Civil War in Syria

[Benj]

The Turks are clearly peeved with Assad as well and want regime change. Unlike Israel and the Saudis, I don't think they have some sort of broader geopolitical motive; the Turks are just not interested in the broader power struggles in the Middle East except insofar as they want both Iran and the Saudis to leave them alone. They're more motivated by (1) genuine humanitarian/democratic concerns and (2) making sure the Kurds don't get uppity (which doesn't really have to do with supporting one side or the other but does encourage intervention).

One of the most interesting possible scenarios would be if Assad takes his attempts to provoke Israel too far, and Israel decides to invade in support of the Syrian opposition. What would the Arab world think?

[Benj]

The Israeli official statement didn't treat it as a provocation, they said something along the lines that we understand it was an accident and that's why we fired a warning shot.

Obviously. At the same time, they said something to the effect of "but, if you hit a school with a missile, you're done". The question is whether Assad takes them up on the challenge.

(As far as Israeli support being the kiss of death... Not so convinced. The rebels have the sole support of the Sunni establishment and Arab popular sentiment at this point. It's very hard to see them deciding Assad is better just because Israel joins the rebels, though they would have mixed feelings about Israel's intervention, of course. OTOH, it might be a significant place for Israel to temporarily mend fences with many Sunnis while pursuing its feud with Iran. Just a thought.)

[Benj]

Well, Assad could attempt a genocide against non-Allawites if he knows hes not going to be more than another month or two in order to position his sect to have more power in the future of Syria. Then again, the powers might be might partitition Syria between Allawites, Kurds, Sunni Arabs and perhaps even Arab Christians.

Uh, what? Alawites are only 10% of Syria's 22 million population. Even a Hitler-like madman can't change that fact in two months.

The most rational thing for him to do is to gather all his most loyal army officers and send them to the Alawite coastal strip, order them to cleanse out non-Alawites and other undesirables from the mountainous strip, and then fly a helicopter to pick him up from Damascus at midnight. Then, plead for international peacekeepers to defend the Alawites from what will definitely be desires for revenge. Bonus, continue allowing Russia access to the Port of Tartus in exchange for Russia continuing to support the remnants of Assad-controlled Syria. The last part would be like the US supporting the last remnant of KMT-controlled China.

See:



Curious what the Alawites of Iskenderun think about Turkey's involvement in the Syrian civil war.

[Benj]

How about dropping "bombs" that are just spray neutralizing agents into the air?

When you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

How is releasing an antidote anything other than excellent solution to the problem of somebody using chemical weapons on folks?

As London Man pointed out, that might be feasible in a Hollywood blockbuster, but not in real life.

[Benj]

I would say that Assad did more that just let the status quo. If he had been that reform-minded, he could have taken advantage of the early stages of the Revolution to force gradual reforms. Instead, he has shown all his determination not to lose an inch of his power.

Giving in after a revolution has begun is a sure way of losing. There is basically only three options in that situation. Defeat the rebels, commit suicide or go into exile.

That's exactly what the leaders in Algeria and Morocco did. It worked okay for them. (Granted, I think we're assuming after protests start but before armed conflict began--you may be taking this to be after armed conflict had already started, in which case I agree.)

[Benj]

I think they're probably right. Being too hands-off gives the view, however wrong, that the US/the West just doesn't care who is in government in Syria. In turn, that feeds into support for jihadist groups, both on the usual anti-US/anti-Western lines and because the jihadis are the ones with weapons, so the rebels become more dependent on them the fewer weapons they can get from elsewhere.