Konflikten i Syrien

Using U.S. airpower to aid the embattled people of Ghouta might make us feel good, but it would not save lives. Even if we could ground Russian aircraft — a big if — pro-regime forces would simply use artillery and multiple-launch rocket systems to pulverize the city. U.S. intervention would only prolong the agony.

The way to save lives, I’ve sadly concluded, is to let Assad win as quickly as possible. Aleppo was a charnel house in 2016. But now that it has fallen to Assad’s forces, pictures are circulating of civilians strolling through its rebuilt public park. It’s terrible that they have to live under Assad, but at least they’re alive. Tyranny is preferable to endless and useless war.

/.../Nevertheless, by way of an alternative, various Western and Arab governments chose to militarily intervene indirectly, by arming, financing and politically supporting the various Syrian opposition groups; but this turned out not to be enough to topple the regime. And I leave out of consideration here whether an alternative regime would have been much better. Most foreign governments claimed that they wanted a political solution, and this was true in principle. But they only wanted a political solution that would lead to regime change, and this turned out to be impossible without sufficient military means. Such military interventions were actually in violation of international law which bars UN member states from supporting military action to overthrow other members’ governments.[1] The results of indirect military intervention have been just as disastrous as direct military intervention would have been: notably almost half a million dead, millions of refugees, a country in ruins and a nation destroyed to a great extent.

Reproaching foreign countries for giving insufficient support to help topple the regime, whereas simultaneously being against any military intervention appears to be contradictory. Let me therefore clarify what I mean. I am strongly against military interventions in general because there are so many examples which illustrate that such interventions mainly lead to disaster. My point is that the countries that encouraged the military opposition to confront the Syrian regime, without sufficiently arming them or sufficiently coordinating their militarily actions, were in practice leading many of the opposition military into the trap of death.

When in May 2011, the Syrian Revolution was not yet two months old, I was asked in an interview, whether it would still be acceptable to have direct contacts with President Bashar al-Asad, because there were already hundreds of dead as a result of the regime’s repressive actions and thousands of people arrested. I answered that this would depend on how pragmatic one wanted to be, and concluded that if one did not want to talk or communicate with president al-Asad, it was not possible either to positively contribute to any solution.[2]

During television programs on the occasion the first anniversary of the Syrian Revolution in March 2012, I argued again that dialogue was key to any solution. Syrian opposition representatives, however, strongly rejected any such an idea. I rhetorically argued that if I had the choice – although it was of course not up to me to make such a choice – I would prefer a 10,000 dead (which was the number at the time) over a 300,000 dead, which might be the number if the war would continue without any communication and negotiations with the regime, looking for a solution.[3] In fact, the number of dead even turned out to be much higher than 300,000, but in 2012 this still appeared to be unimaginable to many.

There was, of course, no guarantee of success with the dialogue I suggested, but rejection of any dialogue was a guarantee for failure, as we have seen over the past seven years.

Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer taught that the three moral lessons of the Holocaust are not to be a perpetrator, not to be a victim, and not to be a bystander. And yet for too much of the time during this devastating conflict, the world has stood by, while innocent men, women and children have been murdered or starved in their homes with no chance of escape. All this despite the presence of some of the world’s most effective military forces within striking distance, including those of the US – the world’s most powerful country.

From a narrow perspective of Israeli strategic interests, our overwhelming concern is the entrenchment of Iranian forces and proxies close to our border. Having fought to keep Assad in power, Iran is now extending a corridor of Iranian-Shia dominance from its own borders through Iraq and Syria to Hezbollah- dominated Lebanon on the Mediterranean coast. This presents Israel with a dangerous and combustible strategic challenge, while also threatening America’s interests, personnel and other allies in the region.

But as a Jewish state, we must raise our eyes beyond our immediate borders and interests, and recognize the humanitarian and not only strategic dimensions of the Syrian conflict.
We must not stand silent while international humanitarian laws formulated in response to the Holocaust are flouted