US military can't save Syria
- By Mitchell Blatt
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E-mail China.org.cn, September 11, 2015
In fact, after America left, the fragile reconciliation between Sunnis and Shias fell apart. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki threatened to disband many of the Sunni militias that had been helping fight insurgent terrorists and even prosecute some prominent Sunni. The Sunni-Shia split was a major factor in ISIS recruitment and letting ISIS advance through northern Iraq with little resistance.
These ethnic-religious factional disputes could not be solved by America. It was arrogant of the Bush administration to think they could create a functioning democracy without addressing these broader problems plaguing the Middle East for centuries.
The real problem, then, was not the withdrawal, that would have inevitably had to come eventually; the problem was the invasion in the first place and the idea that any problem can be resolved through military force. It is not just an "American problem" either, though America is often at the center because of both the size of its military and the idealistic view of its people and politicians that often drives America to war.
Now that Russia is increasing its presence in Syria, one can expect they will face the same problems of overextension, just like the Soviets had in Afghanistan in the '80's and more recently in the Ukraine.
The suffering in Syria is indisputable. Anyone would certainly want it to end. But the problem is we can't make it end just by wanting it to be so. A regime fighting for its survival, which is dropping barrel bombs on civilian population centers, won't stop for nothing. A people trying to overthrow the regime to stop the government's abuses won't give in. The fanatical terrorist groups that think they have God on their side don't know compromise. The problem is that wars are almost always decided with force, and force hurts people. By now the most effective fighting forces in a multi-sided war are the tyrannical Assad government and the tyrannical, fanatical Islamic State.
The fact that ISIS is opposing Assad, like the war in Yemen and the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran, also comes down to the centuries-long rivalry between Sunnis and Shiites.
Meanwhile, Russia and the U.S. are operating on different scripts in Syria. While both sides are against ISIS, they have conflicting views on Assad. The U.S. won't work with him on fighting ISIS -- because they don't want to help him maintain power -- while Russia has been backing him and supplying his regime with weapons.
So they can't even agree on a desired end game, but even if they could, it would be very hard for America to bring about its favored solution -- which would be some relatively "moderate" rebels starting a democratic government.
As we have seen in Iraq and Libya, experiments in trying to create democratic governments in Middle Eastern states with no history of democracy do not work well. There would be no way of controlling which group ultimately takes power even in the best of circumstances, and now it is the decidedly not moderate terrorist groups that have the greatest power and control of land.
The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:
http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/MitchellBlatt.htm
Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
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