The cartoon's image of Bashar Assad holding two cards and having to decide to be a loser like Saddam or a joker like Qadafi is inaccurate -- Assad isn't the one holding the cards in Syria.

I think the perceptual problem is that Assad is merely a figurehead and puppet, not a strongman like his father.

People should give up on Assad because he has proven time and again that he is not truly in control. The Syrian security apparatus is in charge, and we are engaging in inappropriately wishful thinking by giving Assad a chance to try to gain control.

American security interests are not served by giving him leeway to act -- it just takes pressure off of the powers behind the throne.

We shouldn't remove Assad. But we shouldn't pretend he's actually in charge of anything that counts, either.

What we need to ask ourselves is, what is an acceptable endgame? You use sanctions to get a regime to do something they dont want to do.
- Turning over key officials wouldnt help us much but would probably topple Assads government (so he wont do it), so thats not much of a goal.
- Agreeing to end meddling in Lebanon and abetting terrorists is almost pointless considering they deny doing those things even now.
- Demanding the government resign and a democratic election take place is bold but laughable, and moot since the UNSC would never go for it.

Its a tough call, and Europeans arent high on sanctions in general, and particularly open ended ones forcing Syria to essentially prove a negative (they arent doing things).
I think a deal can be struck along these lines
- Syria agrees to all the dog and pony standard promises not to support terrorists or interfere with its neighbors
- Syria recognizes Lebonese soveriegnty and borders
- Syria agrees to punish the people named in the report... meaning they will retire them from public view
- Syria agrees to initiate democratic reform along the Egyptian/Saudi baby steps, agrees to at least give lip service to a free press

Now this doesnt give us much, but it does give us a few useful things. We can pressure Syria harder to help seal the border with Iraq. We can have some hope of keeping their mits out of Lebanon unless they really have a death wish. And we can introduce some tiny seeds of democracy which may flourish into institutions given time, and eventually topple the regime. Having democracies on 4 sides and a UN sanctioned opposition could have drastic consequences over a few years.
None of this will have a major impact on the ground in the ME in the near term, but managing to herd our allies into sanctioning and putting Assads back to the wall doesnt seem to pay off very well either.

Detailed if somewhat editorial slanted information here:

http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/L/Joshua.M.Landis-1/syriablog/index.html

Let's play devil's advocate for a moment: suppose Syria just stonewalls?

Maybe they have sanctions stuck on them. Countries in that part of the world have gotten around sanctions before, or waited them out until the European countries and the Russians got tired of them. And what else can the international community do to Syria without prompting Arab countries to rally around Assad? Arab countries seem to have remained on pretty good terms with Sudan, which has murdered a couple of hundred thousand people just over the last three years.

My guess is the Syrians weren't expecting a straight UN report. If they'd known where Mehlis was heading they would have stonewalled him earlier. Now that what's done is done, what happens? I hear people talking about Assad's regime falling, but if it does, what replaces it? Just another dictatorship based on the security services, probably with a more overtly Islamist cast?

Now, look. I'd be glad to be wrong about this, and maybe I am. But press commentary right now makes a lot of references to Assad being "in a corner." This reminds me a little bit of chess, where depending on the position of the pieces a king in a corner can end the game, or just produce a stalemate. Which are we looking at here?

Z is exactly right, which is why we should strike a deal and get what we can. Assad is scared we will makes demands he cant meet, like sealing the Iraqi border, handing over his top aides, or abandoning Hezbollah. Instead we should give a headfake at those by allowing him to pay lip service, and sneak a poison pill of democratic 'reform' into the mix. He wont have much problem with that considering Egypt doing the same thing, but if we can attach some UN oversite and hence protection to a nacient opposition/free press, we can get a foot in the door.

Well, I agree with Mark Buehner supra that the appearance of a strongish hand should be exploited not by overplaying but by cutting a reasonable deal while the other man is spooked.

Re Zathras' veiled note with respect to Iraq: amusing but not really accurate.

A better read is not merely putting the onus on Europeans and Russians but asking what, with a closed economy already half run via smuggling via Lebanon, 'sanctions' would in effect do?

Syria is a bloody economic and political basket case, as a system, I don't see sanctions doing anything but giving the Asad system a Cuban style excuse - in a sense "American Sanctions" would have in many respects an utterly backwards effect in the medium term.

Else, I should not think a rational person would wish to own a collapsing Syria - leaving well enough alone rather makes more sense, but then American policy seems to be trending to the fantastical and messianic of late.

linker:

refutation of Landis: http://lebop.blogspot.com/2005/10/battle-over-syria-dont-forget-about.html

interesting in country take, also see Michael Totten

this is why no one respects realists and diplomats.

you have the advantage over a horrible government that is corrupt, tyrannical, expansionist and terrorist. what do you do? you get them to agree to be a nice country and pat them on the head.

g-d d&&ned striped pants bulls--t

best option would be a serbian airstrikes model, along wiborder raids that establish a 50-100 mile security zone inside syria to ensure the iraqi border is respected. government falling and instability in syria is a bug, not a feature. it is yet another lesson to the mullahs, the sauds and musharraf that they really need to get on board or very bad things will happen to them personally.

assad survival past the next 12 months means that american policy has failed. we have so many enemies that need to see the pain of remaining adversaries, it is no time to be pursuing stability at any price, as is so often the path of arabists and realists.

are any of you now, or do you expect or hope to be in the future, in the pay of the saudi government through public relations or consulting contracts? cause that's what this smells like. I'm just waiting for the explanations of how it's all Israel's fault that Syria assassinated Harriri.

as to loudon: no need to own the country. just shake it up and let the current crop of baddies die. then tell the new crop to behave or else.

Isn't it ludicrous that a nation like the United States which has a long and disgusting history of assassinations, attempted assassinations, coups, military overthrows, illegal invasions, etc should now be complaining about Syria. The hypocrisy is just nauseating.

"Isn't it ludicrous that a nation like the United States which has a long and disgusting history of assassinations, attempted assassinations, coups, military overthrows, illegal invasions, etc should now be complaining about Syria. The hypocrisy is just nauseating."

Any particular nation older than 20 years you wanna match records with? Please dont pick France or England, far too easy.

Tongue in cheek; maybe...

League of Nations dealing w Mussolini attack on Ethiopia. UN dealing w Syrian assassination of head of state. Same result,different day...

Kill two birds etc. Fund France to send their rifle company, their two LeClerc tanks and an armed beret herd of unemployed to again conquor/colonize Syria. Should they succeed suggest they try and grow lots of truffles and bring in thousands of pigs to find em. Tell french muslims if they want to wear burkas they can in New South France.

To me this is more attractive than just throwing up hands and letting Syria continue to be Syria.

Anyone-cajones-anyone?

Tongue in cheek; maybe...

League of Nations dealing w Mussolini attack on Ethiopia. UN dealing w Syrian assassination of head of state. Same result,different day...

Kill two birds etc. Fund France to send their rifle company, their two LeClerc tanks and an armed beret herd of unemployed to again conquor/colonize Syria. Should they succeed suggest they try and grow lots of truffles and bring in thousands of pigs to find em. Tell french muslims if they want to wear burkas they can in New South France.

To me this is more attractive than just throwing up hands and letting Syria continue to be Syria.

Anyone-cajones-anyone?

"Any particular nation older than 20 years you wanna match records with? Please dont pick France or England, far too easy."

I didn't think you right wing nuts thought moral relativism was a good thing. But if you want to do it that way, sure. How about Japan. Or Italy. Or Greece. Or Spain. Or Sweden. Or Canada. Or India. Or Brazil. Shall I keep going?

I think that Buehner needs to realize that IR is not for the faint of heart and hypocrisy is irrelevant. We, like other nations will look out for our interests and if that means hammering on Syria for acting like us then we should do it.

This Wilsonian model of IR died with the League of Nations

Im sorry, I should have said nation who has taken any action in the international arena remotely significant. However:

Canada: Haitian coup
http://dominionpaper.ca/weblog/2004/08/cbcs_the_current_discusses_canadas_coupplotting_in_haiti.html

India: Kashmir, etc
http://web.amnesty.org/report2003/ind-summary-eng

Spain: http://web.amnesty.org/report2003/esp-summary-eng

Brazil: http://web.amnesty.org/report2003/Bra-summary-eng

Greece: Cypress coup etc
http://www.witwik.com/Cyprus

"I think that Buehner needs to realize that IR is not for the faint of heart and hypocrisy is irrelevant. "

I agree with this somewhat, and i hardly think of myself as feint of heart. But pure pragmatism without greater ideals is a blind alley. Yes we will be hypocritical, but as they was said of the British constitution: "she owes her success in practice to her inconsistancy in principle." My point is that while America does have a lousy trackrecord in many areas, it certainly has more bright points on the scale than Sweden or Greece can dream of, and moreover the things we've done have been out of a larger sense of self-interest. How easy would it have been for the US to abandon Europe and Asia to their fates after WW2? If you wanna play in the big game, you're gonna get dirty to an extent. So how are we 'morally superior'? We probably arent, it just so happens that we are in a position where our self-interest is a very moral and honorable outcome, the spread of democracy and liberty to the last regions of the world.

Big difference between moral relativism and fact. Jak king would have to name every fruit tree and sloth herd territory since Out of Africa, then every tribal claim, city state,nation state that ever existed up to and including the present temporary world map. The State of Nature (of which homo sapians is a part; like it or not, is still long in claw and bloody fang.

Me. I`ll take the good old USA over any other place on the blue marble. Star Trek is a TV show. Don`t like the abundant life style, feeling guilty even w a full tummy? I offer a reality check. Paradrop into the Amazon w a Prius see how long one can last denying he is a predator. Right Wing nuts expend less calories whining. But they CAN hunt and gather.

Let's look at this again. Suppose Syria stonewalls, rejects the UN report and further cooperation with the UN, blames troubles in Lebanon on US imperialism, Israel, etc. What cards do we have, and what is our objective?

One might be that France has taken such a leading role in Lebanese affairs; it has no incentive to have the UN go this far and no farther, and at this point no incentive to undermine the UN if it did decide to take action. Another might be that Hariri's assassination was not cleared with other Arab governments, in particular the Saudis with whom he was said to have strong personal and business ties. Backing from Arab oil states would be needed by Damascus in the event of sanctions, and Syria may have some ground to make up in this area.

Those are just a couple of guesses. What about our objective? Syria from my point of view is just another backward Arab country traumatized by decades of dictatorship along Soviet lines; it is not a candidate for democracy unless one's time frame is geologic. But if not democracy, then what? The country has been under the thumb of the Assad family for over 30 years; power is concentrated in the security services, and the strongest power outside the government is likely made up of bloody-minded Islamists.

I'm not suggesting there is no good objective for the West in this situation. I just don't see what it is right now.

National Identity dictates morality and truth!

Look at what we did to Iraq!

Do you think the Iraqis will ever attack us like they did on 9-11, again?

Destroy Syria and there will be no assassinations in Lebanon again, and Al Queda will continue to fear us!

Neo-Dude seeks to confound with his deep irony, to wit:

National Identity dictates morality and truth!

....And, so therefore, wearing our moral relativism blinders, since we can never know the actual, objective "Truth" (since it cannot exist!), no person/group/nation has "moral standing" to act upon anything, ever! Presto! We ironists are hereby execused from ever doing anything hard or dangerous (like fighting for freedom) or having to excercise our brains to make a judgement, since we're all morally tainted and unqualified to do so. We're even excused from thinking. Voila!

Look at what we did to Iraq!

...We freed 30,000,000 people from a brutal tyrant. We should all be so ashamed.

Do you think the Iraqis will ever attack us like they did on 9-11, again?

...because we all must realize that tyranny and repression of the most abominable sort has no connection to the spread of terrorism. And tyrants should not be overthrown anyway, only the likes of GWB and B-Liar!

Destroy Syria and there will be no assassinations in Lebanon again, and Al Queda will continue to fear us!

...after all, who have the Syrian government and Al Queda ever harmed? Not nearly as many those war crimminals in the White House and 10 Downing Street!

Propaganda Parrot Theater will resume at this spot when Neo Dude finds time.

We ironists are hereby execused from ever doing anything hard or dangerous (like fighting for freedom

Also, unlike us chickenhawks, who routinely do immensely courageous things like fighting for freedom from the terrible danger of our typewriters.

.because we all must realize that tyranny and repression of the most abominable sort has no connection to the spread of terrorism.

because we all realize that Iraq's tyranny was terrorizing people all over the world, not just its citizens. Because we all know that democracies can never ever have terrorist and separatist movements. Because we thought that spending spend 2000 lives, half a trillion dollars attacking a country that had not attacked us, rather than our true enemies, was a great use of our resources and time. Because we think that other humans are laboratory rats for our experiments.

The goal needs to be democracy in Syria:

1. The US and the West should be demanding free elections in Syria, and an end to the Assad regime.
2. The elections should be supervised by the UN.
3. Assad should agree not to run.

In support of this, the West should be prepared to mobilize sanctions, and the US should hold in reserve the possibility of extending a no-fly zone over Syria if Assad refuses to assent to free elections.

Because we thought that spending spend 2000 lives, half a trillion dollars attacking a country that had not attacked us, rather than our true enemies, was a great use of our resources and time. Mark M

Hmmm... And during WW2 exactly how many lives and money did we expend attacking Germany?

The revolting Jew-hater Jak King is cutting and pasting from his favorite website, ZOG.com. Back from your courageous human shielding, Jak?

How come nobody has mentioned that the U.N. actually delivered on an investigative duty? The U.N. bureacracy actually conducted and then published a report that might be worth the paper its printed on.

I believe we'd have a better world without the U.N. - from a long, long time back - but despite Kofi Annan's efforts to dilute the report findings (per usual), the unredacted document is damning, and rightly so.

france and America are working the diplomacy here together. Which means that whoever is to follow Assad and the Baathists into the dustbin of history have a political figleaf when they appeal for help in forming a new republic. Don't like the Running Dog Americans? Fine - we don't have to be loved, or even liked, and it's not like Bush will ever get any credit via media for doing anything right. But if france provides manpower and photo ops as the interlocutor of Syria as a bran-new member of the civilized nations of the world, hell, I'd support writing some checks for that.

france isn't capitalized on purpose, BTW.

Interests at play:

france: gets press points for playing on the world stage. That's ALL they need; better than dealing with prison condition coverage and this years stirring economic reports. By now the french have to realize that their home grown Islamist problem is enough of a threat that they just might have to get on board this democratization thing.

American: End of the Terrorist Express into Iraq from one border. Almost certainly access (direct or via french or U.N intermediaries) to financial and intelligence data of the old regime, and possibly even physical access to the Syrian WMD stocks (in order to find out what exactly made it out of Iraq). Hizbollah in Lebanon will still be an Iranian proxy...but they may find it in their interest to speed their transition into a popular political party without direct physical support from/via Syria.

The U.N.: If Kofee Anaan isn't selling timeshares back in Ghana by springtime, then we really do need Trump to remodel the U.N. headquarters as a condo tower and ship the U.N. to Upper Volta. This report, and the diplomatic maneuvering leading to a regime change in Syria, could be the pivot on which real reform of the U.N. turns.

We'll need a pretty big Club Fed to house the deadwood - but that's got to be cheaper than allowing that bunch of bandits to continue on as usual. Maybe france has some cells....?

I see a lot of roads leading from this point. Most of them good.

Oh, and in the "interests" column, I'd like to point out that the Syrians might just benefit from not living in their own version of Saddam's playhouse any more. Maybe.

I don't care if the New York Times reports it as a coincidence of history (like the Sov's, don't ya know), or as the result of brilliant U.N. diplomacy. Being wrong is what they are best at and enough people pay damn good money to feel good about being wrong, too, that the Times is still sort of plugging along. More power to 'em.

Syria will be free.

PIMF:

There's a bum sentence up there in my previous post. It should read like this:

"Which means that whoever is to form the new government after Assad and the Baathists slip into the dustbin of history will have a political figleaf when they appeal for help in forming a new republic.

Hmmm... And during WW2 exactly how many lives and money did we expend attacking Germany?

Hmm.. Were there some differences between Germany and Iraq ?
1) Germany and Japan were allies, while Saddam and Al Qaeda hated each other
2) Germany declared war on the US.
3) Germany had an army that had conquered almost all of West Europe. much of the East and were hammering on the gates of Moscow. They had arguably the most formidable army in the world in late 1941. Iraq had a pathetic air force, was surrounded by enemies (Iran, Turkey, the US), and could not even control 1/3rd of its own territory.

"By now the french have to realize that their home grown Islamist problem is enough of a threat that they just might have to get on board this democratization thing."

The French have a home grown Islamist problem ? And here we thought that democracy was the be-all and end-all cure to terrorism.

The image of Assad holding a bad hand of cards could just as well be the US holding a bad hand. It's good to ask what end-game we want, but what are our options, really?

Sanctions have a long track record of being self-defeating. They are economic disasters for the citizens of the sanctioned country, and political propaganda victories for the tyrants they're supposed to bring down. We really don't want to be so nice to Assad.

Regime change is off the table, unless we really don't care what comes after Assad. We don't have the military resources to clean up Syria, and it would be the worst use of our military power in any case. There are too many other enemies out there that we need to be ready for.

Make Assad promise to do all the things he's already promised to do, and hasn't done? Oh, please.

What we really need from Syria, and won't get, are a complete pullback from Lebanon, and an end to support for the insurgency in Iraq. So maybe we start providing covert and special forces support to the Lebanese government (with their cooperation), if we aren't doing this already, and give our military the green light to deal with the Syria-Iraq border directly, with the only constraint being that it does not become an invasion.

Assad's options would be to learn to like it, or, well, learn to like it. We can tell him that he's free to cooperate at any time.

If i am Syria and the USA literally tries to destroy me (sanctions, coup, full blown attack, whatever...) the first thing i do is start sending loads of weapons to Iraq in large numbers and literally start funding the resistence there. Using the old Bushism about fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here... The irony is that all the bullshit belly aching about syria being a problem will have come true. If you are going down anyway, you might as well make it fun!

How come nobody has mentioned that the U.N. actually delivered on an investigative duty? The U.N. bureacracy actually conducted and then published a report that might be worth the paper its printed on.

If this keeps up, I am going to have to revise my opinion of the UN to 'slightly more useful than teats on a bull'.

-----

Oh, and 'irony'.... if Syria is already turning a blind eye to jihadis and money going through Syrian territory enroute to Iraq, what can Syria do to escalate?

My impression is that Syria is a fairly typical 'ethnic minority calls the shots' third-world authoritarian sort of place, if that's the case, they need their military to keep the groups that aren't calling the shots in line... I doubt Syria has much excess capacity to draw on.

I don't see Syria escalating militarily.... well, at least, I don't seem them winning* if they choose that option. They don't have the resources, manpower or money. As far as Syria turning into "Iraq: Part Deux" is concerned, Syria's borders are not Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Syria.... it's Lebanon, Israel, Turkey, Jordan, and an Iraq that is no longer run by Saddam Hussein. The routes Jihadis could take to get into Syria to raise hell are far more constrained, and much more hostile to jihadis than Iran and Saudi Arabia are.

I'd be perfectly happy to see Assad deposed and a UN-led force led by, say, France administer the place while a constitution is written and elections are held. We can argue with the Europeans about who gets the credit for bringing democracy to the middle east after the elections.

*Winning in that context is defined as Syria remaining an 1) authoritarian Baathist state, 2) run by someone related to Assad.

Syria undisputedly has a large biochem stockpile.

Assad will use it on invading troops, Europe, maybe us in the US.

Assassination looks pretty good option keeping that in mind.

thoughts

1. a grand deal. Thats not a bad idea, IF its grand enough. Let the regime survive - but they have to A. Cooperate actively in stopping traffic in terrs into Iraq. B. Cooperate fully on the Harriri thing - including turning over key figures for trial in Lebanon, or in an international forum. Let Bashar and friends deal with the internal consequences of that. C.Recognize Lebanon D. Support Lebanon in its efforts to disarm Hezb and Pal militias.

Alternatively - sanctions designed to bring down the regime - (learn from the Iraq experience and make them smarter, though) Once its down, you dont need to nation build, as you didnt bring it down by force. Yes you get a new dictatorship - whether or not its more Islamist, its more chastened, and thats what counts.

Side benefit - cynical realist note. Whats MOST important is NOT what happens on the ground in Syria (as long as it stays within likely parameters) Whats important is bring the United States and France back together on a major project. This overcomes any residual "isolation" and restores the western alliance as a more effective weapon in the WOT. If Russia continues to drag its feet, that serves to seperate France and Germany from Russia, which is excellent from the POV of American policy.

In liberalhawk's world -
US: Hey, France? Wanna come invade a Middle Eastern country with us?

France: Sure! Let's go! I have root beer!

...or, possibly, not.

"Whats important is bring the United States and France back together on a major project. This overcomes any residual "isolation" and restores the western alliance as a more effective weapon in the WOT"

I disagree. All it proves is that the alliance will work together when their interests align, which has been true all along, and ultimately is all that matters. Its a nice little feature to make nice with France on something, but if we think it will help a single iota in convincing them to aid us with something they dont wish to, I think that is unlikely. The truth is that alliance only existed so far as it was never tested. Recall our Libya bombings during the 80s.

The only point I see in striking a deal is to continue the momentum of democracy and reform in the region. This is a good foot in the door, if little more.

Well, I have to admit I was wrong about this one. It was monumentally stupid for the Syrians to have done this. I still give them credit for restoring peace in Lebanon, as any reading of the history of the country's last two decades shows the did.

Well, the Soviets certainly managed to keep those pesky Germans down for half a decade too. I guess it just depends on your point of view, or whether the jackboot is on your foot or on your neck.

"half a decade"

half a century

The truth is that alliance only existed so far as it was never tested. Recall our Libya bombings during the 80s.

I have heard that the real story differs somewhat from the official version.

As others have noted, the French cooperate when their interests are compatible with the US, but they appreciate the value of discretion. I suspect that they would think discretion is especially important when one is trying to kill a head of state.

Fascinating to hear what the UN/US/France should do. I don't suppose the Lebanese government should have any say in this process? I expect that, given the confessional nature of Lebanese politics, they'll eventually want to bury this report with the same vigor that the US/France/UK want to brandish it is as tool to achieve wider aims that are not necessarily in the interests of Lebanon.

There's a tendency to forget the fractured nature of Lebanese politics. Lebanese Christians might be indignant but it shouldn't be forgotten that Shiite Muslims were never Hariri fans. Nor should it be forgotten that Lebanese politics, in its current form, discriminates against them. At the end of the day, the Shia will have to support their patron/Syria or throw their lot in with a Lebanese government that has no great love for them. If the Shia decide to back Syria then Lebanon faces the spectre of a civil war. It's a tough choicefor the Lebanese government, obtain justice or risk potential destabilization.