As I write this post the media is awash with speculation that the United States will unilaterally punish the regime of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad for his apparent use of poison gas in a Damascus suburb. Last July the United Nations announced that the death toll from fighting in Syria had reached 100,000. Add to this the number of those wounded, maimed or displaced and it is obvious that several million of Syria’s population of some 22 million people are in desperate straits. Also add to this the impact on Syria’s economy, the lack of security in many parts of the country, the targeted killing by foreign extremists bent on re-establishing a caliphate and there is no doubt that Syria is suffering more than any other country coming out of the Arab Spring.
Outline of Syria. Photo Courtesy United Nations Cartographic Section
The most recent use of poison gas by al-Assad’s brutal regime left hundreds dead. The images of children’s bodies, intact except for their asphyxiation, is indeed tragic, but how less tragic than the site of the same kinds of bodies soaked in blood and with severed limbs? In a remark he no doubt wishes he never made, President Obama said that the use of poison gas would cross a red line. The only thing red about such a line is the blood already shed of over 100,000 victims, with more mutilated bodies each day in Syria due to all kinds of weapons. Poison gas is indeed a nightmare scenario, but surely no worse than the a-bombs that were dropped at the end of World War II on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where even conservative estimates give the death toll at well over 200,000. Is the weapon used really the tipping point and not the overall damage done to human life, especially to civilians?
In the Middle East red lines are drawn in the sand and easily covered by the winds of political maneuvering. There was only a green line when The United States supplied Saddam Hussein with intelligence that he used in 1986 to then gas Iranian troops, nor was there a red line drawn when Saddam used poison gas to kill up to 5,000 Kurds in Halabja in 1988. Poison gas is horrific, but the current rhetoric that singles it out as a game changer is mere hypocrisy. Nor is there any comfort in claims that cruise missiles are so accurate that they can target the window of a building or that drones can zero in on terrorists with minimal collateral damage. If there is a valid reason to drive al-Assad out of office and bring down his regime, then it should be based on more than one aspect of his criminal actions.
Calls to remove al-Assad suggest that a moral stance can be turned on and off depending on the strategic needs. The United States miscalculated by intervening in Iraq and Afghanistan, making both countries far less safe than they were under their previous regimes. If the cruise missiles are sent off after I write this piece, then there will be a third mistake. This is not a baseball game where a pitcher throws one high and tight to keep the batter off the plate. Just about every Syrian right now is wondering if a U.S. missile or drone will visit them. Why are we so eager to instill fear in a land where fear spreads without moral impunity on all sides? I recently watched a Youtube video in which extremist Sunni fighters pulled over three truck drivers in northern Syria, decided that they were Alawi and then shot them dead on the spot, all to the tired sacrilegious chanting of Allahu Akbar. Who exactly does our government think will benefit by getting directly involved in a bloody civil war in Syria?
I have no wish to defend a bloody dictator, nor look aside from the torture and criminality that has characterized al-Assad’s regime. But it seems that every time a dictator falls, the result can be worse. Stability is replaced by insecurity and widespread destruction and killing at all levels, not just so-called enemies of the state. The absurd notion that dethroning a dictator will lead to Western-approved democracy has been shown to be false, most recently in post-Morsi Egypt. It is not just gas that is poison and it is not just a line that is red. Neither bullets or ballots in themselves will ensure security. The antidote to a seemingly no-win situation must include diplomacy. But diplomacy is now captive to a technology that assumes it matters how people are killed rather than why there is killing in the first place.
Daniel Martin Varisco is Professor of Anthropology and Director of Middle Eastern Studies at Hofstra U in Hempstead, NY. His most recent book is Orientalism: Said and the Unsaid. He is editor of Contemporary Islam and Editor-in-Chief of CyberOrient, the online journal of the Middle East Section of the AAA. His regular blog is Tabsir.