Afghan mujahideen, 1985.Reports that most arms being sent to Syria in the name of toppling Bashar Assad's regime are winding up in the hands of “hard-line Islamic jihadists” recall a similar earlier experience in Afghanistan. The United States, Saudi Arabia and other outsiders wished to use material support to Afghan rebels to help defeat the Soviets and to topple the Soviet-installed Najibullah regime in Kabul. Working through Pakistan as a conduit and middleman, the outside patrons had to bestow their largesse on several different Afghan militias, which collectively constituted the armed resistance in Afghanistan. About half of the militias could be called hard-line Islamic jihadists. These also were the most effective fighters against the Soviets. If one wanted to use assistance in the form of arms shipments to defeat the Soviets and to do so sooner rather than later, these were the principal groups one needed to aid.
When Najibullah finally fell in 1992 (three years after the Soviet Union withdrew its own troops from Afghanistan), there was hardly a pause before the militias that had been allies in the war began fighting among themselves. The Afghan civil war simply moved into a new phase. In addition to the resulting chaos setting the stage for the Taliban sweeping to power over most of Afghanistan a couple of years later, we are seeing today other legacies of this pattern of outside assistance more than twenty years ago. One of the most potent of the hard-line Islamist elements that was in the middle of the fight against the Soviets was the militia led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who would come to be seen as an enemy of the United States alongside the Taliban itself and the Haqqani group.
In Syria today as in Afghanistan three decades ago, it is illusory to think that the United States or anyone else on the outside of the fight can fine-tune where the arms go so that we deal only with groups to our liking while still getting a return on our investment in terms of hastening the fall of the regime that the fight is directed against. The opposition in Syria is if anything even more disorganized and disaggregated than was the opposition in Afghanistan.
It is not feasible to expect aid to hasten the defeat of Assad if the aid is limited to groups “who share our values,” as Mitt Romney has put it. Resistance groups in Syria are operating in an environment in which they would hardly have an opportunity to demonstrate adherence to any such values. And even if the leaders of some groups seem to express allegiance to particular values, we can have no confidence that the same concepts or terms mean the same thing to them as they do to us. Many people in that part of the world, for example, believe that democracy means nothing more than majority rule, with “majority” defined in terms of something like a religious sect.
There is no opportunity for the United States to do anything approaching precise management of a flow of arms. It is not as if the Defense Logistics Agency is on scene to parcel out the materiel. Other outside actors are needed to facilitate the flow. With the war in Afghanistan the key outside actor in that regard was Pakistan. In Syria today the Saudis and Qataris seem to be particularly important. They are likely to be less disturbed than we are by anything that smacks of hard-line Islamic jihadism.
We should not be surprised if in Syria, as in Afghanstan, the more extreme groups also tend to be the more effective ones in carrying the fight. What is going on in Syria is not some peaceful process of political change in which our “values” would mean much. It is instead a brutal civil war. Brutally extreme groups tend to be in their element in brutally extreme conflicts.
In light of all of the foregoing, we also should not be surprised that despite incessant hand-wringing about what is going on in Syria and expressed wishes that somehow this conflict could be pushed speedily to a successful conclusion, no one has offered any good ideas for how to do that.
Image: Erwin Franzen
Comments
History is repeating itself; “those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.” Pillar, you said “no one has offered any good ideas for how to do that,”here is how I see the conflict in Syria and, the solution I suggest:Some argue that the US must intervene in Syria and live up to its moral values. These people err when they present the Syrian conflict as a conflict between oppressed people and their dictator, i.e. they present the Syria conflict as good people vs. bad. There is not a clear end game for what is going on in Syria. There will be more violence and more bloodshed after the fall of Al-Assad. Unfortunately and sadly, thousands of Syrians will die at a higher pace once Assad is toppled. Of course, this does not mean that Assad must stay but, it means that we must move beyond the futile argument: To arm or not to arm. Arming the rebels will only usher Syria in another era of conflict. Massacres will continue. There is a reason why non-Sunni Muslims and Kurds are mistrustful of the opposition and have not joined them. Some argue that toppling Assad will harm Iran. True, Iran will suffer a strategic setback. However, the logic behind the need to defeat Iran is defeated by creating a far more capable and hostile force in the heart of the ME. The rise of Sunni fundamentalists cannot be the answer to containing Iran. However, the opposite can be true. The west, by supporting the rise of Sunni fundamentalists, will create a far larger anti-western force with greater resources, geographic scope, and numbers. What the US should do must be based on proper understanding of what is going on in Syria and, not on childish mischaracterizations of good vs. bad. So, the administration, foreign and security policy experts must move beyond discussing whether or not to arm one side against the other. They should start to think outside the box. It is must be crystal clear that what is going on in Syria is not pro-democracy protest. There is a sectarian, fundamentalist Sunni vs. fundamentalist Shiite war that is going on in the ME and, Syria has become the main front. Shiites are a minority in the Muslim world—approximately one sixth of Muslims controlling 3-4 states out of 56 Muslim states—and Sunnis are the majority. If Sunnis win, then, countries governed by fundamentalist Sunni regimes (Egypt, Ghaza, Syria, possibly in the future Jordan also) with very close ties to Turkey will be the new geopolitical reality in the Middle East. That jeopardizes vital US interests. Therefore, maintaining the Sunni-Shiite balance is vital. Only then, can America maintain the ability to shape events in the ME. Inside Syria, Alewites, Christians, and Druz are supporting Assad because their existence will be threatened under his opponents. Syria’s Alewites, Christians, and Druz are supporting Assad because their existence will be threatened under his opponents. They know this as they have been living in these areas for centuries and were subjected to various kinds of discrimination and were treated as inferiors by the majority. They do not buy the talks of a democratic Syria because they know better than westerners. The Kurds are unrecognized and prosecuted by the successive regimes in Syria. The opposition (SNC) also, so far, marginalizes the Kurds and sidelines them. To stop Syria’s civil war the administration must focus on making the groups that support Bashar Al-Assad feel safe to stop supporting the status quo and accept change. Therefore, self-determination must be a pillar of any strategy dealing with the revolutions in the ME in general and in Syria in particular given Syria’s diversity if, long term stability is what we seek; i.e. the Kurds must be recognized and given an autonomous region and, the Alewites must also have an autonomous region. Other minorities, judging by where they stand today, will chose to live with the Alewites. Both alewites and kurds could be allies of the US and, they could even be allies of Israel to balance against their newly found enemies. This will also keep Syrians occupied and, will prevent them from stirring problems. The US does not need to take sides in the sectarian war. It can get closer with parties from both sides and this will give the US tremendous leverage.The only hope for a soft landing and lasting peace is: A Syrian Union and the right of Self-determination granted to Syria’s components. This must be the US administration’s strategy. Otherwise fundamentalist regimes will form the new geopolitical reality in the ME and it would be very difficult to check, contain, and balance against emerging hostile regimes in the ME.
Paul Pillar’s attempt to assuage Americans concern about the Syrian conflict has much to be desired. Missing from the story is Washington’s attempts to overthrow al-Asad for some time. From the Project for the New American Century to Bush 2’s efforts to create an incident for war against Syria to Obama’s backing of opposition groups as revealed by WikiLeaks, the destruction of the Syrian government has been paramount in US policies.The story that somehow Washington is pushing democracy as the reason for providing arms is propaganda. We have no problems with supporting dictators and/or overthrowing political leaders we object to so that a more subservient leader can be put in his place. Cuba’s Batista comes to mind. In Nicaragua, we helped to remove Zelaya and install Somoza. [A side note, that in 1912 US Marines occupied Nicaragua and remained there to 1933. The President of the United States from 1913 to 1920 was none other than Woodrow Wilson himself.] We overthrew Chile’s Allende and supported Pinochet. We toppled Congo’s Lumumba and backed Mobutu. We championed Indonesia’s Suharto and Sukarno, and did nothing while they invaded East Timor killing 90,000 to 200,000 (out of an estimated 824,000 population) Timorese.What Mr. Pillar really fails to include is the contest that is going on between Washington-Riyadh coalition and Tehran and its allies. The struggle is for control of Persian Gulf oil. In this trial, Bashar al-Asad’s Syria is central to Iran’s ability to project influence in eastern Mediterranean littoral. It is this that America has abetted the violence that has ripped apart Syria.America et al’s assistance to Syrian rebels encourages every greater rounds of bloodshed. Achieving our goal of harming Iran, we have collaborated in the horrors that have fractured the Syrian polity.