Israeli officials say it remains unclear how far Washington will go to help bring about Assad’s downfall. They say Syria might become a failed state if the unrest continues, with Hezbollah and Iran on one side and Al-Qaida-inspired Sunnis on the other consolidating footholds.
The consensus in the Israeli intelligence community is that Assad sooner or later will be ousted. “Assad is past the point of no return,” says a senior cabinet minister. “He won’t be able to restore his position as Syria’s undisputed leader. His victory visit to [the restive city of] Homs should be taken with a pinch of salt. Resistance is growing, even in Damascus.”
Israeli officials are also concerned about reports showing Syrian weapons falling into Hezbollah’s hands, though it is still unclear whether the Shi’ite organization has gotten hold of chemical weapons.
McManus: A ticking clock on Syria
By Doyle McManus, LA TIMES
[..]
But there’s one big difference between the situation in Bosnia and that in Syria: This time, the clock is moving faster.
Although the Obama administration still hopes to avoid military intervention in Syria and is publicly backing a U.N. effort to broker a cease-fire this week, it has also stepped deliberately onto a slippery slope that is likely to lead to more intervention.
Unlike with Bosnia, where the United States and its allies initially sought to be neutral in a civil war, this time the U.S. has already chosen a side: It has called on Syria’s dictator, Bashar Assad, to step down, and it has embraced the opposition Syrian National Council.
At a meeting in Istanbul last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced an escalation of U.S. aid to the opposition. In public, she pointed to a doubling of medical and other humanitarian aid, plus the provision of communication equipment. Less publicly, officials confirmed that the new package also includes “non-lethal” help that will go to the Free Syrian Army, the newly formed opposition armed forces, including night-vision goggles and U.S. intelligence information such as early warnings of Syrian troop movements.
And while the United States has decided not to provide weapons to the rebels, it isn’t objecting to military funding or arms shipments from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Arab states that would like to see Assad fall.
In the short term, the administration says it still hopes former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan can arrange a cease-fire, and that Assad will — improbably — decide to step down.
But I couldn’t find anyone in the administration last week who believed that outcome was likely. For one thing, Assad believes he’s winning; there’s no reason for him to surrender now. The best hope seems to be that the government crackdown will become less lethal.
If the pace of the killing slows, that could buy time: time for economic sanctions to undermine the regime, time to cajole Russia to switch sides and help pull the rug out from Assad, but also time for the opposition and its new army to organize themselves into a more effective force.
If those measures fail to bring Assad down, the administration appears divided on how quickly to move toward military intervention. The Pentagon is reluctant to get involved in another war, as the Pentagon usually is. Obama’s national security adviser, Tom Donilon, has also weighed in against any post-Libya temptation to “militarize” another problem. Clinton’s State Department has sounded the most hawkish notes — in part, perhaps, because it’s Clinton who has delivered most of the administration’s public declarations that Assad must go.
But even the administration’s humanitarian hawks don’t think the moment for U.S. or NATO military intervention has arrived yet.
They’d like the U.N. Security Council to give its blessing first, or — if Russia and China continue to resist — at least NATO. They’d like the Syrian opposition to be better organized, with more assurance that military aid wouldn’t fall into the hands of radical Islamists. They’d like Turkey to establish safe havens for the opposition along its border with Syria.
Eventually, though, the question of military intervention will change from if to when. The United States is already a little bit pregnant — already committed to helping Assad fall. It’s merely looking for the least violent, lowest cost way to get there.
In Bosnia, it took more than three years for the United States to overcome its reservations and resort to military force. But that was a generation ago, when the idea of humanitarian intervention in a civil war was still novel.
doyle.mcmanus@latimes.com
Laura. you have got it almost exactly right and I so commend you for taking this position
The “almost” means it is in our interest totally that kofi Annan and all of this horrible cabal is defeated in Syria
This is amazing. I agree with this.
Syria is none of our business. We do not have to decide between bad Baathists, and worse Salafists.
It is none of our business.
So we may yet again unnecessarily involve ourselves in another country’s civil war to bring down a petty dictator who is no threat to us. But the administration refuses to use military force to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, an outcome which would actually constitute a serious threat to us.
Yamit writes
You obviously live in a dream world. Too bad for you.
The problem is that you do not look at contemporary politics from the standpoint of the Jihad allied with the Empire.
The Fascist Left are only looking at the Empire and are ignoring the Jihad, covering for the Jihad, covering for Islam.
Real Trotskyism, which is http://www.4international.me, is separate from all of these tendencies. We take an overall view which is based on the historic decline and crisis in the capitalist system, the centre of this decline is the US and Europe, especially Britain.
It is also a moral decline, hence you have Americans (and Jews) electing a Jihadist into the White House, with the CIA pulling strings from away back (see and learn from the valuable articles written by Jared Israel on the significance of Obama and his relationship with Ayers)
We do not start from whether Assad is good or bad, nice or unnice, no more than we did with Ben Ali, Gaghbo, Mubarak and Gadhafi.
It is how their necessary defence fits in with the struggle against Empire and Jihad (both work as a unity now)
Russia, China and India are mortally threatened also by this Jihad/Empire phenomenon.
Of course Yamit82 you can pull selected facts out, and try to bamboozle with words, but the underlying factors of world crisis and terminal decline in capitalism, and growing Fascist Islam Jihad remain the dominant factors.
You can say lots against Assad, but in this context the dominant thing is that the Assad regime is largely secular, and it is this quality which is an obstacle to the Jihad and to the Empire.
It is also that quality that has enabled Assad to continue with the support of Christians in Syria.
They have been there for 2000 years. They will definitely be gone if Assad is defeated.
Also when you write the above you do live in a dream world. If the Empire/Jihad decides to get rid of Assad then it will be done in short measure, as experience has showed.
The only thing that may stop them is that Assad fights tot he end. That is what the others did not do. They had illusions.
Trotskyism is NOT pacific, not in the slightest atom.
That is the problem with Israel. There is a large chunk of pacifism inside Judaism. That is what is creating the greatest danger for Israel and for Jews. You could learn a lot from Assad. But you are not a big enough man to do so.
@ Felix Quigley:
Why do you consider Assad with 60,000 rockets and missiles armed with poison gas and bio weapons,( A real threat and a credible deterrence against Israel) aligned with Russia and Iran, supporting Hezbollah, better for us than a MB aligned with other Islamists and Russia? Maybe cooperative with Iran maybe not,Maybe aligned with America, but certainly under the influence of the Saudis who bankroll them? They might or might not align with Iran and Hezbollah as long as their targets and effort directed against Israel.
Russia under Putin will slowly try to return to USSR global status and influence certainly using Syria and Iran as strategic footholds in the region. Energy hungry China can be relied upon to try to protect her economic interests, while steadily building her military strength.
I am for keeping Assad in power but keeping up a credible and debilitating insurgency against his regime. keep him busy and occupied with self preservation and wasting his economic and military assets. That would put a lot of pressure on Iran and russia who would be footing the bill.
A lot can change quickly if the price of oil jumps to $ 200 bbl in 2013. Russia and Iran would make out like bandits and be able to withstand any and all efforts to diminish and block them.
Israeli officials see Syria falling into battle between al-Qaida, Iran
Israeli officials are also concerned about reports showing Syrian weapons falling into Hezbollah’s hands, though it is still unclear whether the Shi’ite organization has gotten hold of chemical weapons.
Between the Islamists and the Assads, the choice is between bad and worse. I don’t expect Syria to move into the direction of democracy. The blood-letting there will continue for a long time to come. It is not in Israel’s interests to allow either side to win.
What a mess! You have played a terrible role here Ted. You now have slid into the same camp as THAT WHICH DESTROYED THE SERBS in Bosnia and Kosovo despite my severe warnings over several months.
Since the beginning of this in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya I warned that this was the unity of the US NATO Empire and the Fascist Muslim Jihad, a union which is one of convenience and of strategic proportions, not solely tactical but strategic.
And Israel is in their sights.
In this New World Empire, which is essential a unity of Empire and Jihad Jerusalem assumes a huge symbolic and even practical purpose.
On Syria the Jews under their terrible leaders have walked right into this trap.
The more likely outcome is Assad will step up the killings and liquidate his opponents to show he is as ruthless as his father. And with the survival of his regime at stake, he could care less about world opinion. Having killed 10,000 Arabs already, he has somewhat of a distance to go before he exceeds his father Hafez’s reputation for extreme brutality.