Before we involve ourselves in Syria

INSIDE NATIONAL SECURITY BRIEFING: Pres Trump w natl security team inside SCIF at Mar-a-Lago after Syrian strike, Thursday ~915p EDT. pic.twitter.com/tuqbjEKERv

— Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) April 7, 2017

So You Want To Go To War In Syria To Depose Assad. Can You Answer These 14 Questions First?

Excerpt:

1. What national security interest, rather than pure humanitarian interest, is served by the use of American military power to depose Assad’s regime?
2. How will deposing Assad make America safer?
3. What does final political victory in Syria look like (be specific), and how long will it take for that political victory to be achieved? Do you consider victory to be destabilization of Assad, the removal of Assad, the creation of a stable government that can protect itself and its people without additional assistance from the United States, etc.?
4. What military resources (e.g., ground troops), diplomatic resources, and financial resources will be required to achieve this political victory?
5. How long will it take to achieve political victory?
6. What costs, in terms of lives (both military and civilian), dollars, and forgone options elsewhere as a result of resource deployment in Syria, will be required to achieve political victory?
7. What other countries will join the United States in deposing Assad, in terms of military, monetary, or diplomatic resources?
8. Should explicit congressional authorization for the use of military force in Syria be required, or should the president take action without congressional approval?
9. What is the risk of wider conflict with Russia, given that nation’s presence and stake in Syria, if the United States chooses to invade and depose Assad, a key Russian ally in the Middle East?
10. If U.S. intervention in Syria does spark a larger war with Russia, what does political victory in that scenario look like, and what costs will it entail?
11. Given that Assad has already demonstrated a willingness to use chemical weapons, how should the United States respond if the Assad regime deploys chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons against the United States?
12. Assuming the Assad regime is successfully removed from power, what type of government structure will be used to replace Assad, who will select that government, and how will that government establish and maintain stability going forward?
13. Given that a change in political power in the United States radically altered the American position in Iraq in 2009, how will you mitigate or address the risk of a similar political dynamic upending your preferred strategy in Syria, either in 2018, 2020, or beyond?
14. What lessons did you learn from America’s failure to achieve and maintain political victory following the removal of governments in Iraq and Libya, and how will you apply those lessons to a potential war in Syria?

Until these questions are answered with specificity, and until the U.S. government is open and honest with the American people about the potential risks and likely costs of a war to remove Assad from power in Syria, it makes little sense to discuss the idea further.

Comments:

• Worth reading: The Alawites - why Syria is so bloody and complex
• I grant that Assad is wicked and there is a massive humanitarian crisis there
• But will US involvement improve the conditions there? What about for the 2M "Christians" in Syria? 
• Self-test: Would you go and fight there? Your son? Your grandson? 

Sen @RandPaul: "I think there is a great danger in bumping up against another nuclear power." pic.twitter.com/0ncvO3eoDs

— FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) April 7, 2017

RAND PAUL: Another unconstitutional rush to war... https://t.co/I5YJsFFIaf

— DRUDGE REPORT (@DRUDGE_REPORT) April 7, 2017

The Alawites - why Syria is so bloody and complex

9 questions about Syria you were too embarrassed to ask

Excerpt:

Most Syrians are Sunni Arabs, but the country is run by members of a minority sect known as Alawites (they’re ethnic Arab but follow a smaller branch of Islam). The Alawite government rules through a repressive dictatorship and gives Alawites special privileges, which makes some Sunnis and other groups hate Alawites in general, which in turn makes Alawites fear that they’ll be slaughtered en masse if Assad loses the war. (There are other minorities as well, such as ethnic Kurds and Christian Arabs; too much to cover in one explainer.) Also, lots of Syrian communities are already organized into ethnic or religious enclaves, which means that community militias are also sectarian militias. That would explain why so much of the killing in Syria has developed along sectarian lines. It would also suggest that there’s not much anyone can do to end the killing because, in Zakaria’s view, this is a painful but unstoppable process of re-balancing power.

Bashar Assad's grandfather's amazing 1936 letter to France

Excerpt:

The Alawite nation [sic] which has maintained its independence over the years by dint of much zeal and many casualties, is a nation which is different from the Muslim Sunni nation in its religious faith, in its customs and in its history. It has never happened that the Alawite nation [which lives in the mountains on the Western coast of Syria] was under the rule of the [Muslims]who rule the inland cities of the land. The Alawite nation refuses to be annexed to Muslim Syria, because the Islamic religion is thought of as the official religion of the country, and the Alawite nation is thought of as heretical by the Islamic religion. Therefore we ask you to consider the dreadful and terrible fate that awaits the Alawites if they are forced to be annexed to Syria, when it will be free from the oversight of the Mandate, and it will be in their power to implement the laws that stem from its religion.

Comment: Conclusion: We are unlikely to improve the situation

Common sense on Syria

• There doesn't seem to be much dispute about whether Sarin gas has been used in Syria
• To quote Charles Krauthammer: "Want to send a message? Call Western Union. A Tomahawk missile is for killing. A serious instrument of war demands a serious purpose."
• Think Murphy's Law. Just what could go wrong?
• What's with "Three days of airstrikes"?!. Then what?
• Our traditional ally - Britain - is out of the equation
• We are fools to depend upon France!. Joke: How do you know when WW III has begun? Answer: When France surrenders!
• If we can wait for feckless, vacationing congress - well how then is it an national emergency!?

John Bolton on N Korea & Syria

North Korea's True Colors

Excerpt:

Israel's Sept. 6 raid against a likely Syrian-North Korea nuclear project was a fire bell in the night that the regime was up to its old tricks -- at least for anyone willing to listen. The administration's continuing refusal to allow Israel to make public the true nature of this facility will only come back to haunt it, not only on North Korea, but also on its Middle East policy. If no North Koreans were involved, why not shout it out? If the facility was not nuclear, why not do the same?

Comment: See earlier CFG post: What did Israel bomb?

More below:

Syria Rebuilding on Site Destroyed by Israeli Bombs

Excerpt:

The puzzling site in Syria that Israeli jets bombed in September grew more curious on Friday with the release of a satellite photograph showing new construction there that resembles the site’s former main building.

Comment: View article for satellite photo. Thus far experts to doubt that the construction” was in fact a nuclear reactor.

What did Israel bomb?

Photos show cleansing of suspect Syrian site

Excerpt:

New commercial satellite photos show that a Syrian site believed to have been attacked by Israel last month no longer bears any obvious traces of what some analysts said appeared to have been a partly built nuclear reactor.

Two photos, taken Wednesday from space by rival companies, show the site near the Euphrates River to have been wiped clean since August, when imagery showed a tall square building there measuring about 150 feet on a side.

The Syrians reported an attack by Israel in early September; the Israelis have not confirmed that. Senior Syrian officials continue to deny that a nuclear reactor was under construction, insisting that Israel hit a largely empty military warehouse.

But the images, federal and private analysts say, suggest that the Syrian authorities rushed to dismantle the facility after the strike, calling it a tacit admission of guilt.

"It's a magic act — here today, gone tomorrow," a senior intelligence official said. "It doesn't lower suspicions; it raises them. This was not a long-term decommissioning of a building, which can take a year. It was speedy. It's incredible that they could have gone to that effort to make something go away."