The Case Against War with Syria

by Carlos L. Diaz

Two days ago, the President of the United States said he would seek congressional approval for military action against Syria. The president’s comments came as a response to the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons against its own citizens. Members of Congress should not rush to a conclusion on such a delicate matter. Before authorizing the United States to become a belligerent in this brutal, bloody civil war, the representatives of the world’s oldest constitutional democracy should perform a very careful analysis of the current situation and its possible outcomes. Four questions need to be asked before committing the nation into another international conflict. Would military intervention help the Syrian people? What are the possible outcomes of intervention? Is there public support for involvement? What justifications does the country have under today’s frail international law system?

The current plan of attack consists of firing Tomahawk missiles from the Mediterranean coast aimed at military targets within Syria. Such an attack comes with many inherent risks–missiles could hit chemical weapons depots and cause deadly gases to spread from the bases to the lungs of  innocent civilians, or missiles could go astray and hit unintended targets. The people of Syria have endured a civil war, which has claimed more than 100,000 lives, but the effects of an attack from the world’s most powerful army is not something easy to predict. The best possible outcome is one in which the United States seriously cripples the capabilities of the Syrian army and kills President Assad and his inner circle with a minimum amount of innocent dead civilians. What happens after this military “success”?

A realization of the above scenario will not translate into a liberal democracy with utmost respect for human rights spawning into existence in Syria. Most likely, the country will experience prolonged sectarian violence–similar to the kind seen in the civil sectarian wars of Lebanon and Iraq. As Fareed Zakaria explains, Syria is the last of the three Middle Eastern minority regimes. Zakaria predicts that this conflict is going to linger for ten years or more because there are more than one thousand militias, belonging to six or seven major groups, fighting for power in Syria. He points to the examples of Lebanon, where the United States did not intervene in that nation’s fifteen year civil war, and Iraq, where the United States did intervene to depose the minority Sunni regime. In Iraq American intervention produced very insignificant results–the country had eight hundred deaths last month, has been infiltrated by Al-Qaeda, and is on the brink of another civil war. As Zakaria puts it “we intervened in Iraq and all those terrible things happened anyway.” If the “successful” scenario takes place the next step in the conflict would be the slaughter of the Alawites–Assad’s group–by the majority Sunni. After this slaughter would come a new conflict among the victorious parties which would be unlikely to share power. Iraq is a crucial example because in that case 180,000 American troops could not fix the underlying problems, it is very unlikely that Tomahawk missiles can do a better job than 180,000 ground troops.

When members of Congress decide whether or not to intervene in Syria they should keep in mind that they are the people’s representatives. A recent NBC News poll found that only 42% of Americans think the government should take military action in response to the chemical weapons attack, while 50% of the public disapprove of such action. These numbers are particularly important because the reputation of the Legislative branch has taken toll in the last few years. Acting in a way that is clearly contrary to the opinion of a majority of the public will only exacerbate the negative trend. The Wall Street Journal points out that in previous conflicts at least a majority of Americans have supported intervention and that greater conflicts, like Afghanistan in 2001, have had “significant public support.”

The last point I would like to make relates to the dangerous precedent such an attack will create in the field of international law. David Kaye explains what would allow the United States to legally attack Syria.

Under the United Nations Charter […] states are generally prohibited from using force against other states unless they are acting in individual or collective self-defense or pursuant to an authorization of the UN Security Council.

It is impossible for the United States to assert a claim of self-defense and the Security Council will not act because two of its members, Russia and China, refuse to condemn the Syrian regime. This means that the United States is planning to use force against another state without any legal justification. This avoidance of international law will undoubtedly make the already fragile system even weaker and put the United States in a situation where it will not be able to demand that other states follow rules it does not. Legal flexibility is an extremely dangerous precedent to set.

For all of the reasons mentioned, the United States should remain aloof this conflict. The loss of human life, the chemical attacks, the refugee crisis, and the sheer brutality of the conflict are capable of producing an emotional effect on any decent human being. But an in-depth analyses of the situation would lead to a conclusion different from the one reached by President Obama.