Video: Max Blumenthal on the war in Syria and the complicity of the antiwar movement
War in Context
… with attention to the unseen
Its have for the left to reconcile the desire to hate all US intervention and to want the Syrian people not to get systematically annihilated and terrorized.
Best just to ignore it as much as possible. I suppose now there is no US intervention and no more chemical weapons, all will be well.
Strangely the lesser evil argument that helped the Left to re-elect Barrack Obama, didn’t apply where Syria was concerned.
Even after hearing time and again from Syrian refugees to please intervene, even Max can’t bring himself to that position. Just goes to show how deeply ingrained the non-interventionist streak goes when put up against humanitarian action.
The problem with the issue of intervention is that it is a debate constructed on false ground. The anti-interventionists are taking a stand against a mythical foe — the warmongering interventionist who is tirelessly looking for new opportunities to apply military force.
Even the most ideologically pure neoconservative would never express unqualified support for intervention — he’d always want to know: intervention by whom, where?
Moreover, the anti-interventionists are really just adopting a flag of convenience. Since most are avowed anti-imperialists, I find it hard to understand where this unwavering support for state sovereignty comes from?
I can’t speak for Max, but on this question about intervention in Syria, at the time that it was briefly on the table (though there’s reason to doubt that in Obama’s mind it was ever really an option), the intervention being proposed by the administration and the intervention being supported by Syrians were two utterly different things. The Syrians calling for intervention envisioned a re-run of Libya and anticipated that once the U.S. stepped in, Assad would be finished. But the U.S. made it absolutely clear that the intervention it was considering would leave Assad in power. It was going to be tailored exclusively at inhibiting his use of chemical weapons and was really just a face-saving exercise designed to prevent Obama’s “red line” look meaningless.
The only people for whom this type of intervention had any meaning or value, were those pathetic individuals who believe that American “credibility” comes in the shape of a cruise missile.
“But the U.S. made it absolutely clear that the intervention it was considering would leave Assad in power. It was going to be tailored exclusively at inhibiting his use of chemical weapons and was really just a face-saving exercise designed to prevent Obama’s “red line” look meaningless.”
Possibly. But one can’t really believe these statements are going to be the real outcome. In Libya, “regime change” was not a policy the admin was behind publicly. They insisted it was definitely just to enforce a no-fly zone. However, it was clearly much more than that. In Syria, it may well have been just as they said. In any case, that point is moot now.
“The only people for whom this type of intervention had any meaning or value, were those pathetic individuals who believe that American “credibility” comes in the shape of a cruise missile.”
I don’t care a jot about US credibility, but I supported intervention. That’s not the only crowd left.
Aside from the numerous statements that spelled out how limited the proposed intervention would have been, the other way of understanding how radically different Syria appears to Libya is simply to consider the geographic nature of the conflict. The war in Libya never really amounted to much more than a run of skirmishes along a coastal road. Syria, on the other hand from the Pentagon’s point of view, has always had quagmire written all over it.
“I don’t care a jot about US credibility, but I supported intervention.”
Again I would say, the actual form of the intervention has to be made explicit. If the kind of intervention you support has never been on offer, this becomes an abstract statement of principle — not much different from stating a preferred outcome with no notion of how that might be reached.
“The anti-interventionists are taking a stand against a mythical foe — the warmongering interventionist who is tirelessly looking for new opportunities to apply military force.”
No. The anti-interventionists are aware that the US is only looking after what US powers think of as US “interests”. To that end the US has been caught up with Saudi Arabia for decades and recently, stupidly, blindly, backing Al Qaeda again http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security-Watch/Backchannels/2012/0724/Does-the-CIA-really-have-no-idea-about-the-nature-of-Syria-s-rebels
The Syrian political resistance movements were sidelined by foreign interests, our “friends”
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/02/23/friends_of_syria_meeting_will_be_about_humanitarian_access
“Representatives from Syria’s internal opposition groups will not be at the conference. One administration official told The Cable that Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford had urged in internal discussions that opposition council leaders from Damascus and Homs be included in the Tunis meeting but ultimately they were not invited.”
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2012/Feb-24/164485-syria-opposition-group-boycotts-tunis-meeting.ashx#ixzz1nINN0j00
The whole history is absurd, as absurd as Israel’s now open partnership with Saudi. But racial and ethnic separatists have a lot in common. Zionists tried to make deals with the Nazis. And both Israel and Saudi are terrified of Arab democracy.
As part of this larger realignment the US, in search of sanity, has begun to talk with Iran and now we know with Hezbollah, Shia conservatives who in Syria are helping a secular dictatorship based among other things on an alliance of religious minorities. And they all work with Sunni Hamas. Tent big enough for you? Nasrallah has to remind people that Khamenei has less power than any of the monarchs in the Gulf. And Iran and Hezbollah blew a gasket when Assad or one of his idiots used the gas. it was stupid and they said so. Did the US say a thing when Saddam gassed Iranians? No.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/08/25/secret_cia_files_prove_america_helped_saddam_as_he_gassed_iran
Did the US say anything about Hama? Has Maher Arar won a case recently? 500 thousand dead in Iraq since the last US invasion. And the US “has to do something!”
No. Why aren’t you writing about the Central African Republic, or is it just that the US has to do something in areas you follow?
US history has been to support only secular or Sunni tyranny, along with Israel: divide and conquer. But that’s not working anymore and the US has begun to face the new facts on the ground. Israel and Saudi Arabia have not. The Syrian rebel movement would collapse without money from some of most corrupt governments on earth. The US could have tried to strengthen the native Syrian political resistance, but it didn’t. It could have allowed the return of the Afghan King, who was far more popular than the idiot Karzai. But it didn’t. And on and on.
Logic is cold but it is useful.
“The anti-interventionists are aware that the US is only looking after what US powers think of as US ‘interests’.”
Here’s Edward N. Luttwak’s assessment of U.S. interests and it has been echoed by Obama’s own chief of staff as well as plenty of other hard-nosed realists elsewhere in Washington and Israel:
Since U.S. intervention has in fact been minimal, it turns out that U.S. actions and the anti-interventionist aims have overlapped for more closely than the latter will ever admit.
Moreover, an honest assessment of the Western political discourse on Syria cannot avoid noting that anti-interventionists have a tendency to brand everyone who refuses to join the same chorus as being an interventionist.
Like a number of other people who have never been shy about criticizing the U.S. government and its interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, I nevertheless supported the NATO-backed overthrow of Gaddafi. On that basis alone, I then started getting branded as all-round supporter of war.
As a purported interventionist it supposedly follows that I would support any and all forms of intervention in Syria — but that’s my point: there are no supporters of all forms of intervention. And the anti-interventionists — stalwart opponents of intervention that they claim to be — have had little to say about Hezbollah, Iran, and Russia’s intervention in Syria. So it turns out that anti-interventionist is itself a shorthand term because it focuses attention almost exclusively on intervention by Western states or their allies.
“Why aren’t you writing about the Central African Republic, or is it just that the US has to do something in areas you follow?”
There are regions of the world and issues to which I give no attention. That shouldn’t be interpreted as a sign that I discount their importance. Believe it or not, there are limits to how much a single blogger can cover.
Luttwak’s piece is from August 2013; my links are are from Feb and July 2012. A year and a half is a long time, and my links don’t even go back to the start.
From early on this was a three sided conflict: between Assad, Sunni autocrats, and the Syrian domestic opposition, with the US on one of the 2 wrong sides. The best I can say is that I’m relieved they seem to have seen their mistake.
I didn’t accuse you of being a supporter of war. I accused you of not being cold enough or logical enough. I suppose I could accuse you of having a faulty memory, but only because you want to help.
“I nevertheless supported the NATO-backed overthrow of Gaddafi.”
And look what’s happened to Libya.
I supported NATO intervention in Libya because I supported the right of Libyans to free themselves from dictatorial rule. I made no predictions about what would follow.
But to those who say, “look what’s happened in Libya,” I simply ask: are you convinced that Libya would now be in better shape had there been no NATO intervention?
That is of course a rhetorical question, both because no one can answer that hypothetical question and also because there is little basis to imagine that an intervention avoided would have led to a happy outcome.
Indeed, it’s reasonable to imagine that absent the intervention, Libya might have ended up more like Syria.
In that scenario, would the anti-interventionists now be saying: it’s a shame that a third of the Libyan population has been made homeless but thank goodness we didn’t get involved?
“I supported NATO intervention in Libya because I supported the right of Libyans to free themselves from dictatorial rule. I made no predictions about what would follow.”
I assumed you’d made a choice based on what you thought were the odds of success, and that I was disagreeing with what you yourself considered your educated opinion.
You’ve just admitted that you supported a policy because you wanted to help, while having no idea whether it would make things better or worse. You made the decision based on nothing but your own desire. That’s just narcissism, when other people’s lives are at stake. That’s worse than being a warmonger.
I’m done.
Then and now, I have never imagined I would be in a position to have any effect on the outcome of the uprising against Gaddafi. My interest was more in having an effect on the thinking of those who — to my mind — have acquired a boneheaded tendency to view everything in MENA through the prism of Iraq.
The point here is whether one saw events in Libya as being driven by the will of the majority of the Libyan people. All the evidence I could see was that their will was being powerfully expressed.
There are others who seem to regard Libyans and everyone else across the region as powerless masses of people who are perpetually susceptible to being pushed around by dictators, autocrats, and foreign powers. In this respect, Western anti-imperialism seems often to be tainted by its own neocolonial mindset.
From what you say, it sounds as though you think that the Libyans didn’t know what was in their own best interests and that to support the uprising was to support a misadventure. That’s a pretty patronizing attitude, wouldn’t you say?
I don’t presume to suggest what anyone should want and if a population has acquiesced to dictatorial rule, that’s their choice. That’s why the U.S. had no business toppling Saddam.
“In that scenario, would the anti-interventionists now be saying: it’s a shame that a third of the Libyan population has been made homeless but thank goodness we didn’t get involved?”
Yes that is exactly the stock answer he and others like him would have given. I’ve always applauded your position on Libya. Its a work in progress and likely will get worse before it gets better but at least there is some hope now. And its nothing like Syria has become.