“Three Syrias” to go with “three Iraqs”

Premier Erdogan and Turkey's top brass (top) and a march by Syrian Kurds

Syria is coming apart at the seams.

Having lost Syria, President Bashar al-Assad and his Shiite allies from Iran, Iraq and Hezbollah are waging a campaign of sectarian cleansing in order to carve out a rump state along the Mediterranean coast.

With its capital in Latakia, it would reflect the geographical contours of the traditional Alawite heartland.

At the same time, Syria’s Kurds are now fighting for an autonomous Syrian Kurdistan in their portion of the country bordering Turkey, with its putative capital in Qamishli.

The breakup of Syria into three enclaves for Kurds, Shiite Alawites and Sunnis mirrors the gradual dismemberment of Iraq after the 2003 U.S. invasion.

The northern province of Iraqi Kurdistan is today an independent country in all but name, while Sunni and Shiite Iraqis are more likely to splinter into distinct entities than remain part of a cohesive nation-state.

Image by Daniel Sitts

An autonomous Kurdish enclave in northern Syria is the second piece in a four-part puzzle of a “Kurdistan country.” A 1983 map by the Financial Times shows a big Kurdish country separated into four pieces -- one in northern Iraq (which is in place), one in northeastern Syria (which is in the making), one in Iran and the last in Turkey’s southeast.

Turkish authorities -- already apprehensive about Syrian Kurdish militants' recent strengthening along Turkey's borders -- are further alarmed over reports that the Democratic Union Party (PYD), an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), is preparing to declare autonomy in northeastern Syria.

There is now talk of DYP leader Salih Muslim Muhammad announcing shortly a nine-member government to run the would-be enclave.  

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç said the move would undermine Syria’s territorial integrity and pose a security threat to Turkey.

Speaking at a press conference after a cabinet meeting in Ankara on Monday, Arınç called efforts by the PYD to declare autonomy in northeastern Syria “irksome.”

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu reiterated yesterday Ankara would not accept de facto autonomous regions in Syria before the country elects a legitimate national parliament.

He told reporters in Warsaw, "This does not mean Turkey is against the rights of any group in Syria, chiefly Kurds... So, this is not a position against our Kurdish brothers [in Syria]… We are concerned any de facto move could further deepen the crisis in Syria."

"With regards our security and the security of our border districts, villages and towns as well as Syria's future, we want everyone to avoid conflict pending a new democratic regime in Syria," Davutoglu said.

Turkey’s Yeni Şafak daily said last week Assad endorsed plans for an autonomous Syrian Kurdistan in a recent meeting with PYD representatives.

He reportedly agreed to recognize the autonomy of Kurds in an area covering al-Hasakah, Ras al-Ayn, Afreen, Ayn al-Arab and Qamishli.

If so, the move might force Turkey’s hand, according to Dr. Ghassan Shabaneh, a Mellon Fellow in Human Security at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Relations at the CUNY Graduate Center, and an Associate Professor of Middle East and International Studies at Marymount Manhattan College in NYC.

Shabaneh told Aljazeera TV earlier this week Turkey would most probably have no choice then other than to set up safe havens or a security zone in Syria’s Kurdish areas.

Israel held a 4-to-12-kilometer-deep South Lebanon Security Zone from 1985 to 1999.

Turkish political analyst, columnist and commentator on A9 TV Aylin Kokaman says Turkey is now facing the PKK threat it braved 30 years ago.

An autonomous Syrian Kurdish enclave is tantamount to “a declaration of war on Turkey,” she writes today for the leading Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat.

Ms Kokaman says Ankara will have no option but to use its armed forces to protect Turkey’s national unity and territorial integrity, with or without American and European backing.

Syria: Top U.S. general outlines 5 military options

The top US military officer has outlined the costs, risks and benefits of possible American military involvement in the Syrian conflict.

Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey offered five military options, including limited strikes and establishing a no-fly zone.

In an open letter to senators, he analyzed five military options the U.S. military could potentially undertake in Syria.

Gen. Dempsey's letter was in response to questions by two members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is considering re-appointing him for a second two-year term as chairman of the joint chiefs.

The full text of the letter:

CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF

The Honorable Carl Levin

Chairman

Committee on Armed Services

United States Senate

Washington, DC 20510

Dear Mr. Chairman:

On 18 July 2013, you asked me to provide an unclassified assessment of options for the potential use of U.S. military force in the Syrian conflict. It offers my independent judgment with as much openness as this classification allows. I am mindful that deliberations are ongoing within our government over the further role of the United States in this complex sectarian war.  The decision over whether to introduce military force is a political one that our Nation entrusts to its civilian leaders. I also understand that you deserve my best military advice on how military force could be used in order to decide whether it should be used.

At this time, the military’s role is limited to helping deliver humanitarian assistance, providing security assistance to Syria’s neighbors, and providing nonlethal assistance to the opposition. Patriot batteries are deployed to Turkey and Jordan for their defense against missile attack. An operational headquarters and additional capabilities, including F-16s, are positioned to defend Jordan. We are also prepared for the options described below:

Train, Advise, and Assist the Opposition.  This option uses nonlethal forces to train and advise the opposition on tasks ranging from weapons employment to tactical planning. We could also offer assistance in the form of intelligence and logistics. The scale could range from several hundred to several thousand troops with the costs varying accordingly, but estimated at $500 million per year initially. The option requires safe areas outside Syria as well as support from our regional partners. Over time, the impact would be the improvement in opposition capabilities. Risks include extremists gaining access to additional capabilities, retaliatory crossborder attacks, and insider attacks or inadvertent association with war crimes due to vetting difficulties.

Conduct Limited Stand-off Strikes.  This option uses lethal force to strike targets that enable the regime to conduct military operations, proliferate advanced weapons, and defend itself. Potential targets include high-value regime air defense, air, ground, missile, and naval forces as well as the supporting military facilities and command nodes. Stand-off air and missile systems could be used to strike hundreds of targets at a tempo of our choosing. Force requirements would include hundreds of aircraft, ships, submarines, and other enablers. Depending on duration, the costs would be in the billions. Over time, the impact would be the significant degradation of regime capabilities and an increase in regime desertions. There is a risk that the regime could withstand limited strikes by dispersing its assets. Retaliatory attacks are also possible, and there is a probability for collateral damage impacting civilians and foreigners inside the country.

Establish a No-Fly Zone.   This option uses lethal force to prevent the regime from using its military aircraft to bomb and resupply. It would extend air superiority over Syria by neutralizing the regime’s advanced, defense integrated air defense system. It would also shoot down adversary aircraft and strike airfields, aircraft on the ground, and supporting infrastructure. We would require hundreds of ground and sea-based aircraft, intelligence and electronic warfare support, and enablers for refueling and communications. Estimated costs are $500 million initially, averaging as much as a billion dollars per month over the course of a year.  Impacts would likely include the near total elimination of the regime’s ability to bomb opposition strongholds and sustain its forces by air. Risks include the loss of U.S. aircraft, which would require us to insert personnel recovery forces. It may also fail to reduce the violence or shift the momentum because the regime relies overwhelmingly on surface fires—mortars, artillery, and missiles.

Establish Buffer Zones. This option uses lethal and nonlethal force to protect specific geographic areas, most likely across the borders with Turkey or Jordan. The opposition could use these zones to organize and train. They could also serve as safe areas for the distribution of humanitarian assistance. Lethal force would be required to defend the zones against air, missile, and ground attacks. This would necessitate the establishment of a limited no-fly zone, with its associated resource requirements. Thousands of U.S. ground forces would be needed, even if positioned outside Syria, to support those physically defending the zones. A limited no-fly zone coupled with U.S. ground forces would push the costs over one billion dollars per month. Over time, the impact would be an improvement in opposition capabilities. Human suffering could also be reduced, and some pressure could be lifted off Jordan and Turkey. Risks are similar to the no-fly zone with the added problem of regime surface fires into the zones, killing more refugees due to their concentration. The zones could also become operational bases for extremists.

Control Chemical Weapons. This option uses lethal force to prevent the use or proliferation of chemical weapons. We do this by destroying portions of Syria’s massive stockpile, interdicting its movement and delivery, or by seizing and securing program components. At a minimum, this option would call for a no-fly zone as well as air and missile strikes involving hundreds of aircraft, ships, submarines, and other enablers. Thousands of special operations forces and other ground forces would be needed to assault and secure critical sites. Costs could also average well over one billion dollars per month. The impact would be the control of some, but not all chemical weapons. It would also help prevent their further proliferation into the hands of extremist groups. Our inability to fully control Syria’s storage and delivery systems could allow extremists to gain better access. Risks are similar to the no-fly zone with the added risk of U.S. boots on the ground.

Too often, these options are considered in isolation. It would be better if they were assessed and discussed in the context of an overall whole-of-government strategy for achieving our policy objectives in coordination with our allies and partners. To this end, I have supported a regional approach that would isolate the conflict to prevent regional destabilization and weapons proliferation. At the same time, we should help develop a moderate opposition -- including their military capabilities -- while maintaining pressure on the Assad regime.

All of these options would likely further the narrow military objective of helping the opposition and placing more pressure on the regime. We have learned from the past 10 years; however, that it is not enough to simply alter the balance of military power without careful consideration of what is necessary in order to preserve a functioning state. We must anticipate and be prepared for the unintended consequences of our action. Should the regime’s institutions collapse in the absence of a viable opposition, we could inadvertently empower extremists or unleash the very chemical weapons we seek to control.

I know that the decision to use force is not one that any of us takes lightly. It is no less than an act of war. As we weigh our options, we should be able to conclude with some confidence that the use of force will move us toward the intended outcome. We must also understand risk -- not just to our forces, but to our other global responsibilities. This is especially critical as we lose readiness due to budget cuts and fiscal uncertainty. Some options may not be feasible in time or cost without compromising our security elsewhere. Once we take action, we should be prepared for what comes next. Deeper involvement is hard to avoid. We should also act in accordance with the law, and to the extent possible, in concert with our allies and partners to share the burden and solidify the outcome.

Thank you for this opportunity to share my assessment. The classified versions of all the options described here have been presented to the National Security Staff for consideration by the Principals and the President. They have also been presented to the Congress in several briefs, including one recently provided by the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Sincerely,

Martin E. Dempsey

General, U.S. Army

Killer love: The Alawites and the West

Postage stamp issued by the short-lived Alawite state under the French mandate

Fawaz Tello, a veteran Syrian opposition campaigner now based in Berlin, penned this think piece in Arabic for the aljzeera.net portal.

A leader of the 2001 “Damascus Spring” movement, Tello spent five years (2001-2006) as a political prisoner. He moved to Cairo end February 2012.

The author, Fawaz Tello

His degrees in Civil Engineering and Business Administration are from Damascus University.

To put his think piece into perspective, of the Syrian population of 22.5 million, 74 percent are Muslin Sunnis, 11 percent are Alawites, and 15 percent are from other religious denominations.

****

Last June 18, a Lebanese daily close to the Syrian regime quoted a Syrian official as saying in the presence of a UN organization representative, “We shall prevail with or without Bashar al-Assad. For us, what matters most is to see the state – i.e. the regime – survive without losing its regional status.”

Obviously the Syrian official is “Alawite.”

By saying, “what matters for us,” and by equating “state” and “regime,” he simply meant “Alawite rule.”

Over a year ago, after meeting diplomats and attending Syrian opposition conferences, I wrote two articles.

In them, I warned that the United States has -- since the first (February 2012) “Friends of Syria” conference in Tunis -- already contrived a roadmap for Syria.

With opposition groups’ blessings, the U.S. then underpinned the blueprint at the (June 2012) Action Group conference in Geneva and at subsequent “Friends of Syria” meetings.

Essentially, the roadmap is the political solution proposed for Geneva-2, whereby the “Alawite regime” retains the state’s military and security branches, which are sectarian Alawite par excellence.

These would supposedly be reformed gradually “in order to conserve state structures.”

In other words, proponents of Geneva-2 concur with the Syrian official who encapsulated “the state” in the word “regime” and “the regime” in “Alawite rule.”

The Americans, Europeans, Russians and Iranians share this rationale, their only dispute being over the role of “the regime president” in the negotiations and in the transitional stage.

The Americans have lately made common cause with the Russian position, meaning that at Geneva-2 the regime president would negotiate his “future role.”

That’s a new political rib-tickler worth adding to America’s stock of international wisecracks, particularly the joke of “non-lethal weapons.”

So Geneva-2 recognizes the current regime as a full and powerful partner without reference to justice or bona fide power transfer.

Rebels had to be coerced militarily to accept such solution. This was done by giving the Syrian regime a free hand to stifle the revolution by all means possible, including ceaseless carpet bombing and shelling; the use of ballistic missiles, chemical weapons and airpower; inexhaustible supplies of arms and ammunitions; blithe disregard for the regime’s recourse to sectarian mobilization by inviting mercenaries from Lebanon, Iraq and Iran.

By contrast, the Geneva-2 partners exerted immense pressure to starve rebels of arms and ammunitions, which some Arab states promised them 18 months ago.

The Geneva-2 Western patrons used the pretext of “opposition unity” at a timewhen Jabhat al-Nusra was nowhere in sight. The group’s catchword “wrong” hands later became the chief excuse although the “wrong hands” hardly represent five percent of the Free Syrian Army and moderate Islamic groups’ forces on the ground.

After Iran’s overt intervention in the battle for Qusayr through her proxies in Lebanon and Iraq, Arab countries resentful of Iran’s expansionism turned a deaf ear to Washington and started channeling weapons to the rebels.

That’s when the West -- read Americans and Europeans -- resorted to the political ploy of publicly declaring they would be arming the rebels while trying behind doors to prevent this from happening.

The West never stopped hoping the regime would succeed in crushing the revolution or in forcing it to the surrender negotiations table.

Never before did a dictatorship willingly transform into a democracy – neither at once nor piecemeal.

The Syrian Alawite official realizes this. But he is telling the West that Alawites would stay behind the sectarian dictator until they sense defeat, which is when they would make a deal with the West to dump the dictator and safeguard “Alawite rule.”

That’s what the “Western Friends of Syria” give the thumbs up to.

In truth, it’s the case of the West giving something it does not have to an undeserving side, the side being partisans of the sectarian Alawite regime, most of whom are actively supporting the dictator militarily and politically.

The West is saying a sectarian Alawite minority regime in league with other minorities is more suitable than a secular and moderate Sunni regime, even if modeled after Turkey’s.

The fitting secular Muslim, the West is saying, should preferably be “hostile” to all the cultural, authentic and manifest trappings of Sunni Islam. Problem is such Muslims are marginal among Sunnis and stand no chance of winning elections.

This explains the West’s penchant for quasi-democratic minority rule that leaves the military and security striking force in minority hands.

The clearest example yet of such political and intellectual bigotry by Western decision-makers and think tanks is Iraq, which was delivered to Iran on a silver platter at the expense of the West’s Gulf Arab allies.

What is happening in Syria today is the continuation of that policy. Iran is left to carry on shoring up Syria’s sectarian regime at all levels even if she swallowed Syria altogether and her expansionism detonated the entire region.

All this is to keep alive the Alawites’ half-a-century-old rule of Syria by means of the most repulsive sort of overlapping international support from America, Europe, the Soviet Union then Russia, Iran and Israel.

This minority regime gave the State of Israel unparalleled leeway to appropriate the Golan. It also gifted Israel a unique prize by crushing the Palestinian Revolution. Above all, by seizing power in the 1963 military coup in the name of the Baath Party, the minority regime interrupted the significant economic, political and social strides Syria was making to become a free and liberal Muslim democracy.

The latest evidence of the West’s complicity and its partiality towards Alawite governance is its refusal to pass on a simple message to the ruling Alawite sect.

The message is this: “You have to accept the new Syria as ordinary citizens. Instead of being stripped of your total control of state institutions posthaste, the erosion of your privileges would be phased. You have the choice of endorsing or resisting the change. It’s an opportunity that is slipping through your hands day by day.”

The West has yet to tell the pro-Assad Alawites their war crimes and human rights violations will not go unpunished. Although sectarian killings and massacres in Syria are still one-sided, their insistence on setting up an Alawite statelet would trigger a full-scale civil war against them and the regime.

Any shape or form of dismemberment or partition of Syria would lead to protracted internecine strife that could last for years and envelop the region.

Geneva-2 is stillborn. It could have drawn breath 18 months ago, but not anymore. Syria is neither Bosnia nor Yemen. Her revolution is total, not halfway.

No matter how long the war would last to shatter the dream of Balkanizing Syria and bring regime criminals to justice, the Syrians will fight on for a better life with their backs to the wall.

To be ruled by a sectarian minority is the Syrian majority’s worst option, even if such choice were to open the gates of hell on the West, the region and the Alawites.

The West, the region and the Alawites are the least of the Syrian majority’s worries.

Assad backer slams Syrian artist’s "foolish” arrest

Youssef Abdelke

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s mouthpiece in Beirut today amazingly decries in the strongest terms the arrest by his security services of internationally acclaimed Syrian artist Youssef Abdelke.

Ibrahim al-Amin, editor-in-chief of the Lebanese daily al-Akhbar, which speaks for Assad and Hezbollah, describes Abdelke’s Thursday arrest at a government checkpoint in Tartus as “foolhardy, hypocritical, mindless and brutish.”

Amin writes on the front page of al-Akhbar:

What’s going on in Syria? Whose mind assumes the army’s advances against the armed gangs justify reemergence of some regime figures’ mindset -- a chief trigger of Syria’s current crisis?

Who is the genius – I mean jackass – who decided to arrest Abdelke?

How can he convince himself, his family, his neighbors and the people of Damascus, the coastline, Aleppo, Homs, Deraa, Idlib, Raqqa, Hasaka, Deir Ezzor, Quneitra and Sweida that one man named Youssef Abdelke personified danger and had to be arrested?

How can the head of a security branch, or someone in decision-making circles, take such a decision? Is he afraid of a statement penned by the artist, activist and man with a sense of ethics – ethics that some regime people in Syria lack?

Which security branch took this measure as a matter of unsupervised and unaccountable routine?

Who chose to face up to Youssef and his colleagues, who are Syrian citizens striving for regime change without advocating or endorsing its prevailing concept? Their position against all shapes and forms of foreign meddling in the Syrian crisis preceded the positions of many.

Who chose to execute the opposition qualified to rehabilitate Syria as a strong and coherent state liable to rise again and return to life?

Even a name mix-up does not justify Youssef and his colleagues’ arrest, which can only be described as foolhardy, hypocritical, mindless and brutish.

All that can be said is “shame” to whoever thought of taking this criminal step.

Any delay in setting Abdelke free gives a negative signal that some people in regime circles only want a heart-eating and heartless opposition.

We know which road leads Syria to peace.

I suspect Abdelke’s arrest follows his signing of a statement by Syrian intellectuals.

The statement carries the signatures of 100 intellectuals, university professors, artists, journalists, actors and cinematographers.

The document calls for a political solution featuring regime change and a transitional governing body with full executive powers.

Surprisingly too, al-Akhbar carries the statement in full and the names of its 100 signatories.

 Abdelke, 62, of the banned Communist Labor Party, has long criticized Assad and his late father, Hafez Assad, who ruled Syria for 30 years until his death in 2000.

Two party colleagues, Tewfik Omran and Adnan Abbas, were arrested along with Abdelke and taken to an undisclosed location. All three had served previous jail terms for political dissent.

A native of Qamishli in northeastern Syria on the border with Turkey, Abdelke graduated from Damascus University’s Faculty of Fine Arts before spending the best part of two years in jail ending in 1980, when he moved to Paris.

In 1986 he received a diploma in Etching from L’École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris and three years later a PhD in Plastic Arts from Université Paris 8.

Protest had been part of Abdelke’s upbringing. His father had been imprisoned many times during the 1960s and 1970s.

Abdelke moved back to Syria in 2005, after living a quarter of a century in a kind of self-imposed exile in Paris.  He returned above all because he missed home and because he is, in the end, a Syrian artist.

“There’s a false image of openness now,” he told The New York Times in November 2010. “The authorities are still controlling everything, and you can’t even hire a cleaning woman without the security services’ permission. Today the world media knows when a dissident is jailed, which wasn’t the case when I was imprisoned. But this creates an impression that there’s less of a problem, when actually things are just as bad or worse. The market contributes to the problem.”

His subjects tend to be still-lives, benign seeming at first: fish, birds and other animals, ambiguously dead or alive. “To be dead but to refuse to be dead,” was how he described them.

A respected engraver and master draftsman, he is a great observer of living phenomena, and while he is precise and methodical in his approach, there is also a poetic side to his work.

Abdelke has worked in different areas of graphic art, and is known for his posters, logos and book covers in addition to his etchings and collages (see photo albums on his Facebook page here). He also has authored over 30 children books and has published several manuscripts on the history of caricature in Syria and the Arab world.

Abdelke has exhibited throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Europe and his artworks can be found in the British Museum, the National Museum of Kuwait, the National Museum of Damascus and many other public institutions.

Opposition groups say several other civil rights activists have been arrested this week, in what they say is a sign that the Damascus government is ramping up pressure on those who eschew violence and advocate peaceful resistance to Assad.

"Assad's forces are intentionally targeting the groups that are not associated with the armed revolt. They want to make them feel the only choice is the rebels or the regime," Samer Aita, a member of the Syrian Democratic Forum, told Reuters in Beirut.

U.S.-UK ponder strikes against Assad forces

Generals Martin Dempsey (left) and David Richards

America’s top military officer told a Senate panel overnight the Obama Administration is evaluating whether to conduct “direct kinetic strikes” against the Syrian regime.

Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the use of kinetic strikes -- a military term that typically refers to missiles and bombs -- "is under deliberation inside of our agencies of government.”

In interviews to two British newspapers published in London the same day, General Sir David Richards, the outgoing Chief of the Defense Staff, said: “If you want to have the material impact on the Syrian regime’s calculations that some people seek” then “ground targets” would have to be “hit.”

DEMPSEY

Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona said he would block Dempsey's nomination for a second term as Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman until the general gave his personal opinion on what the U.S. should do in Syria.

McCain, who supports a stronger role in supporting opposition rebels, accused the Obama administration of inaction in Syria and questioned the quality of advice Dempsey has provided to the White House over the past two years.

He said the risks of inaction in Syria outweighed risks the United States would face in engaging more actively in supporting rebels.

"We have not been inactive," Dempsey countered.

The White House has said it will arm rebels, but opposition leaders in Syria say they have yet to receive those weapons and momentum is shifting toward President Bashar al-Assad.

Dempsey later acknowledged that the "tide seems to have shifted in his favor.” He also said the momentum ebbs and flows between the two sides.

McCain expressed concerns that Dempsey's advice on arming rebels has shifted.

“You testified this February you had advised the president to arm vetted units of the Syrian opposition,” McCain said. “In April, you testified you no longer supported the position. Now we read in published reports that the administration has decided to arm the Syrian opposition units. How do we account for those pirouettes?”

"I wouldn't accept the term pirouettes, sir," Dempsey said. "We have adapted our approach based on what we know of the opposition and if you recall, at the beginning of the year, there was a period where it was pretty evident that the extremist groups were prevailing inside the opposition." He said he supports “the building of a moderate opposition and including building its military capability.”

When pressed again by McCain, Dempsey – in a not-so-subtle reference to Iraq – asked the senator whether he would agree "that situations could be made worse by the introduction of military force?"

McCain said the general disagreed with him in a similar debate in 2006 over whether to send some 20,000 more U.S. troops to Iraq to quell violence in Baghdad an al-Anbar province. President George W. Bush ultimately ordered the deployment, which was known as "the surge" and credited it with helping to turn the tide of the war.

"I think history shows that those of us who supported the surge were right and people like you who didn't think we need a surge were wrong," McCain said.

McCain asked Dempsey whether regional destabilization is a "good outcome" of the Syria conflict.

"Senator, somehow you've got me portrayed as the one who's holding back from our use of military force inside of Syria,” Dempsey said.

"We've given [President Obama] options," Dempsey said. "The members of this committee have been briefed on them in a classified setting. We've articulated the risk. The decision on whether to use force is the decision of our elected officials."

McCain reminded Dempsey that the general agreed at the beginning of the hearing to provide the committee with his personal opinion, if asked. "I'm asking for your opinion," McCain said.

"About the use of kinetic strikes?" Dempsey asked. "That issue is under deliberation inside of our agencies of government and it would be inappropriate for me to try to influence the decision with me rendering an opinion in public about what kind of force we should use."

McCain took the parting shot.

"If it is your position that you do not provide your personal views to the committee when asked, only under certain circumstances, then you have just contradicted what I have known this committee to operate under for the last 30 years," he said.

McCain told reporters after leaving the hearing room he planned to put a hold on the nomination, essentially blocking any further action until he gets an adequate response from Dempsey.

"I want to see him answer the question," McCain said.

Seeking a compromise, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the committee chairman, asked Dempsey to provide the panel by early next week with an unclassified list of options and the general's assessment of the pros and cons of each. Levin made clear he is not asking Dempsey to share his personal opinion on whether or not to use force in Syria. Dempsey agreed to provide the list.

Levin said he hoped the assessment from Dempsey would give McCain "greater reassurance."

RICHARDS

The outgoing head of the British Army said in turn the West would need to fight a war against Assad if it wanted to have a "material impact" on his calculations.

In interviews to two British newspapers, General Sir David Richards said there were arguments for and against such a course of action and the British government was still debating its options on Syria.

But if a political decision was made to try to change the tide of the conflict to put pressure on the Syrian government, which has notched up military gains in recent months, Britain would need to intervene in the same way as it did in Libya, he said.

The 61-year-old general said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph there was "a lack of international consensus" over how to act over Syria but a shared reluctance to see Western boots on the ground.

“If you wanted to have the material impact on the Syrian regime’s calculations that some people seek, a no fly zone per se is insufficient.

“You have to be able, as we did successfully in Libya, to hit ground targets.

“You have to establish a ground control zone. You have to take out their air defenses. You also have to make sure they can’t maneuver – which means you have to take out their tanks, and their armored personnel carriers and all the other things that are actually doing the damage.

“If you want to have the material effect that people seek you have to be able to hit ground targets and so you would be going to war if that is what you want to do.”

He added: “That is rightly a huge and important decision. There are many arguments for doing so but there are many arguments for not doing so too.”

Richards described the situation as “highly complex” and suggested that the focus of government action was also on ensuring the conflict did not “spread” to neighboring countries.

“We are looking at Syria much more from a regional perspective and making sure that as awful as things are there it doesn’t spread materially to other countries like Lebanon and Jordan,” he said.

Richards separately told The Sun newspaper that Britain “would have to act” if it saw chemical weapons proliferation as a result of the Syrian conflict.

And he also revealed planning for a major new operation in the war-torn country, which Special Forces would lead, is well underway.

Richards said, “The risk of terrorism is becoming more and more dominant in our strategic vision for what we might do in Syria.

“If that risk develops, we would almost certainly have to act to mitigate it and we are ready to do so.

"I think it is a very big question. If we saw chemical weapons proliferate as a result of what is happening in Syria then we would have to act.

“Obviously we have contingency plans for everything.”

Pressed on whether that meant a brand new theater of war for the armed forces, the general added: “Some could characterize that, even though it might be for a limited period, as a war”.

Britain is only likely to act alongside the US, Richards suggested, adding: “We would have to do it as part of a wider effort because you know the scale of the challenge would be too much for any one country.

“But it has huge strategic implications beyond what might be actually quite a straightforward tactical effort.”

Obama the Hutu and Putin the Tutsi

File photo of Rwandans escaping the genocide

It is not enough for the UN to organize “funeral wakes and shed crocodile tears” for Syria at the Security Council (see yesterday’s post).

Telling us as it did, that “we have not seen a refugee outflow escalate at such a frightening rate since the Rwandan genocide,” is not helpful either.

Columnist Rajeh el-Khoury, writing today for the independent Beirut daily an-Nahar, says in part:

It is more useful for the UN to do something concrete to stop this infamy, which is worse than the massacres and genocide committed in Rwanda almost 20 years ago.

The Rwandan disaster took place in Africa’s jungles, relatively far from the world’s public eye.

But the daily massacres in Syria are being aired straightaway to every home around the globe.

Still, the Syria “Massacre’s International Department” is keen to see the pace of the killings continue unabated.

American apathy and Russian bigotry are the two faces of one and the same despicable, heinous and criminal policy.

Political solutions were foiled at the Arab League, then by a Russian veto at the UN Security Council, and since at the “Geneva Conference” farce… But the UN finds nothing better than wail the 100,000 Syrian deaths and the estimated killing of another 5,000 every month.

In Rwanda, the Hutus and Tutsis slaughtered each other as Bill Clinton stood idly by and just watched the slaughter.

Using a political metaphor, Obama represents the Hutus and Putin the Tutsis.

Both have no qualms about watching the slaughter until Syria is totally destroyed.

In the process, the largest number of Islamic extremists and jihadists would be killed alongside as many Iranians, Iraqis and Hezbollah Lebanese as possible, which would also wear down Iran.

Suspicions of a foul play on Syria also filter through this other think piece on the “Game of Nations” penned by wordsmith Samir Atallah for the Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat:

Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe in 1989, and two years later in the Soviet Union.

Some read in the two downfalls the End of History; others declared the end of the Cold War.

Russia was a bankrupt nation ruled by an addict called Boris Yeltsin while China’s economy was still predominantly rural.

But the march of history never stops and history variables are unpredictable.

The past decade saw the collapse of the U.S. economy, which was partly pulled down by the Iraq adventure.

It also witnessed the rise of China to economic giant status.

That’s when the Russians sought to take advantage of America’s enfeeblement and Europe’s fatigue and make a comeback on the international stage, using their Soviet forerunners’ wiles: the Cold War.

In a sense, the Cold War means waging hot wars away from your homeland – Vietnam, Angola, Cuba, the Balkans, the Middle East, Indonesia, Lebanon, Korea and scores of other places. That’s what the two sides do, but always covertly.

The Russians perceived in America’s exit from Iraq, her failure in Afghanistan and her financial meltdown a suitable window to recoup the role of equals in a bipolar world.

Realizing the West was shutting them out from Africa after the change in Libya, the Chinese chose to warm up to their traditionally hated partners, the Russians.

A golden opportunity came knocking with the explosion in Syria, an old Moscow lover despite her flings with the Americans in Lebanon and Iraq.

At the UN Security Council, the Russians pulled their veto sword from its sheath in anticipation of a duel.

They were surprised to find a bystander instead of an adversary. They found Obama playing the old Soviet role -- passionate verbosity and hot air.

In this crisscross painting of the battle scene, Putin visited America’s two principal military allies in the region, Israel and Turkey.

People who expected Obama to change tack in his second term saw him replace Hillary Clinton with John Kerry.

American ambulation and cogitation supplanted the ragged Russian footwork.

In the tug-of-war, nuclear Iran played the role of nuclear Cuba with cold, limited and timid Russian backing and American cautioning.

While the Russians and Americans weighed their moves, and China pondered the words of her Security Council representative, 100,000 Syrians were killed and 10 million displaced.

The quintessence of the conflict changed from Hama to Qusayr, the MiGs destroyed a quarter of Syria, the Middle East toppled over and the ultimate peril of sectarian conflict ignited.

The Big Powers don’t change. Everything outside their borders is a “game.”