The administration’s argument for limited punitive strikes against Syria to uphold an international norm against the use of chemical weapons is destined to fail with progressives. But this fact is largely unrelated to the merits of that argument. Were the administration to actually convince progressives that this was the actual beginning and end of their policy, most of us would probably agree to it. I think most progressives are still supportive of anti-proliferation efforts and international norms against things like gassing innocent women and children. I think most progressives can be convinced that there is still a role for America to act outside of the United Nations if one or more of the permanent Security Council members is using their veto to allow some proxy ally to commit crimes against humanity.
But progressives are teeing off on the administration’s argument because we know that the administration’s Syrian policy is to create the conditions for a negotiated settlement of the civil war that involves the abdication of Bashir al-Assad. I think most progressives are sympathetic to every part of that policy except the part where we are the ones creating the conditions. That last part is a little controversial. The goal makes sense, but the methods used may or may not make sense.
One thing that is not working with progressives is the effort to quarantine the punitive strikes from the overall policy of regime change. It isn’t working because the administration has been forced to assure members of Congress, mostly on the right, that our punitive strikes won’t be quarantined, but will make some real progress in fulfilling the overall regime change policy. We knew that was part of the goal already, but to see it confirmed in plain language makes it impossible to buy the lie.
Secretary of State John Kerry likes to refer to this feature of the limited punitive strikes as a “downstream effect.” What this means is that our strikes will help our overall policy even though that is not the intent of the strikes. The problem is both that it is not believable that weakening the regime isn’t going to be part of the intent of the limited punitive strikes and that it is hard to see how it would be a good thing if it is not.
The civil war in Syria has devolved into a largely sectarian conflict in which the majority Sunnis are fighting everyone else, and our policy is to not allow the Sunnis to prevail outright but, rather, to protect minority faiths in a future pluralistic and ecumenical society. That’s a decent and noble position to take, but it isn’t an easy one to execute. In the Arab world, minority rights have traditionally been respected only because the Europeans drew the maps and installed minorities in power. Sunnis went unmolested in Iraq because Sunnis ran the country, In Syria, the same was true of the Alawites. The idea that we will weaken the Alawites enough to force the abdication of their leader but not enough that they will be slaughtered is hard to credit because it is so difficult to achieve.
Even in a perfect world this would be difficult to achieve, but the task is made nearly impossible when we can’t even be honest about the policy with the American people.
America has more Sunni allies than Shiite allies but we really don’t want to take sides. Yet, whatever we do will be perceived as taking one side or that other. When push comes to shove, we want to marginalize Iran and empower the Sunnis, even if we don’t want to admit it. And these proposed limited punitive strikes cannot ultimately be divorced from the overall anti-Shiite policy.
Because the real game involves taking sides in a sectarian conflict, progressives simply won’t go along with the idea that this debate is about chemical weapons and international norms. We know that the strikes will be put to the furtherance of a sectarian fight and will not be simply about human rights.
