The Syrian Problem

„American policy toward Syria presents mainly a record of failure. One strain of that policy has sought unsuccessfully, through diplomatic engagement, to coax Assad to instigate internal reforms; weaken Syria’s alliances with Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas; and broker a peace with Israel. As recently as 2008, Assad told an American diplomat that he was “a few words away” from an agreement with Israel. He never delivered. Washington has also sought to pressure Assad through sanctions imposed by the Syria Accountability Act of 2003, and by covertly funding democratic campaigners, in a program that was initiated under George W. Bush. That didn’t work, either. The Damascus Declaration activists publicly rejected American support, and the covert program, recently exposed by WikiLeaks, endangered some of the people it was designed to help.

Any foreign power hoping to promote peace, stability, and democratic inclusion in the Middle East must account for the Israeli-Palestinian divide, the Sunni-Shia divide, the Muslim-Christian divide, widespread anti-Semitism, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the security of oil supplies pumped by weak regimes, Al Qaeda and related radicals, tribalism, corruption, and a picturesque lineup of despots. For half a century, the region has made outside idealists look like fools, turned realists into complicit cynics, and consigned local heroes—Yitzhak Rabin, Anwar Sadat—to martyrdom. The Arab Spring can be understood as just another fault line: it represents the destabilizing rise of a large, underemployed generation of angry youth lacking clear leaders. Yet it rightly inspires optimism, too. Millions have risked their lives to seek self-determination in countries with some of the world’s largest civil-rights deficits.”