By Amer Mahdi Doko
I still remember Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel’s press conference last April when he announced the US had strong evidence that the Syrian regime used chemical weapons against civilians. Looking tired and pale, Hagel chose his words carefully, stating “our intelligence community does assess, with varying degrees of confidence, that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale.” Technically, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had crossed Obama’s “red line,” the Administration’s marker for US intervention in Syria, yet Hagel offered no plans for a US response. Moreover, the United States’ announcement came only after the Israelis, the French, and the British made similar claims. In other words, with the world’s most advanced intelligence services speaking out, the US could not remain silent.
As a Syrian political and human-rights activist who has been imprisoned twice by Assad security forces, I have experienced the revolution and the regime firsthand. I regularly provide commentary about my experiences and events on the ground. I can understand the Administration’s internal calculations, knowing that a military intervention in Syria has political costs. Cautious American foreign policy seems reasonable after the painful, reverberating failure in Iraq and Afghanistan, and after the tragic attack on the US embassy in Benghazi that led to the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. However, I cannot understand the level of tolerance this administration has shown toward Syrian civilian deaths.
The Syrian regime has crossed Obama’s red line many times, including on August 21st, when Assad’s forces launched a massive chemical attack on parts of the Damascus suburbs, killing around 1300 civilians. Many of the fatalities were children and women according to reports from organizations working on the ground, such as MSF and the Center for Violations Documentation. In response to this recent attack, a senior US administration official said Sunday that there is “very little doubt” that a chemical weapon was used by the Syrian regime against civilians, but added that the president had not yet decided how to respond. Why would the Obama Administration put a condition on intervention and not act immediately upon violation of it? By setting his red line last year, President Obama violated one of the most basic policy principles: don’t make a promise that you cannot keep.
An Arab proverb translates: “A mountain contracted, a rat was born.” When listening to President Obama’s August 2012 red line speech regarding the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons, people thought it could be a game changer and would turn Assad’s table upside down. All these threats vanished after Hagel’s press conference when the US administration failed to act, asking for additional scrutiny of the evidence and for the international community not to rush to respond.
The world is now waiting for White House action, not reaction, toward the Assad regime’s chemical weapons attack despite repeated signs over the past two and half years that the Administration has been trying to avoid the Syrian quagmire. The US is abandoning its human rights obligations; its willingness to act when action is needed; its precedent for humanitarian intervention; and the responsibility that accompanies having the most expensive and technologically advanced military in the world. With each passing day, the US and the international community are losing leverage in Syria, and the question becomes: why not act now?
Everyone thought that Obama’s game changer, the moment that the red line was definitively crossed, would be the use of chemical weapons. The irony here is that this red line seems to have many layers. Politics can be a dirty game, but when it comes to presidential legacy, having more than 120,000 Syrian civilian lives on Obama’s record cannot be virtuous.
Many Democrats and Republicans have demanded establishing a no-fly zone to stop Assad’s killing machine over the rebel-held parts of Syria. Allowing the anticipated opposition-led transitional government to operate in these areas as a legitimate authority will help Syrian refugees return to those areas and hopefully gain control over the rest of the country.
In his own words, President Obama said in a recent interview with CNN that this attack is a “big event of grave concern” and one “that starts getting to some core national interests that the United States has, both in terms of us making sure that weapons of mass destruction are not proliferating, as well as needing to protect our allies, our bases in the region.” Apparently, the use of Scud missiles by Assad, which killed thousands of civilians, neither provokes attention nor requires action. It seems the only concern the US has is the possibility of chemical weapons falling in the wrong hands, i.e. Hezbollah, which affects its main ally in the region, Israel, and/or the threat of extremist Islamists. If weapons reach Hezbollah or another extremist group, the US will deeply regret not acting, but by then it would be too late.
Now, after having strong evidence that Assad has used chemical weapons against civilians, Syrians expect the Obama Administration’s response to be more scrutiny of evidence, more procrastination, and more diplomacy. Diplomacy however will not solve the chemical problem in Syria, and President Obama is facing the challenge of turning his threats into actions in the coming months.
No one is asking for US boots on the ground. As Senator McCain has said, US leadership is absent in the Syrian conflict. I myself cannot provide the US with a plan, but I want to reiterate what many analysts have been saying: one thing that the US can immediately do is create a coalition outside the UN Security Council. This is not just an option being discussed in the halls of power. People in Syria, perhaps the voices that count the most, showed support for some kind of coalition effort two years ago when they called on the Friends of Syria to create a no-fly zone, after Assad started using air strikes. The coalition should implement a plan that includes launching airstrikes to destroy Assad’s air force to stop attacks. Next, the US should help and encourage governments in the region, especially the Iraqi government, to stop weapons shipments from Iran and to prevent extremists from entering Syria. The US, along with Arab allies and Turkey, should provide heavy weapons to the legitimately organized and vetted Free Syrian Army groups to help them take down Assad or at least bring him to the negotiation table, where he has no other option but to give up power to a transitional government.
The Syrians know better than anyone else how fragile the Assad regime is and how much attention Assad pays to international intervention. Just look at how, when the US only raised its tone and used mildly aggressive rhetoric about considering possible responses to last week’s attack, Assad immediately allowed the UN Chemical Inspectors Mission to visit alleged chemical attack sites. Now, you can imagine what will happen when an actual military attack by the US and its allies really happens–the military will run as soon as Assad is no longer capable of protecting them. Any action the Obama Administration takes is going to have an impact on the Syrian crisis and will change the calculus on the ground. The rebels have a cause that they are fighting and willing to die for, while Assad and his militia are simply fighting for survival. The difference in the objectives makes it easier for the rebels to change the direction of this battle, or at least gain a stronger position at the negotiation table. All of this comes with the help of the Syrian people’s friends. Strong, definitive action will help the US regain some of its lost credibility in the Middle East.
Amer Mahdi Doko is a Syrian political activist and guest lecturer at the Georgetown University Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. Amer holds a masters’ degree in Management from Carnegie Mellon University, and is in his second year in the Master of Public Policy program at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute. A timeline of events mentioned in this article can be found below.
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Amer,
You write, “The US is abandoning its human rights obligations; its willingness to act when action is needed; its precedent for humanitarian intervention; and the responsibility that accompanies having the most expensive and technologically advanced military in the world.” I find your sense of entitlement breathtaking. The American regime owes you nothing, and owes your people nothing. If the past twelve years have taught the Americans anything, it is that all of their power projection has left them stretched thin. A state must look after its own interests first and should never be blamed for that. Your frustration with the current situation in Syria is understandable, but your blame is woefully misplaced.