Calling Off America’s Bombs

Project Syndicate ^ | 09/03/2013 | Jeffrey D. Sachs

[lafarge]

Most important, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared: “We think Assad must go.”

That open-ended statement, without any clear means to achieve the goal that it announced, has done much to fuel military escalation and the rising death toll in Syria, while pushing the US repeatedly to defend its “credibility” against a line in the sand that it should not have drawn.

Then and now, the US has claimed to speak in the interest of the Syrian people. This is very doubtful. The US views Syria mainly through the lens of Iran, seeking to depose Assad in order to deprive Iran’s leaders of an important ally in the region, one that borders Israel. The US-led effort in Syria is thus best understood as a proxy war with Iran....

....It put the US in effective opposition to the United Nations peace initiative then being led by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, whose approach was to call for a ceasefire followed by a negotiated political transition. The US preempted this process by backing the military rebellion and insisting on Assad’s immediate departure.

It is hard to understand this blunder. Even if the US ultimately sought to force Assad from office, its blunt action hardened Assad’s resistance, as well as that of his two allies in the UN Security Council, Russia and China. Aside from seeking to defend their own interests in the region, both countries understandably rejected the idea of US-led regime change in Syria. Russia argued that America’s insistence on Assad’s immediate departure was an impediment to peace. In this, Russia was right.

Indeed, Russia was playing a plausibly constructive role at the time, albeit one premised on Assad remaining in power for at least a transitional period, if not indefinitely....

[lafarge]

We've only escalated the violence. At some point, we may not be able to back this down.

[DaveA37]

“Then and now, the US has claimed to speak in the interest of the Syrian people.”............

That should read, “..in the interest of the Saudi’s”.

Unfortunately, the Syrian people are just “bumps in the road”, to quote odumbo.

[allendale]

The goal of the “limited strike” is indeed regime change. The Assad regime has given access to Syrian territory to the Iranians. The Iranians have positioned state of the art missiles aimed at Israel. As long as those missile batteries and access exists, Israel cannot attack Iran’s nuclear facilities with impunity.

[quimby]

Jeffery sachs may be right on this one. How he got there, I don’t know. His other article on the website “bring back the elected government in egypt.” What a jerk.

[lafarge]

My problem with this approach is it will only create more violence long-term. David Stockman had a great article on how we need to pull back on our military deployments worldwide so that military isn’t such an easy option. Imagine if the israelis didn’t have our tacit military support. They might be more willing to sit at the table with the iranians, as far-flung as that idea might seem. Russia is certainly pushing the iranians away from war, despite the public rhetoric, and would be a suitable party to bring negotiating pressure to bear. But of course the military option is so easy to exercise.