RURAL RANTS
AMERICA ATTACKING ASSAD?
June 18, 2016
By Haviland Smith
Fifty-one State Department officials have just signed an internal memo protesting U.S. policy in Syria, calling
for targeted U.S. military strikes against the regime of Bashar al
Assad and urging regime change as the only way to defeat ISIS.
The internal memo was sent throughout the "dissent channel" which is defined as “a
serious policy channel reserved only for consideration of responsible
dissenting and alternative views on substantive foreign policy issues
that cannot be communicated in a full and timely manner through regular
operating channels and procedures” and “which will not be subjected to
reprisal, discipline action or unauthorized disclosure of its use”.
It was established in the 1960s during the Vietnam War to ensure that
senior leadership in the department would have access to alternative
policy views on the war.
The
views expressed by the U.S. officials in the cable amount to a scalding
internal critique of a longstanding U.S. policy against taking sides in
the Syrian war.
It
is safe to say that our incredibly counterproductive military
involvement in the Middle East during the past dozen years was a
outgrowth of the powerful influence held by neoconservatives in the Bush
administration.
It
is equally safe to say that “liberal interventionist” ideology has
played a role in foreign policy under the Obama administration. Obama’s
first Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton is widely described as
“hawkish” in her foreign policy views and her administration has always
contained liberal interventionists, many of whom have remained there
after her departure from State and the arrival of Secretary Kerry. They
still play important roles in the formulation and conduct of foreign
policy.
However
different the origins of liberal interventionism may be from those of
neoconservatism, the net result in foreign policy is not that
different. Both ideologies believe in the export of democracy and
regime change, policies that have rightly come under attack here and
abroad, given the negative results of our recent military activities in
the Middle East.
So,
the question is, are the State department “51” simply a continuation of
our old notions of the export of democracy and regime change?
In
all of this and regardless of the motivation behind the “dissent
channel” memorandum, the only important question to be asked is, what would be the result? That assumes we
become more heavily involved militarily against the Assad regime which
would be an act of war in itself. What do we do about al Qaida’s Al
Nusra front? With Iran? With the Russians? With the Chinese? With the
Saudis? With the Iraqis? Who is on our side? Who is against us?
Assuming we can successfully engineer
this regime change, whom do we then pick to run the country? Do we
pick the remaining Alawites with their Shia allies in Iraq and Iran? Do
we pick Sunni Syrians with their confessional ties to ISIS and Iraqi
Sunnis? Do we install the military?
Irrespective
of what we do, how will the competing confessional groups in the
broader region react? How have they already reacted in Libya, Yemen,
Iraq and Syria? Does America really have a dog in this fight?
Whomever
we pick under these circumstances, we will own the responsibility for
the Syria of the future, a Syria that will always be contested by the
ethnic and confessional forces that rule and roil the Middle East.
1 comment:
Excellent article by Haviland Smith. Both the neoconservatives and the neoliberals (or liberal interventionists) have done great damage with their policies seeking regime change in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya, etc. it is amazing that they have been consistently wrong in their positions and yet maintain significant influence in elite policy circles.
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