© The Economist
That’s what Patrick Cockburn says it is, in an absolute must read piece in The Independent. The lede: “History teaches us that limited Western intervention can only inflame this complex war and will do nothing to bring peace.”
In a somewhat similar vein, Ignace Leverrier, in a post on his “Un œil sur la Syrie” blog on Le Monde’s website, says “Non aux frappes symboliques et de bonne conscience. Oui aux frappes utiles en Syrie.” Pour l’info, Ignace Leverrier is the nom de plume of a French ex-diplomat with extensive experience in the Arab world (and who is an arabisant).
Also en français, geopolitical commentator Bernard Guetta—whom I like, even if I don’t have to agree with him 100% of the time—informed his France Inter audience this morning (which included me) that “La messe syrienne n’est pas forcément dite.”
And if one didn’t see it, Vali Nasr had an op-ed in yesterday’s NYT—and with which Bernard Guetta would certainly agree—on “Forcing Obama’s hand in Syria.”
À suivre.
Arun with a View 
“America should act decisively and in a timely manner, and based on a strategic vision that includes a way out of this war. That would impress American allies and adversaries alike. That is what the world needs and what Mr. Obama should focus on” writes Vali Nasr in the NYT. Easier said then done…. One can replace “America” by whichever country they like… The general principle still applies… En français : “Y A QU’A, FAUT QU’ON…”
I’m no longer a particular fan of Thomas Friedman but he wrote some pretty good stuff about the Middle East before degenerating into the “mustache of understanding”. It was he who coined the term “Hama Rules” to describe the utter ruthlessness of the despotic rulers of certain Middle Eastern countries and, most particularly, the Assad Family.
Very bluntly, what is really at stake and, indeed, probably the only thing of importance in Syria, is the fate of hundreds of thousands of Assad’s political opponents and their families with are very likely to be slaughtered in the most horrific way imaginable if the Assad family retains power. Assad’s understanding of the world is that whatever doesn’t kill him only makes him stronger.
Assad believes, rightly, that his very survival and that of his family are at stake in this conflict. He also understands that the rigorous application of the “Hama Rules” is the only thing that has kept his family in power for such a long time. There can be no question that if he retains control over the military, he will carry out the terrible reprisals required under the rules that have absolutely governed his life from the day he was born.
If you understand the “Hama Rules,” then you will understand that Assad will carry out reprisals and that any promise to the contrary will be worthless. Since Arun is a connoisseur of the cinema, I would say that if the West genuinely wants to avoid horrific reprisals, then it will be imperative to kill Assad and as many of his family and regime as possible and drive the others into exile in Russia for basically the same reason why Michel Corleone understands the necessity of killing Sollozzo.
Under the circumstances, it seems to me that a “diplomatic solution” is just a highfalutin way of telling Assad’s political opponents that they and their families are being written off. It seems to me that we should either commit ourselves to kill Assad and as many high ranking members of his regime as possible in an effort to prevent him from taking reprisals against innocents or we should just say out of Syria altogether.
Mitch: I don’t know about your parallel of Bashar and Sollozzo, and that the former should necessarily meet the same fate as the latter. But I do agree with you on Thomas Friedman, who was a good reporter in the 1980s but went downhill as a pundit. The chapter on “Hama rules” in his first book was excellent. It’s even assigned in college courses on the Middle East. And on “Hama rules”, I had a post with this title in April ’11. https://arunwithaview.wordpress.com/2011/04/27/hama-rules/
I think the parallel of Bashar and Sollozzo is actually a good one and it explains my belief that Assand and many members of his family must die and the survivors be driven into exile if there is ever to a hope for a Syria to become a normal country instead of a mafia state.
There is an old English proverb that says, “Whoever draws his sword against a prince must throw the scabbard away”. Its corollary for absolute rulers is probably Machiavelli’s admonition that a prince should never do anyone a small injury. It’s a harsh worldview but one that neatly describes the logic of a mafia state like Syria.
It is a logic that Michael Corleone grasps perfectly. We see that it is Michael and not Sonny who is Vito Corleone’s true heir in the moment when he alone realizes that because Sollozzo also understands and lives by this same deadly logic, there can never be a real peace with him. When Michael declares that it’s imperative to kill Sollozzo now and says, “you can’t wait. I don’t care what Sollozzo says about a deal. He’s gonna kill Pop. He has to. It’s a key for him. You gotta get Sollozzo,” it’s because he sees that no matter what truce is agreed, no matter what deal is struck or assurances are given, Sollozzo must finish what he has started or die trying.
Why? Because Michael realizes that Sollozzo is a man who understands what Michael understands: With both Sollozzo and the Corleone family naturally believing the other to be operating on the basis of Machiavelli’s maxim, any peace will be a mere biding of time until the enemy is weak enough that revenge can be taken. The circle can be broken only with the total destruction of the enemy. The Corleones must strike decisively whilst they are still by far the stronger.
The logic is thus inescapable; Michael Corleone explains the dilemma of Syria perfectly and demonstrates why I say the rebels cannot make peace while the Assad family and their retainers are alive and retain control of the military and security apparatus. Once having begun their attempt to overthrow the regime, the rebels must either destroy the Assad Family utterly or suffer the terrible consequences. (As an aside, this is also why the West would be inhumanely abandoning the opposition to urge such a peace).
For its part, the Assad Family understands that having once applied the Hama Rules, there can be no going back.
Can’t go along with you on this, Mitch. Physically liquidating Assad and his family is unacceptable morally and would accomplish nothing positive politically. As we’ve had the demonstration numerous times in history, nothing good comes from new regimes that start out by murdering members of the old.
As a general rule, I agree with you about blood-soaked revolutions not working out very well (the Russian and French revolutions being good examples) although I personally think that there are contrary examples, too. I have always thought that the North dealt far too leniently with the defeated South in the American Civil War and my country has been paying the price ever since. And the question of how to a new rgime should balance consolidating its power, against creating a self-destructive reign of terror is more difficult than it seems at first glance.
Nevertheless, in the context of the Syrian crisis, I dont see how you arrived at the moral choice you made in what is essentially a trolley problem with real lives at stake. The Assad family has by far the worst record of any of the Middle Eastern dictatorships so much so that Thomas Friedman considered them to be the paradigmatic example of unspeakable cruelty and brutality as the means for holding on to power. There can be no doubt that if the Assad family wins, those family members of regime opponents granted quick deaths will be the lucky ones; one might conservatively predict that tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of Syrians will die horribly.
And hundreds of thousands more will become penniless, pitiful refuges whose flight from the horrors Assad is certain to unleash will probably destabilize other countries in the Middle East and perhaps Europe, too.
Balanced against that is the deaths of a relative handful of Assad family members and their servitors. Ten of thousands of innocents can saved by the deaths of a few hundred people who can be charitably described as evil incarnate. grands maux grands remdes.