Pope Francis’ plea for peace in Syria and a day of prayer
last Sunday defined what much of the world fervently hopes is the end result of
what is an appalling civil war. Almost simultaneously The White House released
video clips of children and old people gassed and dying from an attack of
chemical weapons, weapons that the world
proclaimed were above and beyond the norms of civilization a hundred years ago
and agreed to ban them for use in war
forever.
The Pope saw the use
of force to be immoral; the Obama administration saw the use of chemical weapons
as immoral. This appears to be an unsolvable moral dilemma that gives shelter to both sides, to those who oppose US limited intervention in
Syria and the rationalization for the
advocates who want to strike. It is not. To use one immoral act may be the only way
to achieve the moral goal of peace.
Peace, defined as a negotiated end to the conflict that
stops the slaughter, is a wish, a
prayer, and a hope, but to get there may require more violence. So many are
expressing a belief that if the
world put pressure on the Assad regime, embargoes, or so many of the non
violent strategies tried to change the behavior of Iran or North Korea, Assad
would find his way to the negotiating table.
It is not just any negotiation we should seek. It is negotiation
in good faith that would end the conflict and also protect the Christian and
Alawite minorities in Syria from being
wiped out by Sunni victors.
The specter of the ethnic cleansing
of the Balkan wars has been invoked as the reason to protect the Assad
regime from collapsing because of US intervention.
That view is neither
logical nor is the goal achievable. The
question is how can anyone from the
outside of Syria convince Bashar al Assad that it is in his interest to
negotiate in good faith? So long as he
has allies of Russia and Iran to supply him with weapons or trading partners in China,
embargoes and economic pressure or world condemnation would not work. So long as he perceives he is winning, that he
controls every major urban city, as he does now, why should he give away ground or power?
Something must change. Either the West arming the moderate
opposition or a strike that would take out Assad’s air and delivery systems so
that the playing field is so leveled the futility of continued bloodshed will
be obvious to both sides. The sad part
is that combatants who holster their WMD will still draw out the shed of
civilian blood for a long time with conventional methods, but a strategic
strike by missiles and air that levels the playing field would have quicker results. What about collateral damage of missile and
air strikes? It all depends upon the surgical skill of those able to carry out
the mission, and only the US has that capability.
That is the lesson of
the NATO intervention in Bosnia in the 1990’s.
Until airstrikes took down the Serbian air force , the Bosnian Serbs/Serbia itself, saw no
reason to come to the table. The
massacre of 7,000 men in the killing
fields of Srebrenica and the shelling of Sarajevo and Dubrovnik caused moral outrage throughout the
world , but moral condemnation was not
enough. The reality of those desperately
seeking or keeping power is that they
only understand the use of sticks and stones, because words would never hurt
them. The skill of US armed forces, without boots on the ground, kept resulting
civilian casualties to a bare minimum and resulted in the Dayton accord that
ended the bloodshed while protecting the
minorities.
For more visit www.mufticforumblog.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment