France Plunges into Syrian Quagmire
France, which governed what is now Syria after World War I, has stepped
forward as the first Western power to recognize the opposition as the
legitimate government. But the future course of the Syrian civil war remains
dangerous and complicated, says ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
19/11/2012
The announcement by French President François Hollande that his government
is formally recognizing, as the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian
people, the latest version of what purports to be a united Syrian opposition
is the sort of development apt to stimulate more grumbling in the United
States that the US government is not exerting sufficient leadership, either
from in front or from behind, regarding Syria.
Actually, if any Western country is to be out front on this matter, it ought
to be France. France was responsible in the 1920s and 1930s for what is now
Syria, under what was called a League of Nations mandate and was really a
colonial relationship.
France staked its claim to this territory when the French diplomat François
Georges-Picot and his British counterpart Sir Mark Sykes drew secretly
negotiated lines on a map during World War I to carve up this part of the
Ottoman Empire.
This is not to say, of course, that Syria’s subsequent miserable history is
all or even mostly France’s fault. But the French did want this piece of the
Middle East, and with the benefit of hindsight one can think of ways the
mandate could have turned out better. The French divided mandated Syria into
several dependent states of different ethnic or sectarian character, only
one of which — the one corresponding to present Lebanon — would achieve its
own independence.
Given the sectarian divisions within Lebanon, maybe its independence wasn’t
a good idea. Maybe a better idea, given recent history, would have been to
have groomed for independence the state that consisted of the largely
Alawite-inhabited Latakia region of what is now northwest Syria.
The opposition coalition that France has recognized and to which, according
to Hollande, it is considering providing arms, is barely deserving of the
word “coalition.” It emerged only after prolonged and intense pressure from
Arab and Western governments at a meeting in Qatar (with the US Secretary of
State having taken a leading role in earlier exertion of such pressure).
Perhaps because the new grouping, called the National Coalition of Syrian
Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, has a longer name than the ineffective
Syrian National Council, it conveys the impression of greater viability by
being more broadly based. But to pretend that this painfully negotiated new
structure is a truly unified opposition that can provide a basis for
eventual political stability in Syria is to ignore how badly fractured the
different elements opposing the regime of Bashar al-Assad still are.
Certain unjustified assumptions about the struggle in Syria have been
creeping into discussion and reporting on the topic, as exemplified by the
<
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/15/world/middleeast/syria-war-developments.h
tml?hp> front-pageNew York Timesstory about Hollande’s announcement. The new
coalition reportedly “came together” in Doha when a more appropriate term
would be “papered over differences under pressure.”
Reference to Western and Arab efforts to build “a viable and effective
opposition that would hasten the end of a stalemated civil war” suggests the
unjustified conclusion that a less fractured opposition would indeed mean an
earlier end to the war.
The article correctly notes that Assad has “survived partly because of the
disagreements and lack of unity among his opponents,” but he also has
survived partly for other reasons, including fears among Alawites and some
others that not just their status but their lives would be endangered by the
regime’s forcible overthrow.
<
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/opinion/friedman-obamas-nightmare.html?re
f=opinion> Thomas Friedman has a somewhat breathless column about dangers of
the Syrian situation that sustains the common but incorrect view that civil
wars inevitably spread across borders like spilled molasses unless forcibly
prevented from doing so, and that incorrectly credits an American military
presence inside Iraq for having prevented political molasses there from
oozing into other countries.
But he is correct that just as it was removal of the old regime that
triggered civil war and prolonged violence in Iraq, removal of the regime in
Syria would hardly be an omen of stability in that country. Friedman is
right to point to the only visible (but still slim) hope for such stability:
cooperation with the Russians to try to arrange a power-sharing deal to be
overseen by a UN-sponsored multilateral force.
The voices in the United States who speak disdainfully about pursuit of a
negotiated outcome are offering nothing else that is any more promising, and
for the most part they are pursuing agendas other than peace in Syria.
We need to resist the temptation to think that every messy situation
overseas has a feasible solution, and furthermore to think that the United
States needs to be leading part of that solution. As for what Hollande is
doing, go right ahead, Monsieur le Président. Just don’t get your hopes very
high.
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Received on Mon Nov 19 2012 - 18:14:10 EST
