Badran and Landis slug-fest over how hard to push Syria

Some required reading has been posted by Tony Badran at "Across the Bay:" Read his posts on "Bashar and Brookings" and Syria and the Mehlis Vise and It's the Flynt-stones. He slams me and takes on Flynt Leverett for misunderstanding Syria and not appreciating the full horrors of a "thugocracy." The only solution for Syria, Tony implies, is to break the regime.

Tony begins his post on "Bashar and Brookings" this way: (but read the whole thing)

A couple of weeks ago, I posted on Martin Indyk's FT op-ed where he lambasted Bashar. Last week, Indyk was interviewed by Bernard Gwertzman of the Council on Foreign Relations. Indyk piled it on. Commenting on Syria's talent of misreading developments (exemplified by the brilliant Farouq ash-Sharaa), Indyk said:

The one thing I regret about this process of getting the Security Council resolution, is that somebody seems to have bragged beforehand about how sanctions, or the threat of sanctions, was going to be in there. That appeared as you know, in the New York Times Monday morning. But to get unanimity, the threat of sanctions was dropped. There is only the threat of further action if Syria does not cooperate.

That’s an inevitable result of the negotiating process in the UN Security Council, but what it does, I’m afraid, is send the wrong signal to the Syrians, who are chronically prone to misreading the map. They may conclude that the United States failed in this resolution to get a reference to sanctions and therefore they don’t have to worry about it, which would be a big mistake on their part, but I’m afraid that’s how they’ll read it... continued

One must read Tony's three posts. He has an excellent understanding of power politics in this case. My major complaint with Tony is that he poopoohs the possibility of chaos and refuses to consider that things could get worse if the confrontation between the West and Syria is driven too quickly.

Tony was a big fan of the way Bush boxed Saddam Hussein in and took him down. I was not. Tony believes the US must do something similar with Syria - box it in and leave no escape route for Bashar al-Asad. Tony believes he is the source of evil and must be excised because he is the head of the thugocracy.

My own thinking about Iraq is closer to that of Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser to George H.W. Bush. In an important article in "The New Yorker" by Jeffrey Goldberg, Brent Scowcroft explains why he disagrees with the neocons. The full article has been nicely summarized by Steve Clemons. Here is the first bit:

Brent Scowcroft on the War in Iraq and the Bush Administration

In "Breaking Ranks" (p. 54), in the October 31, 2005, issue of The New Yorker, Jeffrey Goldberg reports on the growing divide between the Bush Administration and its Republican critics. The criticism from Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser to George H.W. Bush, has been particularly pronounced, Goldberg writes. Scowcroft recalls advice he gave the first President Bush at the conclusion of the first Gulf War, when there was pressure to remove Saddam Hussein.

It would have been easy to reach Baghdad, Scowcroft said, but what then? "At the minimum, we'd be an occupier in a hostile land. Our forces would be sniped at by guerrillas, and once we were there, how would we get out? What would be the rationale for leaving? I don't like the term 'exit strategy' -- but what do you do with Iraq once you own it?" Scowcroft then said of Iraq, "This is exactly where we are now. We own it. And we can't let go. We're getting sniped at. Now, will we win? I think there's a fair chance we'll win. But look at the cost."...

"For Scowcroft," Goldberg writes, "the second Gulf war is a reminder of the unwelcome consequences of radical intervention, especially when it is attempted without sufficient understanding of America's limitations or of the history of a region." Scowcroft says, "I believe in the fallibility of human nature. We continually step on our best aspirations. We're humans. Given a chance to screw up, we will."

The question Tony refuses to answer about destroying the Syrian regime is what will be the cost if we succeed? Even if we do not destroy the regime, which is unlikely, but only succeed in placing sanctions on Syria, what will the cost be?

By pushing Syria too hard, too fast, we risk a real mess. I am all in favor of pressure, but one cannot drive Syria to change its character beyond a certain speed. The society itself must be capable of responding to the need for change in an organized and controlled fashion. One cannot just pluck off the regime or close it down with sanctions and isolation and expect society to do the right thing to replace it and grow another regime. My fear is that Syrian society is not mature enough or organized enough to deal with serious regime failure. If one squeezes a boil before it has come to a head, one risks spreading the infection internally, causing greater pain, and permanently scaring the surrounding flesh. That is why doctors prescribe hot compresses and time in order to bringing the boil to a head. One can speed along this process with the application of heat, but ultimately one must wait for the body to reject the infection on its own.

The last five years have seen Syrian intellectuals go through an enormous change of thinking. The Damascus Declaration issued two weeks ago was important. So is the emergence of a significant body of liberals within the government who are advocating real change and a democratic opening. All the same, much of this thinking has yet to seep into the minds of the masses, who are not connected to the intellectual opponents of the regime. Many too many people in Syria remain in thrall of their imams, who see the world in the old Baathi-Islamist way of conspiracies and Western-Zionist evil. That attitude will have to dissolve much further before a clean break can be contemplated. It is far from dissolved - no matter how often the West tells us that Arab nationalism is dead, etc. It is very much alive here - even if it has been dressed in Islamist cloths. An increasing number of Syrians are taking up the notion of Syrianism and Syria first, but they have not captured the imagination of the masses.

Tony, and those of his thinking, will no doubt argue that the masses will never be ready for liberal reform so long as the regime remains in power and is able to brainwash them with anti-Westernism and anti-Zionism ideas. I don't think this is true. I think the forces working on Syrian society are much greater than the regime. Globalization, seeing neighbors succeeding, watching al-Jazeera, etc. are a tremendous force. The regime cannot arrest these changes no matter how hard it tries. And the regime is not monolithic. There is serious debate going on within the government.

Syrians are smart and they don't want to be left behind by the world. They will organize themselves and change their outlook on the world with time - and perhaps faster than many think, but it won't be tomorrow. Pushing the process too quickly has real dangers. How quickly is too quickly? That is an important question. It should be debated.