War is like love”, wrote Bertolt Brecht, “it always finds a way”. This is certainly true of West Asia, which seems all set for another military intervention led by the US.
The script on Syria is tiresomely familiar: a “rogue” state, claims about weapons of mass destruction, humanitarian imperatives, the need to uphold international law and so on. The outcome is likely to be equally familiar: greater suffering and destabilisation for peoples of the region.
The background conditions against which the proposed military action will play out are horrific in themselves. The civil war in Syria has already claimed over one lakh lives.
There are four million internally displaced persons in the country. And nearly two million Syrians (almost 10 per cent of Syria’s population) have sought refuge in neighbouring countries, especially Lebanon. Proponents of a surgical strike to deter the Assad regime from using chemical weapons are dangerously whistling in the dark.
US bungling
For starters, it remains unclear that the deadly chemical attacks in the suburbs of Damascus were indeed carried out by the government forces.
The Syrian government’s claim that the deed was actually perpetrated by the rebel forces may sound implausible, but it cannot be dismissed out of hand.
During the previous round of allegations about use of chemical agents, Carla Del Ponte of the UN’s Independent Commission of Inquiry on Syria stated in early May 2013 that there were “strong concrete suspicions” that chemical weapons had been used by the rebels.
A little later, it was reported that Turkish forces had arrested rebel fighters crossing the border and recovered 2 kg of Sarin gas from them.
The UN inspectors on the ground may well conclude that the needle of suspicion points towards the rebels . But their position has already been undermined by vociferous claims by the US, the UK and France that the dastardly attack was the handiwork of the Syrian government.
This is despite the fact that the American and British intelligence agencies have not been able to ‘confirm’ this assertion as yet.
The haste with which the US has handled this issue raises doubts about its intentions. After all, many more civilian lives have been lost in the conventional offensives launched by the Assad regime.
President Barack Obama’s claim that the US cannot “turn a blind eye” is disingenuous. The US has no problem turning a blind eye to the equally deadly attacks against civilians by the Egyptian military. The only issue at stake appears to be American “credibility”, having unilaterally announced “red lines” earlier.
Main stumbling block
It is hardly surprising that advocates of military strikes are arguing that the US should cobble together a “coalition of the willing” to take action independent of UN authorisation.
It is claimed that a “humanitarian intervention” in such a case can be conducted either under the 1925 Geneva Protocol proscribing the use of chemical weapons in war or, under the newer notion of “responsibility to protect” or R2P.
These are specious arguments. The 1925 protocol does not authorise military action by any state to prevent use of chemical weapons. Invoking the R2P would be equally wrong. For R2P envisions a series of non-military steps before contemplating military action.
The central tragedy of Syria is that the possibility of a political settlement has never been seriously pursued.
The Obama administration’s adamant stance that Assad “must go” has been the main stumbling block. Given the rebels’ inability to gain the upper-hand in the civil war, it would have made sense to work towards a transition arrangement that involved both the government and the opposition. But the US refuses to remove its precondition.
The other major powers — especially Russia and China, but also countries such as Germany — are unwilling to hand a free pass to the US. The experience of the intervention in Libya is too fresh on their minds.
On that occasion, a UN Security Council resolution was improperly used by the US and its allies to overthrow the regime of Colonel Gaddafi.
Proponents of an intervention in Syria would do well to remember that their cherished idea of R2P was dealt a severe blow by the action in Libya.
If the US bypasses the Security Council now, the idea of R2P and all the efforts to build an international consensus on this principle may well be buried.
India’s stance
Political and legal issues apart, a surgical intervention is dubious on military grounds too. McGeorge Bundy, national security advisor to President Kennedy, once observed that surgical strikes are like all surgeries: they are bloody, messy and you usually need to go back for more. Even a short, sharp strike against the regime will require neutralising a wide range of assets with all the possibility of collateral damage to civilians.
At the same time, it may not do much damage to the regime’s stockpiles of chemical weapons — not least because US intelligence on these is apparently weak.
More importantly, the Assad regime is unlikely to take this lying down. The Syrian government may or may not retaliate against Israel, Jordan or Turkey, but it would certainly escalate the fight against the rebel forces.
This would have two consequences. First, there would be greater civilian casualties and increased refugee flows into neighbouring countries.
It is worth recalling the case of the intervention in Kosovo in 1999. Undertaken to prevent the ethnic cleansing of Kosovar Albanians by the Serbian regime, the NATO’s bombing campaign actually led to much higher levels of ethnic cleansing.
Second, once the regime escalates, there will be increased pressure on the US to give greater military assistance to the rebels. A surgical strike will end up being the thin end of the wedge of a large-scale intervention tending towards regime change.
All this suggests that India should stoutly oppose action that bypasses the UN Security Council. To be sure, the possession and use of chemical weapons by any party in the conflict is a matter of grave concern to us. But an attempt to use the fig-leaf of humanitarian intervention to undertake military strikes will destabilise the region and undermine our interests there.
New Delhi must also take a more active stance in pushing for a ceasefire and a political settlement in Syria. Without these, Syria’s cup of woes will continue to overflow — whether or not chemical weapons are used by anyone.
The author is Senior Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi and author of “1971: A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh”, Permanent Black/Harvard University Press — forthcoming.