Republican senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham want the United States and its allies to bomb Syria in response to the massacre of 108 villagers in Houla.
“Maybe the kids will make the difference,” Sen. Graham said. “We live in a visual world. When we see the slaughter of 30 children, it reminds us of who we are.”
The killings were horrific. Many were gunned down at close range in their homes. Evidence points toward pro-government militia. There is, however, no way for U.S. or U.N. pilots to target the guilty without killing innocents as well.
As the world watches this tragedy, it is important to know there is no reliable information coming out of Syria. The lead stories in Wednesday’s newspapers were written by reporters in Beirut, London, Berlin, Paris, Washington and New York working with a mix of facts and rumors coming from cellphones and Skype.
It is just as apparent that President Bashar Assad is doing everything in his power to defeat his political enemies and believes he can fight his way back into absolute control of his country.
Tuesday the United States and more than a dozen other nations expelled the Syrian diplomats from their countries, the strongest diplomatic action they could take against Assad. President Obama continues to maintain that diplomatic and economic sanctions are the wisest course of action. Air strikes or other military action, such as funneling arms to rebel forces, would only cause more chaos and result in more deaths, he believes.
His judgment has been accepted by the U.N. and by Turkey, the nearest Moslem power which has also called for Assad’s removal. Russia continues to sell arms to Assad and to block stronger U.N. sanctions against him.
Mitt Romney has lambasted Obama for “allowing President Bashar al-Assad to slaughter 10,000 individuals” but has stopped short of calling for U.S. military action, only proposing that Washington should “work with partners to organize and arm Syrian opposition groups so they can defend themselves.”
Self-defense is not the goal of the “opposition groups” in Syria. They want to depose Assad and take over — and it is far from clear that an opposition capable of replacing Assad with a regime that would represent the Syrian people exists.
The Obama reading of the situation is that depending on military action to replace Assad with an acceptable government would require an invasion of Syria by the U.S. and a subsequent occupation of the country with years of “nation-building” to follow. The president doesn’t believe the American people are ready for another endless war that would result in more American deaths and countless billions in additional debt. He is surely correct. Our failure to transform Iraq and Afghanistan into model democracies doesn’t encourage another such adventure.
What the U.S. and its allies seek is for Assad to go into exile and leave the existing bureaucracy in place with as little additional killing and destruction as possible. It is likely the Syrian people would also embrace such a turn of events as the best resolution they could reasonably expect. Such a transition would be most likely to produce a successor regime that would govern without first killing off the opposition.
Perhaps this ideal is too much to hope for, but the effort to force Assad out without laying Syria to waste in the process should continue.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
