The Wrongologist

What’s
Wrong Today:

Yesterday
we asked the questions: Are we certain that sarin was used in Syria? If it was
used, which side used it?

What if
the alleged sarin use is a Red Herring to draw us into a mistake?

Complicating
Mr. Obama’s stumble towards a decision is the unclear situation on the ground
in Syria. The fact is that the only
effective rebel forces are Islamist extremists, and the best fighters
of that group have sworn allegiance to Al-Qaeda. While the US media was
screaming about chemical weapons, The
NYT reported on the
Syrian rebels. Here are quotes: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

The Times goes on to say:

(Moon of Alabama reports that the cited article is the first to be written for the Times
by Ben Hubbard, an Arabic speaker, who used to report for the AP. Previously,
most NYT pieces on Syria were written by Anna Barnard in Lebanon. Barnard
speaks Russian not Arabic, and her reports often seem to come directly from the
sectarian Sunni Hariri press office.)

Hubbard
concludes that many rebels and opposition activists complain about the Western
focus on Islamist groups, some even dismissing the opposition’s ideological
differences. He quotes: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

When the rebellion
began, defectors from the government’s secular army formed the vanguard. The
rebel movement has since grown to include fighters with a wide range of views,
including Qaeda-aligned jihadists seeking to establish an Islamic emirate,
political Islamists inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood and others who want an
Islamic-influenced legal code like that found in many Arab states.

From the
start of the revolt, the Syrian government has sought to portray the rebels as
terrorists carrying out an international plot to weaken the country. (As did Mubarak and Gaddafi)

The rise
of the extremist groups has strengthened its case and increased support among
Syrians who fear that a rebel victory could mean the end of the secular Syrian
state.

This is the landscape President Obama
confronts as
he considers if the red line was crossed and how to respond if it was crossed.
Few of the rebel groups share the political vision of the United States or
have the military might to push it forward.

Assad’s Syrian
team recognizes that the US is worried that it has few natural allies in the
armed opposition and has tried to exploit that by trying to convince, or
frighten, Washington into staying out of the fight. At every turn they promote
the notion that the alternative to Mr. Assad is an extremist Islamic state.

Steven
Heydemann, a senior adviser at the United States
Institute of Peace,
which works with the State Department, acknowledged that the current momentum
toward radicalism could be hard to reverse. The challenge, he said, is to end
the conflict before:

What to do? The
Administration has no illusions about engaging with the Assad regime. They know
it must go, but they are also very reticent to support the more hard-line
rebels. So, Assad must go, but the
only forces opposing him must not be allowed to replace him.

This
is what Washington can’t figure out and what may be out of their hands. The situation
on the ground may be more dependent on moves by Saudi Arabia and the Cooperation Council for the Arab States
of the Gulf
vs. Iran, Assad and Hezbollah.

If
this becomes Sunnis vs. Shias, what card should we play in a religious war?

Russia
backs President Assad and is suspicious of interventions in other countries’
civil disorders, partly because it faces civil disorders at home.

US
interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan offer cautionary lessons. Like those
countries, we do not fully understand the character of the Syrian opposition,
whose factions are currently united mainly by their desire to remove Assad.

As in
Egypt and Libya, those factions will likely find ways to conflict with each
other after Assad is gone.

Israel
thinks it benefits by a sustained conflict between the Sunni, Shiite and
Alawites, that a Sunni-Shia regional war just weakens Israel’s enemies and keeps
Israel as the only nuclear power in the region.

Would
enforcement of a no-fly zone, securing of the WMD and creation of a “safe” zone
solve any of these questions?

Very doubtful.

It
all comes back to the cliché: The US fears Assad’s chemical weapons “falling
into the wrong hands”. In other words, we are frightened that these chemicals
might end up in the armory of the very rebels, (but especially the Islamists),
that Washington, London, Paris, Qatar and Saudi Arabia support today.

And
if these are the “wrong hands”, then presumably the weapons in Assad’s armory
are currently in the “right hands”.

Well,
unless he used them.

When
you have a quandary like this, just ask the question: What would President Bush do?