A Symposium on Syria
Claire Berlinski, Ed. ·
March 4, 2012 at 9:22am
The New Republic's Symposium on Syria has some pieces of outstanding merit. What's missing is a discussion section.
Shall we discuss it here on Ricochet?
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Apr '11
Re: A Symposium on Syria
I'm too busy studying for mid-terms to participate, but I would like to say welcome back. I've missed you.
Mar '11
Re: A Symposium on Syria
Lots to respond to there. Opening salvo:
Nov '10
Re: A Symposium on Syria
It is telling that TNR has commissioned a seminar to deal with this question: the learning-curve is steep, US national interest is hard to define (and we are overextended, anyway), the Libyan (among others) intervention --however different that country may be from Syria-- sets a dubious precedent, there are a lot of big players involved peripherally, the outcome of any intervention far from clear. One is tempted to advise: don't just do something --stand there!
Re: A Symposium on Syria
Crow's Nest:
That's surely the first thing I'd say. Anyone who says "This is the worst-case scenario" is lacking imagination.
Second: Tartus is one reason for Russian unease, but hardly the only one.
Third: "A “regional force,” composed of both Turkish and Arab militaries?" In what fantasy universe is this going to comprise an organized, disciplined competent entity? From what I can see, Turkey is in fact about as eager to get involved in this as Americans are to announce a draft, mobilize en masse and effectuate regime change in Mexico, and for about the same reasons. No one wants to commit ground forces to this. Everyone is hoping to commit someone else's and then win an election on the back of an advertised foreign policy triumph. And no one will welcome the Turks as liberators--no more than they'll welcome us.
Mar '11
Re: A Symposium on Syria
I don't want to agree with Traub. Somebody go change his opinion.
Re: A Symposium on Syria
Hey, imagine how I feel finding myself in agreement with Robert Fisk.
Re: A Symposium on Syria
Aw, thanks.
Mar '11
Re: A Symposium on Syria
Command and control and establishing a recognized picture of the battlefield would be a nightmare. Different national doctrines, different command structures, different ethnicities, different technologies, and no serious previous history of bilateral military cooperation (perhaps I missed the last great Near Eastern Transnational Training Exercise.....)--and this is the force we're going to deploy into the middle of a civil war? Recipe for disaster.Cagaptay wants what never was and will never be. Its a coffee-shop faculty-lounge fantasy: no peacekeeping force in the middle of a hot civil war can be gentle and delicate and protect itself and civilians at the same time.Ziadeh acknowledges in his article, though diplomatically phrased, that "safe" zones would have to be "established" by the West. For those who don't speak diplomat, that means: special forces, bombs, cruise missiles, drone strikes, and "peace keepers" who are really troops on the ground in the first couple phases targeting Assad.
Mar '11
Re: A Symposium on Syria
I fear (and say somewhat uncomfortably) that of the pieces written in the TNR symposium, Traub and Diamond have the better of this argument, with some assist from Barfi, Nossel (to whom I apologize for misspelling her name earlier) and Drezner.
Re: A Symposium on Syria
I can't help but wonder what Kanan Makiya thinks we should be doing in Iraq now. Not a lot of learning from experience in his opinion, I am very, very sad to say.
Nov '10
Re: A Symposium on Syria
The current first title is "Why we should arm the opposition". Haven't read it but my immediate reaction is, I don't care what reasons you put forward ... not until we know who they are and what they stand for. This is a key neighbor of Israel, and we have already dropped the ball in this regard in both Egypt and Libya.
Clearly we cannot support Assad. We should probably vehemently oppose his regime regardless of the opposition. But let us not blindly give the enemy another stronghold.
Oct '10
Re: A Symposium on Syria
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
Aw, thanks. · 54 minutes ago
And today I'm too buried with business to join in, read up and comment. But let me add my "Welcome back!"
Both at our SoCal meetup and since then in at least one of the Member Feeds, many of us were wondering where you've been and whether all was copacetic in your life.
Dec '10
Re: A Symposium on Syria
Hey! Welcome back Claire!
Aug '10
Re: A Symposium on Syria
Yes, welcome back, Claire!
I picture you as very relaxed and fit after your vacation, and I hope I'm right.
May '10
Re: A Symposium on Syria
Claire: About a year ago, in the early Arab spring days, you and Judith had a neat discussion about whether you preferred that potentially-good/potentially-bad upheaval to the pre-spring status quo. By a whisker, it seemed, you both preferred the upheaval.
With a year under our belts, have things changed? Is this all still a net positive? Or would you be strangely relieved if we woke up tomorrow and the "stability" of Mubarrak and Gaddafi and friends had returned?
A Claire-and-Judith podcast on the one year anniversary of the Arab Spring would be cool,if you could fit it in.
Apr '11
Re: A Symposium on Syria
Scott Reusser: Claire: About a year ago, in the early Arab spring days, you and Judith had a neat discussion about whether you preferred that potentially-good/potentially-bad upheaval to the pre-spring status quo. By a whisker, it seemed, you both preferred the upheaval.
With a year under our belts, have things changed? Is this all still a net positive? Or would you be strangely relieved if we woke up tomorrow and the "stability" of Mubarrak and Gaddafi and friends had returned?
A Claire-and-Judith podcast on the one year anniversary of the Arab Spring would be cool,if you could fit it in. · 23 minutes ago
A Claire & Judith podcast would be fantastic.
Judith does live in Israel, no? Having both of your insights and following your back-and-forth would give me access to understanding in a way I just wouldn't get otherwise.
Can't overstate how important it is to try and make as much sense of what is going on there right now. Can't think of two better, more well positioned people to ask.
Edited on March 4, 2012 at 4:59pmNov '10
Re: A Symposium on Syria
Has there been one of the Arab dictator-overthrows that has not experienced a subsequent drift toward radical Islam? Just practically speaking, it's the devil you know becoming the devil you don't know problem. If I were living in Israel, my threat-sensitivity meter would be in the red zone.
Edited on March 4, 2012 at 5:15pmSep '10
Re: A Symposium on Syria
Hooray! Claire's back!
Oh, you want us to read something? Aw, darn it. This is my day off from reading...
Sep '10
Re: A Symposium on Syria
You know, in a way, the realists are right, they are always right. Even when they are morally wrong.—Kanan Makiya
And there's the rub. Say, for the sake of argument, that 200,000 Iraqis have died since 2003. How many would have died between 2003 and now had Saddam remained in power? Unanswerable question, so an apt comparison is impossible. It seems that Makiya's primary regret about Iraq is having been unrealistic about the human cost involved. But had such realism been the focus, there never would have been a regime change that at least makes freedom possible. ... Just finished Erik Larsen's In the Garden of the Beasts, about the 1933–34 U.S. ambassadorship of William E. Dodd to Berlin. Everyone knew what was going on, but the Allied powers did not have the moral courage to stop it, the cost then being too high, so Hitler consolidated power in late June 1934, thus making world war inevitable. All Roosevelt wanted was repayment of WWI reparations. Unrealistic to the end.
A Claire-and-Judith podcast on the one year anniversary of the Arab Spring would be cool, if you could fit it in.—Scott Reusser
May '11
Re: A Symposium on Syria
With Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the other Gulf states already fairly well integrated with NATO standard communications, etc., Syria and Libya were the odd men out. Thus the technical problems of an intervention are overstated (except as controlling/integrating Syrian units is concerned).
As Claire noted, local reaction to Turkish intervention will not be favorable.
The next question is one of mission. Will such a unit fight Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood who will try to seize anything of military use from AK-47s to VX-tipped Scuds? Will they be willing to enter Lebanon? Will they be willing to stand by when Israel responds to any attacks from Syrian territory?
Edited on March 4, 2012 at 6:36pm