All About Syria

6 September, 2013. 940 words.

This is the sheik topic of the day, so here’s my two cents. Whether to attack Syria or not is an incredibly complex question that is rather hard to boil down to a simple “yes” or “no” answer, in my opinion. (Just like the build-up to the Iraq War was a lot more ambiguous at the time than it seems now.) There’s a moral question, legal question, national security interests, face-saving, international diplomacy ramifications, etc. All of those things are why we elect a president, because we don’t want to think about that complicated stuff. (At least I don’t-I’ve got real work to do.) But since we have to post stuff on our blogs now and then, we need to idly speculate about it anyway.

One of the major issues is the moral question of whether or not to help people suffering in another country. And by people, I generally mean civilians and/or victims, not necessarily the people waving the guns around. I’m about 51% in favor of it-at least helping people that want help-because we usually can help, and everybody’s a human being, right?-but in this case, we can’t help the people that are already dead, and we can’t help the people getting killed by conventional means, and we certainly can’t end the conflict. We might be able stop future gas attacks if we destroy Syria’s chemical weapon stores and manufacturing capabilities, but that hardly seems a certainty, considering the dubious recent history of U.S. Intelligence. I don’t particularly believe Obama is lying to us about the intelligence, but any one of the hundreds of different people that report to him up the chain could be lying, wrong, or misled. (See: Iraq War.) Anyway even if we do destroy their chemical weapons, it’s not going to stop Assad from killing his opposition, and it’s not going to stop the various factions inside the country from killing each other. So destroying Assad’s chemical weapons isn’t going to stop any suffering. So why bother? A post from Greg Krehbiel basically says the same thing.

Another big issue in my mind is how to deal with countries that break international law. Allegedly Syria did, but the evidence is based on secret intelligence data, so we have no way of knowing one way or another. Historically we know that things aren’t always what they seem on the surface. We probably won’t know for sure what really happened and who did it until the dust settles ten years from now. But let’s assume it’s true. Who exactly is supposed to enforce these international laws? Whoever discovers the violation? Whoever feels like it? Yet if we let Syria commit what we as society have previously defined as war crimes, what’s to stop someone else from doing it? In that regard I’m in favor of “sending a message” to Syria, which would actually be more of a message to the world that yes, we still believe that some things are too horrible even for war. I personally think it’s more important to keep people from using chemical weapons now than it was in 1929. Can you imagine how dangerous a modern chemical/biological weapon would be? (Though one could argue that modern media does more damage to a population than any kind of weaponry. rimshot)

As for concerns to our own national security, I don’t feel the slightest bit threatened by Syria. Bombing chemical weapons factories there isn’t going to do a thing for us, in my opinion, except perhaps test out any new weaponry we happen to have lying around. So any suggestion that we’re attacking Syria to keep Americans safe is totally bogus, and I’d oppose that reasoning.

There was the issue of the U.S. leadership looking stupid for threatening Syria over and over and then doing nothing, but Obama has sort of side-stepped that problem with his “I’m only going to attack if Congress agrees” scheme. (As of this writing, Congress appears to be undecided, though I predict they will ignore their constituents and back the president.)

Another sticky issue is Russia, which for some reason is friends with Syria. Also Iran, which is friends with Syria and Russia. Relations with Iran couldn’t get much worse, but is it worth hurting our relationship with Russia over Syria? Russia is a threat to U.S. national security, a lot more so than Syria, at least. Russia always seems like it’s lying in wait for something, and Putin makes me nervous. So in that regard I’d probably vote to leave Syria alone. (Though I have to believe Russia doesn’t care that much about Syria, and is only making token protests.)

Greg Krehbiel advocated sanctions against Syria instead of an attack. I like that idea too, but I thought we were already sanctioning them. Looking at the Syrian Embassy page shows that we don’t export anything to them, but I don’t see any restrictions on importing from them. I can’t think of anything we want from Syria, though, except oil, which I’m pretty sure we can get in abundance elsewhere. Right now I doubt Syria does a lot of exporting anyway, considering the whole country is at war with itself. Anyway I have a feeling that sanctions would only hurt the Syrian people, who are already struggling-struggling to leave mainly, otherwise struggling to stay alive amid the chaos.

As of this writing, I’d probably say no, let them figure things out themselves. But I’m not really commited to it one way or the other. It’s another one of those political topics that has almost no impact on my own daily life. I can only look at it academically.

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