for an endgame, the administration could stumble from one strike to
another, making a bad situation worse both for the Syrians and for itself.
No political plan can sidestep the Russians and their interests at
this stage, not only in Syria but perhaps also in Ukraine and elsewhere. The
Russian president, Vladimir Putin, seems to have always seen these fronts as interlinked. Mr. Tillerson must have
learned few in this regard following his 2-hour meeting with Putin, not to
mention his meetings with Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov. Having already accused the Russians of being
either “complicit” or “incompetent” in regard to the chemical attack, it’s not
surprising that he spoke of “a low level of trust”
between the two countries during his concluding press conference. It’s also not
surprising to hear Lavrov reasserts his country’s commitment to Syria’s
genocidaire, Bashar Al-Assad, albeit rather obliquely, by noting that his
removal was not on the agenda. Indeed, and Leon Aron of the American Enterprise
Institute has repeatedly noted, Putin’s attachment to
Assad involves certain domestic calculations as well. That is,
“Having staked enormous
political capital on the recovery of at least some of the main geopolitical
assets lost in the Soviet Union’s demise, Putin will defend Assad until the
domestic political costs become too high to bear.”
As such and irrespective of the nature of his primary motivation,
be it a cynical attempt at manipulating the news or a genuine concern for the
children of Syria, Trump needs to get serious and develop a better
understanding soon of the complexities of the gambit he just embarked upon, for
there are a variety of ways with which his decision to get involved could come
back to haunt him, both at home and abroad.
For instance, should Assad—backed by his Russian and Iranian
buddies—decide to escalate his strikes against the civilian population over the
next few weeks, producing more images of suffering and dying children, what
would Trump do? Continued defiance by Assad at this stage, even without the use
of chemical weapons, could easily transform Trump’s show of strength into a
running joke. Buoyed as he is by Russian and Iranian backing, including
recourse to the use of internationally banned incendiary weapons, Assad has every reason to
be defiant, and every reason to escalate. By targeting the same town mere hours
after he sustained the American strike, he, in fact, did exactly that.
Standing up to America will help Assad patch up his fraying
support base at home at a time when members of his supposedly loyalist militias
seem to have become more beholden to Iran and Russia than to him. As such, if
his ability to carry out major attacks against the civilian population, whether
by using chemical weapons or by any other means, is not seriously curtailed by
American strikes, Assad will emerge as a victor, and his position among his
supporters will be strengthened and re-legitimated. And Moscow will even more
reasons to back him. In fact, and while some note that the recent
battlefield losses incurred by pro-Assad troops in central Syria as being the
primary motive behind the recent chemical attack, achieving this might be more
to the point.
In a way, then, rather than gaining leverage, Trump might have
just entrusted his political future to the whims and calculations of a mass
murderer—unless, that is, he comes up with a credible plan soon. Trump risks
looking ridiculous, and “a man in his position can’t afford to be made to look
ridiculous,” to quote a tragic character from The
Godfather, which seems strangely appropriate considering the protagonists
involved on all sides.
By now, three things should be clear: one limited strike is
insufficient to deliver the message to a desperate killer like Assad, yet
strikes without an overall strategy for follow-through risks major blowback, while
a narrow focus on the use of chemical weapons seems quite meaningless if the
killing is allowed to go on by other means. In other words, now that a major
chemical attack by the Assad regime has finally triggered an American response
against it, that response cannot be limited to the issue of chemical weapons;
otherwise, we’re back where President Barack Obama left us in 2013, which is to
say washing our hands of the whole thing.
Second, this is no time for improvisation and for stumbling along.
Trump now needs to avail himself of the rare show of bipartisanship in the wake
of the attack to encourage his national security team to work in cooperation
with supporters in Congress to craft a comprehensive strategy that can move us
in the right direction. This strategy must involve more intense strikes
targeting vital assets controlled by the Assad regime and greater support to
rebel groups fighting against it, coupled with a strong diplomatic push meant
to revive and reinvigorate the Geneva peace process as well as a continuous
media campaign highlighting Assad’s war crimes so that the world never forgets
why President Trump recently called him “an animal.”
Moreover, the White House should seriously consider imposing
additional sanctions on Russia related to their use of incendiary weapons in
Syria and their involvement in covering up Assad’s mounting war crimes there.
As strange as this may sound, the costs of Putin’s Syria campaign has been quite low so far, perhaps when this is no
longer the case or when he realizes that he now risks facing increasing costs,
he might become more pliable.
Finally, it’s not just Trump’s personal credibility that’s on the
line here; it’s America’s. And America’s credibility has already been dealt too
many blows over the last few years because of incoherent policy on Syria. It’s
time to rectify that. More than 50,000 children have died throughout the course
of this conflict. If Trump was truly motivated to act by his concern for
Syria’s children, then he needs to make ending the conflict there a foreign
policy priority for his administration.
