THE UNITED STATES NAVAL WAR COLLEGE. National Security Affairs Department

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1 THE UNITED STATES NAVAL WAR COLLEGE National Security Affairs Department Theater Security Decision Making Course THE ORIGINS AND CONSEQUENCES OF US NONINTERVENTION IN SYRIA by Faisal Itani Reprinted by permission from Current History, December 2016, pp Copyright 2016 Current History Inc. TSDM Strategies 8-3 CENTCOM

2 The single most important external factor in the Syrian war s trajectory was the set of foreign policy beliefs Obama held well before the first shot was fired. The Origins and Consequences of US Nonintervention in Syria FAYSAL ITANI FAYSAL ITANI is a resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East. The conflict in Syria is entering its seventh year, sowing doubts about the very existence of a Western-led international system. The war has left around half a million people dead and millions more injured and displaced. Much of the Syrian state, economy, and infrastructure are destroyed. Tens of thousands of Syrians are held in government prisons where many are dying, while hundreds of thousands are living under siege. The regime of President Bashar al-assad has killed hundreds using chemical weapons including sarin gas. Transnational terrorist groups and ethnic and sectarian militias have emerged from this morass, self-financed or supported by foreign patrons. The Islamic State (ISIS) alone has killed thousands in Syria and hundreds of civilians in terrorist attacks abroad. Yet the United States has failed to take serious action to end the conflict, due to a perfect storm of circumstances that seems to have trapped Syria in an open-ended war. In March 2014, US Secretary of State John Kerry denounced Russia s invasion of Ukraine as nineteenth-century behavior in the twenty-first century. He was presumably contrasting today s supposedly enlightened liberal world order with an earlier era of violent competition and predatory behavior by states. Syria shows the limits of that distinction. When particular circumstances converge, even the highest international rules and norms can apparently be violated with impunity. Thus the bombing, starvation, sieges, mass incarcerations, sectarian killings, and forced displacements of the Syrian war continue, largely due to the combination of the war s complexity, the regional context, and a US president with deeply noninterventionist instincts a significant departure from decades of established American tendencies. Together, these factors have made the discourse of international norms and order irrelevant to Syria, though even a more benign regional and local environment would probably have failed to elicit a very different US policy. ARGUMENTS FOR ACTION In Syria, the United States had a broad spectrum of options for intervention. At one extreme was total noninterference; at the other, direct military action including a ground occupation of Syria. President Barack Obama obviously ruled out the latter possibility, and in public pronouncements he would often cast it as the only interventionist option. In reality, few of those calling for action advocated a ground war in Syria, and in any case the United States was already involved in Syria, albeit in far more limited capacities. Yet the president refused to intervene in a manner that would aim to decisively shift the war s trajectory in favor of either warring side or toward a negotiated settlement, rejecting both realist and idealist arguments for doing so. From a realist perspective, some argued that continued war in Syria threatened key US interests. The violence had spilled over into the territory of US allies including Jordan, Turkey, and Lebanon. These and other countries also faced immense social, economic, political, and security pressures from the influx of millions of refugees. As the effects of the crisis spread, European states struggled to provide for and integrate vulnerable, often resented refugees, and their own politics became radicalized over the issue. The war s extremely violent sectarian nature allowed extremist groups access to territory, resources, and aggrieved recruits. At least one group, ISIS, openly intends to attack the United States and its allies. Aside from these 337

3 338 CURRENT HISTORY December 2016 concerns, some recommended that the United States use the conflict to weaken or contain the regional position of the Assad regime s main backers, Iran and the Lebanese Shia militant group Hezbollah, by supporting the rebels or attacking the regime directly. There were also pro-intervention arguments based on liberal principles and humanitarian ideals that the United States has long championed, which are pillars of the international liberal order Washington established and has upheld since World War II. These arguments generally centered on ending violence against civilians (mostly perpetrated by the Assad regime) and other atrocities, reversing large-scale population displacement, promoting moderate opposition forces, and restoring peace through direct military or proxy action if necessary. Some of these arguments fell under the United Nations Responsibility to Protect doctrine, which elevates protection of civilians from mass atrocities above state sovereignty even if this requires foreign intervention. Supporting evidence was readily available given the scale and frequency of human rights violations and atrocities in Syria, including the use of weapons of mass destruction, starvation, mass incarceration, and torture. RELUCTANT POLICEMAN Obama is not an isolationist. His administration has energetically pursued international trade and climate change agreements, negotiated a difficult nuclear deal with Iran, and given record military support to Israel and the Arab Gulf states. By contrast, however, it has refused to take serious action in Syria, and its few marginal policy attempts to influence the war s direction have failed. These refusals and failures have resulted from the interaction between historical circumstances, the war s specific traits, and the White House s somewhat unusual foreign policy doctrine, particularly relating to the US role in the Middle East. The key circumstance and context was the Arab Spring. The Syrian war broke out in 2011 amid nonviolent protest movements in Tunisia and Egypt that successfully challenged dictators. The outbreak of protests and instability in Syria, bordering Israel, Jordan, Iraq, Turkey, and Lebanon, was more concerning to the United States, but after some delay Obama called for Assad to step down (likely because he believed Assad would fall anyway). Meanwhile, civil war had broken out in Libya. In this instance the United States did intervene, leading a NATO coalition that toppled Muammar el-qaddafi s regime, only to see the country descend into warlordism and general disorder. Militants there later attacked and killed US diplomatic staff including the ambassador, causing domestic political embarrassment and controversy. Obama could hardly have helped seeing the brutal Syrian conflict through the lens of the Libya intervention, in addition to the still more central experiences of the ill-fated US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama had campaigned on a promise of ending US involvement in Iraq, and as president he spent much time and effort trying to wind down the war in Afghanistan. He also faced an American public averse to greater involvement in the region, though this tended to enable rather than hinder his policies since he shared some of those sentiments. The conflict itself offered other reasons for staying away. Syria is a socially, religiously, and ethnically complex country with a troubled and often violent modern political history. At least two relatively powerful countries, Iran and Russia, are strongly invested in a military victory for the Assad regime, and while they are outmatched by the US military, they are still in a position to complicate any US intervention. As for the insurgency, it is a hybrid of hundreds of groups, the most acceptable of which in American eyes are nationalist moderates struggling to take large-scale collective action, and the worst of which are extremist groups and enemies of the United States. A US intervention would ideally lead to a negotiated political settlement, but it was quite possible the regime would never accept one and continue to fight, which could force stronger military action that would mean more costs and complications. Last and most important was the worldview of the president himself. Obama approached the Syria challenge and policy options with strong preconceptions about the utility and necessity of US power, especially in the Middle East. Obama told the Atlantic s Jeffrey Goldberg as much in a 2016 interview. In his final State of the Union address, he linked unrest in the Middle East to conflicts that date back millennia. Clearly, Obama and some of his closest staffers saw the region as a welter of intractable historic conflict, religious radicalism, and political fragmentation. At the same time, they blamed past US interventions for contributing to if not causing some of the region s worst pathologies. They also suspected the Washington foreign-policy establish-

4 ment of remaining wedded to the militarism that had led to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. In a 2016 New York Times Magazine interview, the president s deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, described that establishment as the Blob. Goldberg reported that one administration official referred to Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, the address of a number of foreignpolicy think tanks, as Arab-occupied territory, reflecting a belief that they are compromised by money from America s traditional Arab allies. Obama himself criticized what he called the potentially dangerous foreign-policy establishment playbook that presidents are meant to adhere to. The president was ambivalent if not hostile toward America s unspoken but implicitly accepted role as the world s policeman. Finally, in comments to the press, Obama showed some contempt for America s traditional Sunni Arab allies, which were also pushing for US intervention in Syria. On one occasion he referred to them as free-riders unwilling to shoulder their fair burden of international action. Obama s well-formed beliefs aversion to further US entanglement in the Middle East; distrust of conventional foreign-policy wisdom and its advocates; skepticism about the use of force for complex political ends; and ambivalence toward the existing regional alliance structure and balance of power effectively ruled out a US intervention or proxy war in Syria, since there was no specific policy formulation that could override any of those beliefs. MARGINAL MILITARISM Any doubts over how far the US would go in Syria were answered in August 2013, when Obama decided not to take military action against the Assad regime for ignoring US warnings (including Obama s own stated red line ) and violating international norms by killing hundreds of Syrian civilians with sarin gas. The president continues to show total confidence in this choice, describing it as his proudest foreign policy moment. He believes he avoided the common mistakes of a traditional foreign policy ethos that fetishized US credibility and military force. The chemical weapons incident highlighted the gulf between what was indeed establishment thinking and the Obama administration s views not only on Syria, but on US power The burden of proof fell far more heavily on the case for intervention. Consequences of US Nonintervention in Syria 339 writ large. It also vividly demonstrated that, absent US leadership, no other state or states would step in to enforce the Western-created international rules of the game. Indeed, it seemed that the only states acting with purpose and confidence in Syria were Iran and Russia to protect a state hostile to the United States and its allies. The United States did not stay out of Syria altogether, however. While Obama ruled out either a direct US military intervention or a proxy-war approach strong enough to compel the Assad regime to compromise with the opposition, agencies with more aggressive agendas were allowed to proceed if they did not cross limits set by the White House. The results were disappointing, though this had less to do with the incompetence of those who tried than the futility of complex, ambitious operations in hostile environments under such tight constraints imposed by their own leadership. Within months of the Syrian uprising s militarization, the Central Intelligence Agency saw an advantage in arming certain rebel groups against Assad and set up two covert operations rooms in Jordan and Turkey, known as the MOC and the MOM respectively, to train, equip, and advise vetted rebel factions. The goal was to increase insurgent pressure on the regime to accept a political compromise. The MOC-MOM model delivered some tactical rebel victories, particularly in southern Syria, and introduced effective anti-tank guided missiles into the rebel arsenal. Ultimately, however, these measures failed to seriously threaten the regime. US-backed insurgents were beset with internal divisions, lack of anti-aircraft capability, low salaries, and an enemy with superior external backing from Iran, Russia, Hezbollah, and other foreign militias. The MOC-MOM efforts could have been scaled up and refined to rectify some of these shortcomings, but that would have violated restrictions set by the White House. In any case, the Assad regime never felt enough pressure from this program to drop its commitment to total military victory. DIPLOMATIC TRACK The Obama administration s most ambitious effort to end or at least deescalate the civil war was not a military one but rather a high-profile diplomatic track led by Kerry. He offered Russia cooperation against terrorist groups in Syria in re-

5 340 CURRENT HISTORY December 2016 turn for Moscow s agreeing to press the regime to deescalate and facilitate humanitarian aid flows. This effort peaked with cease-fire agreements negotiated by Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in February and September 2016 amid much media coverage, but these truces collapsed largely due to constant violations by the Assad regime, with apparent Russian acceptance or support. The diplomatic track failed for a number of reasons. Much like the military effort, the negotiations were compromised from the start by the broader US policy posture on Syria, and the related aversion to conflict with US rivals in the context of the war. This stance either coexisted with or helped nurture false assumptions about Russian interests and capabilities: that Moscow would choose counterterrorism cooperation with the United States, and the international legitimization that would supposedly follow, over protecting its ally Assad; that Russia was willing and able to compel the regime to cease successful military operations; or indeed that Russia which, unlike the United States, was a direct party to the conflict sought anything in Syria other than victory for the regime. Different assumptions would have suggested policy options the administration was firmly opposed to. Above all, the diplomatic effort was hampered by the absence of leverage through the credible threat of force or other escalation by the United States against Russia or the Assad regime. The cease-fire agreements therefore lacked any enforcement mechanisms. As a result, the United States was forced to depend on Russian goodwill and hope that Moscow would uphold its end of the cease-fire agreements. Instead, the regime used the cease-fires to reorganize militarily ahead of the inevitable resumption of fighting. Those opposition forces that accepted the deals did so simply to remain in the United States good graces. Few believed the regime would respect the terms. RISK TOLERANCE Even the most skilled diplomacy would have struggled to change the Assad regime s behavior in the context of the Obama administration s profound ambivalence toward intervention and very low tolerance for risk. US policy in Syria was Even the highest international rules and norms can apparently be violated with impunity. shaped by preconceptions and policy tendencies unrelated to the war s specific realities. The single most important external factor in the Syrian war s trajectory was the set of foreign policy beliefs Obama held well before the first shot was fired. His Syria policy has been heavily criticized and fiercely defended, but its intellectual underpinnings are clear and coherent. Obama s relatively unusual (for a US president) beliefs about the Middle East and American power s role in the world are complex and well developed. For those reasons, they left no room for so ambitious an undertaking as ending Syria s war. Doing so through at least some use of direct or proxy military force would have been deeply inconsistent with the White House s worldview. Of course, the Syrian war is complicated enough to intimidate policy makers. But it is hard to imagine that a president with more traditional interventionist instincts would not have at least tried (and perhaps failed) to end the war or blunt its worst atrocities. Perhaps he or she would have emphasized opportunities as much as threats. For example, US pressure on the Assad regime could indeed have provoked counterescalation by the regime, Iran, or Russia, yet it is not logical to presume that the regime and its allies had no risk calculus themselves and were therefore bound to escalate against a vastly superior power. The US foreign-policy establishment s focus on credibility and deterrence regarding the use of weapons of mass destruction may be justified by the dangers such weapons pose and the importance of enforcing norms against their use. A different president might see the role of hard-line Islamist rebels in Syria as an argument for providing greater support to more moderate insurgents, or for urgent action to end a radicalizing war, rather than for nonintervention. And another president might perhaps have less fear that Iran would abandon a favorable nuclear agreement out of anger at US actions in Syria. He or she may acknowledge that Sunni Arab allies are flawed, but also that they have served US interests well. The point is that many of the administration s main arguments for nonintervention are not selfevidently true, whereas there were also compelling arguments to the contrary. Due to the administration s preconceptions about US policy and distrust

6 Consequences of US Nonintervention in Syria 341 of establishment views, however, the burden of proof fell far more heavily on the case for intervention probably insurmountably so. The United States has not intervened in Syria because this was the wrong war, in the wrong region, for the wrong president. In this case, lack of intervention was apparently determined less by the war s specific traits and the policy options they presented, and more by how a leader was predisposed to assess the challenge and his own country s capabilities presidential baggage of sorts. If the past few years in Syria offer lessons, the most important one is that the lens through which a US president sees the world can result in policy that precedes rather than follows from the particulars of a specific challenge. FAULTY PREMISES The war in Syria also demonstrates several other sobering international truths. First, without American leadership and a US-backed effort combining military and diplomatic strategies, no other states have been willing to bear the risks and costs involved in trying to stabilize Syria. US allies have instead taken half-hearted offensive or fully defensive postures to protect their own parochial interests, while US rivals have unequivocally committed to military victory by the side guilty of the greatest atrocities. Given that the UN cannot act without elusive unanimity, the international order seems weak to the point of nonexistence. Second, the war s outcomes weigh against statements by some in the Obama administration that all sides would recognize the futility of a military solution, and that the war would end in the organic emergence of a natural regional balance of power. Instead, the prolonged Syrian war has drawn in more belligerents ever more deeply, further highlighting the conflict s zero-sum nature. It has produced worrying external consequences such as refugee flows and terrorism. There is no compelling reason to expect otherwise at this point. Deriving more specific policy lessons from the Syrian conflict is difficult because, accepting the basic premises of the Obama administration s worldview and priorities, it is unclear whether Syria is a case of policy failure or policy success. The animating principle of US policy has been the deep-seated belief that America was simply incapable of shaping the situation in Syria, and was more liable to make it worse by trying. By its own measure, if the top priority was avoiding entanglement in the war by proxy or otherwise, then the administration policy has succeeded. For that reason, Obama and his aides are more likely to feel pride than regret over their handling of Syria. Strictly speaking, to call US policy in Syria a failure is less a statement about achieving its goals which it arguably has and more a criticism of the goals themselves. This does not mean the administration s policy goals and reading of the Syria crisis were sound to begin with. The interventionist argument has been developed at length over the years. Syria s collapse would pose a long-term terrorist threat even if ISIS is destroyed. The refugee spillover will continue to destabilize Syria s neighbors if the war is not resolved. An Iranian-dominated Syria may not pose a direct terrorist threat to the United States but may cause problems for Washington acting through Hezbollah and from a stronger regional position, threatening US allies, interests, and assets in the area. The United States may indeed be in a new Cold War with Russia, and if so it should adopt a strategy for winning, perhaps by taking a stronger stand against Russian overseas aggression. Its weaknesses and dysfunctions notwithstanding, the foreign-policy establishment may simply be right to favor intervention in Syria. Most importantly, the belief that the United States is uniquely incapable of agency and effectiveness in the Middle East whereas its rivals should be treated with caution and deference is odd if not misplaced. The administration may have achieved its limited aims in Syria, but the country is a humanitarian, political, economic, and security disaster that may pose a long-term threat to US interests. THE PRICE OF MINIMALISM It is impossible to predict the next act in the Syrian tragedy. Barack Obama s ideas about US power and interests were atypical for an American president and had profound implications for Washington s policy in the region. His presidency is now drawing to an end. The Syrian war will be waiting for his successor to assess it and act (or not) accordingly. This raises the question: Is the Obama doctrine a passing eccentricity, or is it a reference point for a new US policy one defined by the experience of the Iraq war and the ensuing skepticism, caution, and inwardness? Will the United States continue to take a minimalist approach to the Middle East based largely on counterterrorism and ensuring the flow of oil? If so, are

7 342 CURRENT HISTORY December 2016 there other mechanisms for decisive international action in a situation as complicated as the civil war in Syria, absent US leadership? Probably not. At the international level, US- Russian rivalry has rendered the UN useless as a conflict resolution body in Syria. The United States Western allies are consumed with parochial economic, social, and political challenges and have little appetite for leading an intervention in Syria. The regional powers are engaged as belligerents but, with the exception of Iran, are either unwilling or unable to commit to winning the war. Russia is another belligerent, and may well end the war by delivering a regime victory, albeit at great cost in lives and destruction and certainly not in the spirit of a humanitarian intervention. It is clear that while success is not assured if the United States intervenes to end the war, Syria will be plagued by chronic instability, violence, extremism, and economic and humanitarian catastrophe if it does not. To be sure, Americans across the political spectrum are increasingly skeptical about using US power in the Middle East unless there is a clear and immediate danger such as that posed by ISIS. It is also true, however, that leadership can inform and shape public opinion, if and when the president feels the need to identify and explain a new threat or interest. Finally, despite the Obama administration s contemptuous attitude toward the foreign-policy establishment, which is shared by some other politicians and part of the public, the establishment remains deeply influential and will outlast any particular president. It also retains different degrees of interventionist tendencies and a belief in both the necessity and utility of American power, including in the Middle East. The combination of a new president and these old ideas may well lead to a US intervention in Syria, but it will be an uglier, more complex, and more dangerous Syria than the one President Obama faced in 2011.