The
following appears today in the Washington Post
There are two kinds of
wars, we are told — wars of choice and wars of necessity. The former is to be
avoided and the latter fought with appropriate reluctance. World War II was a
good and necessary war but Vietnam was not. The war in Iraq was a matter of
choice (also of imbecility) but Afghanistan was not — although it now may be.
Wars can change over time. The one in Syria certainly has. It has gone from a
war of choice to a war of necessity that President Obama did not choose to
fight. A mountain of dead testifies to his mistake.
More than 60,000 people
have been killed, most of them civilians. An estimated 650,000 refugees
have fled across Syria’s various borders. They live in
miserable conditions, soaked and frozen by the chilling rains of the
Mediterranean winter, caked in mud. Children have died. More children will die.
The war threatens to
destabilize a whole region. The Kurds in Syria’s north are restless. The
Palestinians, refugees in Syria from their one-time homeland, are refugees yet
again in Jordan. Lebanon is awash with Syrians, fellow Muslims but often of a
different sort. The ethnic nitroglycerin of that country — an unstable mixture
of Sunnis and Shiites, various Christians and Druze — looks increasingly
fragile. All Lebanese are mental census takers: Has their group increased or
decreased, and what does it mean?
And what of Bashar
al-Assad, the unimpressive son of a frighteningly impressive father? Will he
seek exile in Moscow, possibly rooming with that vulgarian, Gerard Depardieu?
Not likely. Assad will retreat to the Alawite redoubt and the slaughter will
continue. Bloodbath will follow bloodbath, a settling of scores from the recent
past, the distant past and — just for good measure — the imagined future: Kill
before you can be killed. It’s the earliest form of hedging.
I am talking about a
misery that beggars description. I am talking of infants dying of dysentery and
the old taking one last feeble step. I am talking about barbarity that always
accompanies civil war and I am talking, finally, of a catastrophe that could
have been avoided. A little muscle from NATO, which is to say the United
States, could have put an end to this thing early on. The imposition of a
no-fly zone, as was done in Libya, would not only have grounded Syrian
airplanes and helicopters but also have convinced the military and intelligence
services early on that Assad was doomed and the outcome was not in doubt. At
that time there were places he could have gone.
But the White House was
resolute in its irresolution. A presidential campaign was on, and it was no
time for foreign adventures. Iraq was winding down; with any luck, Afghanistan
would too. The United States had no dog in the Syrian fight and, besides,
Washington — in an admission of incompetence — could not tell the good guys
from the bad guys. Waiting cleared things up. Now the bad guys (jihadists and
others) are more in control and the moderates have, as moderates usually do,
lost out to radicals. Procrastination, as well as the prospect of one’s
hanging, clarifies the mind.
In retrospect, this was
a war of necessity. It was necessary to avoid a regional calamity, the spread
of more violence to Lebanon and Iraq. It was necessary to avoid a humanitarian
disaster; great suffering that could have been avoided or at least mitigated.
It was necessary to take a stand against barbarity because this is — is it not?
— a basic obligation. It was necessary to intervene because we could do so at
very little cost. To do what you can when you can might not have the
Metternichian ring of a Great Strategic Doctrine, but it has the force of
common sense. It is both compelling and workable. We are talking, simply, of
saving lives.
It was necessary,
finally, because not only must the thugs of this world be held accountable by
the world community, they must know they will be held accountable by the
world community. The indiscriminate shelling of cities and towns must not be
tolerated. The purposeful killing of journalists must not be tolerated. The
people of any country are not chattel to be treated any way their government
wants. This — a furious sense of moral indignation — must return to U.S.
foreign policy and be the centerpiece of Obama’s second term. This is no longer
a matter of choice. It is a necessity.
