The Compelling, but Still Unpersuasive, Case for War on Syria

David Sonka was 12 years old in 2001 when the United States went to war in Afghanistan. It was going to be a simple mission: Special forces operators linking up with Afghan warlords to knock off the Taliban government, install a new one, do a little nation-building to build good will, run al-Qaida out and then get out of Dodge.

It didn't work out as planned. Wars hardly ever do. David Sonka of Parker, Colo., was 23 years old when he was shot and killed last Saturday on patrol in Farah Province in southern Afghanistan. He was a corporal with the Marines 2nd Special Operations Command, a dog handler. He and Staff Sgt. Eric Christian, 39, of Warwick, N.Y., were killed by one of the Afghan soldiers they were patrolling with. Cpl. Sonka's German shepherd dog, Flex, was shot dead, too.

When the drums of war were beating for Afghanistan in 2001, who thought it would last long enough for 12-year-olds to get over there in time to die? For that matter, kids who were 7 in 2001 have been dying in Afghanistan, too. Spc. Kevin Cardoza, 19, of Mercedes, Texas, was among five soldiers with the 1st Armored Division who were killed by a roadside bomb on Saturday. That made seven U.S. troops who were killed Saturday, bringing the total for the month to 13 and the total for the 12-year war to 2,220.

Now the drums of war are beating again, this time for Syria. Not war in terms of boots on the ground, you see. No, an air operation, coupled perhaps with several hundred million dollars worth of weapons being delivered to Syrian rebels. It would be simple.

No it wouldn't. But at least this time around, there's someone in the White House smart enough to realize that. Syria is not Afghanistan and it's not Iraq. It's more complicated than either of them.

There are good arguments for intervention. Seventy thousand people have died in Syria in the 20 months since the uprising against President Bashar Assad began. He has rolled tanks into the streets and gunned people down relentlessly. There's a huge humanitarian crisis in Jordan, where millions of Syrians have fled.

Then there's the moral question. The United Nations, in the wake of the Rwandan atrocities in 1994, adopted an international norm called "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) that says nations have an obligation to intervene when another nation commits crimes against humanity. Even if Assad hasn't gassed his people — the U.N. isn't entirely sure of that — he qualifies on any number of other counts.

But intervention would not be easy, nor cheap, nor predictable and not certain to wind up doing more good than harm.

Assad has a huge standing army equipped with modern weapons and is not shy about using them against his own people. He has a sophisticated air defense system and the support of both Russia and Iran.

Military intervention in Syria thus carries huge risks. NATO forces enforced no-fly zones over Bosnia and Herzegovina, and later over Libya, without significant danger to aircraft and crews.

Any intervention over Syria would have to begin with the destruction of hundreds of enemy radars, artillery and SCUD missile sites, a hugely difficult task.

Arming the rebels also carries risk. The New York Times has reported that Turkey and Saudi Arabia, Syria's Sunni neighbors, already are funneling arms to the rebels with the help of the American CIA. The official end-user is supposed to be the joint rebel command, headquartered in Turkey, led by Gen. Salim Idris, a defector from the Assad forces. But there is considerable doubt about how much control he holds over his forces.

The strongest rebel force is something called the Al Nusra Front; its leaders worked against U.S. forces as members of al-Qaida in Iraq before moving operations to Syria. Many, if not most, of the other rebel groups also are strongly Islamic.

Any weapons sent to Gen. Idris' forces would almost surely wind up in the hands of forces hostile to U.S. and Israeli interests. Shoulder-fired heat-seeking missiles, for example, would be useful against Assad's Russian-made Mi-24 helicopter gunships. But they could also take down an El-Al jetliner.

For all of the negatives, there is no doubt that a combined NATO air operation could topple the Assad regime. There would be heavy loss of civilian lives, but Assad would be gone. Then what?

The most likely result would be a Syrian Islamic Republic and continued sectarian war. Assad is a member of the Alawite Muslim minority. The Alawites are a branch of Shia Islam and thus have the support of the Shiite government in Iran. Three-fourths of Syria's 17 million people (which doesn't count the 3 million who have fled to Jordan) are Sunni Muslims, but follow several distinct branches of Sunni Islam.

So if you're President Barack Obama, what do you do? Your allies are pushing you to up the clandestine help into some kind of military intervention. Russia could help, but Russia has no problem with violent, autocratic governments. Republicans in the U.S. Senate are demanding action, ready to pounce if it doesn't work.

Polls are showing that a big majority of Americans — most of whom admit they're not much paying much attention to Syria — are wary of getting involved. But 45 percent say the United States should intervene if it's determined that Syria is using chemical weapons.

That's where Obama drew his "red line," too, but the line's been moving. On Tuesday he said there would have to be specific evidence that such weapons have been used. How specific and what evidence he did not say.

There are no good options here. The country is weary of war, of the expense, of the loss in life and casualties, of the lack of tangible results.

Suppose, in 2003, that you had known that nearly 4,500 Americans would be killed and a trillion dollars spent in Iraq and it would still be in turmoil? Suppose, in 2001, you had known that 12 years later, American troops would still be dying in roadside bombings in Afghanistan, still be being shot dead by Afghan troops whose government we continue to bribe?

America has every right to be wary. We are the most powerful nation on earth. We have significant national security interests in a stable Syria. But we have paid a heavy price for this lesson: Even with the best weapons on earth and the best intentions on earth, wars sometimes make things worse and never end quite like you expect.

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