The United States \u201cisn\u2019t smart enough\u201d<\/em> to solve the Syria crisis and \u201cwould pay\u00a0 a heavy price for intervention,\u201d\u00a0<\/em> Brent Scowcroft<\/a>, former American national security advisor.<\/p>\n “The world is closer to serious danger than it ever was in decades (because of Syria mainly) … Any serious miscalculation will a create a problem we will not be able to handle”<\/em>\u00a0 Former UN secretary General\u00a0and Syria envoy Kofi Annan speaking on the Jon Stewart Show on Sep 17th 2012.<\/p>\n So what can be expected next?<\/strong><\/p>\n America’s template for relying on “the rebels” to topple governments not\u00a0sufficiently compliant with American directives is by now well known: Start\u00a0with\u00a0political and media support for the rebels until popular opinion in the US and Europe sees the conflict taking place between a good side (the rebels) and an evil side (the regime), … then provide non military aid … then encourage your allies to provide them with military supplies … then finally provide them directly with much more lethal military aid.<\/p>\n United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon today said he is \u201cdeeply concerned\u201d<\/em> about the continued flow of arms to both the Syrian government and opposition forces, and said a \u201cpolitical solution\u201d is \u201cthe only way out of the crisis.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Instead, there is currently significant interest in the United States and among its allies in the Middle East in sending more serious arms to “the rebels” if certain conditions are met.<\/p>\n Washington Post associate editor David Ignatius spent 48 hours among the FSA rebels inside Syria. He concluded that “Assad rules the skies, and probably only U.S. missiles could change that deadly balance.”<\/em>\u00a0but warned that “The shower of cash and weapons coming from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and other Arab nations is helping extremist fighters and undercutting any orderly chain of command through the Free Syrian Army.”<\/em><\/p>\n Robert Worth, reporting<\/a> for the New York Times\u00a0quotes a Syrian rebel leader\u00a0“The Saudi government appears to be trying to finance more secular rebel groups, Maysara said, while the Qataris appear to be closer to the Muslim Brotherhood. But these distinctions are slippery, in part because rebel groups adapt their identities to gain money and weapons.”<\/em><\/p>\n Another\u00a0report, published\u00a0on the same day<\/a> in the New York Times, raised more questions about the rebels, or the FSA, that the Unites States is considering empowering.<\/p>\n “But now opposition commanders say defections have slowed to a trickle. Some commanders have given up trying to entice defectors, and others have resorted to more desperate measures: cajoling, duping, threatening and even drugging and kidnapping military men to get them to change sides, or at least stay out of the fight. Without defections, they say, the opposition cannot hope to grow, never mind prevail … “We use means only used by the devil,\u201d said Ahmed Qunatri, a rebel commander in northern Syria who defected from the Republican Guard … We arrest them and give them a chance to defect,\u201d he said. \u201cSome are convinced after a week, so they are welcomed.\u201d Those who remained unconvinced \u2014 loyal to the government \u2014 were imprisoned, he said, and would face a \u201ctrial.\u201d … One activist, who requested anonymity for fear of angering the Free Syrian Army, cited a recent case that he said was part of a worrying trend: an officer from the coastal city of Latakia was kidnapped, thrown in the trunk of a car and told he was defecting or he would be killed.”<\/em><\/p>\n Henry Kissinger, America’s most\u00a0experienced secretary of state,\u00a0wrote in\u00a0a Washington Post Oped:\u00a0“Syrian intervention risks upsetting global order<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0…\u00a0The diplomacy generated by the Arab Spring replaces Westphalian principles of equilibrium with a generalized doctrine of humanitarian intervention… Outside powers demand that the incumbent government negotiate with its opponents for the purpose of transferring power. But because, for both sides, the issue is generally survival, these appeals usually fall on deaf ears. Where the parties are of comparable strength, some degree of outside intervention, including military force, is then invoked to break the deadlock.”\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em>In other words, Kissinger is saying that the Syrian regime and the millions of its supporters are 1) fighting for their survival and 2) Are not going to be defeated without serious, boots-on-the-ground military intervention by NATO\/Turkey.<\/p>\n The US is about to make another serious mistake.<\/strong> It appears that those adamant to defeat the regime in Syria are helping decision makers form the impression that there\u00a0are local forces that\u00a0are reliably secular, significant enough in numbers to be able to defeat the 200,000 strong\u00a0regular Syrian army without destroying Syrian’s\u00a0largest cities, and can be expected to follow some “orderly”\u00a0chain of command. Decision makers are ignoring many serious risks<\/p>\n 1) Sectarian conflict will intensify, last for many years and spread to Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey.<\/p>\n 2) Iran, Iraq, and Lebanese allies of Syria will likely get involved in a regional war between Syria and Turkey.<\/p>\n 3) Jihadists will have the upper hand on the opposition side. They are the fiercest fighters and they will not stick to promises they gave to the United States or to secular Syrian opposition generals who helped them obtain American weapons.<\/p>\n 4) It will be impossible to rebuild Syria. Syria will be turned into a failed state and will export chaos to the wider Middle East for years, if not decades.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sadly, state department is staffed with individuals lacking in skills, knowledge and\u00a0sound judgment. Congress and Think Tanks\u00a0are more interested in satisfying AIPAC and American mainstream media is almost always blindly\u00a0behind\u00a0any policy\u00a0they are sold by the spokesperson\u00a0of State Department. As we learned from previous failures, there are no effective safety valves when it comes to America’s foreign policy decision making.<\/p>\n For\u00a0many decades the United States failed to score any major success in the Middle East. There\u00a0aren’t many\u00a0reasons why one should expect a re-emergence of\u00a0constructive and effective\u00a0leadership from Washington DC. The United States will probably continue to\u00a0play a highly destructive role in Syria<\/a>, and Syria will not be the only nation that will suffer the dire consequences.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What are the consequences of a collapse of central authority in Damascus?<\/strong><\/p>\n Geographically, Syria is the center of the Middle East and all its conflicts.\u00a0In addition, the Syrian regime has been\u00a0carefully balancing a number of volatile conflicts that would have easily erupted out of control. Before the crisis began Syria was highly influential in<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Now it will be difficult to predict what the new Middle East will experience after the changes taking place in Syria. A total collapse of central government in Damascus will lead to an exponential increase in the complexity of managing the region’s different conflicts. The risks should not be taken lightly by any sane decision maker.\u00a0Additionally\u00a0 it is generally accepted that stability in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the GCC states is now dependent on the outcome of the conflict in Syria. Price of oil, negotiations with Iran, and Israel’s decision to bomb Iran are all linked to the outcome of the Syria crisis.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n
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