Conflict in Syria: Limits of Intervention

Even if the West overthrew Assad, the problems and conflicts would still be there. The experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq make a successful end to the Syrian conflict through military intervention appear doubtful.

In Afghanistan, Western troops are preparing for their withdrawal by the end of 2014. The experience that politicians and military officials have gained during more than 12 years in the Hindu Kush region are part of the reason why Western governments, headed by the Americans, have so far shown no inclination to intervene militarily in the Syrian civil war. The results of interventions since the end of the Cold War are sobering.

The first war in Iraq in 1991, under a U.N. mandate, achieved its immediate goal of freeing Kuwait, which had been conquered and occupied a year before by Saddam Hussein’s army. However, the hope that the Iraqis would afterward be able to defeat the brutal regime of the militarily and politically weakened dictator was not fulfilled. One of the reasons for this was that the American campaign was discontinued before reaching Baghdad, while Saddam brutally suppressed regional uprisings without the West interfering.

Off Target in Iraq

The Iraq crisis continued until George W. Bush seized the opportunity in 2003 to invade Iraq with a coalition of the willing under American leadership — this time without a U.N. mandate — based on the accusation that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction whose production and storage sites he did not reveal to international inspectors. Saddam’s government was overthrown in a blitz campaign, yet the political goal to leave behind a pacified country and a democratic state that could serve as a role model for the Arab world after a transition period under foreign occupation failed.

With regard to Afghanistan, preliminary assessments alternate between careful optimism and a pessimistic outlook for the future. Even though the Taliban and al-Qaida were quickly defeated, Islamic fundamentalists have been able to re-establish their power in the Hindu Kush area during a long guerrilla war.

Whether the government in Kabul is able to stay in power after the withdrawal of Western troops and whether the Afghan National Army can provide (relative) stability in the country or whether it will disintegrate again into militias under the command of regional warlords — these questions remain open. Similarly uncertain is whether the reconstruction of the country — which also includes the promotion of Western-style civil society structures and progress in the observance of human rights — will be lasting.

A Call for Military Intervention

All these experiences of interventionist politics are being pushed aside in light of the pictures from Syria that scream out with horrors: bombed cities, massacred soldiers, tens of thousands of dead or severely wounded civilians, millions of refugees who are wandering the country or surviving on the other side of the border penned up in camps. Paradoxically, the call for military intervention is sometimes voiced by the same people who previously strongly criticized the failure of the interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. They believe everything will be better if only the previous mistakes made by Western “occupiers,” especially the Americans, are avoided.

But the argument is flimsy. First of all, there are no circumstances under which flawless military actions or political decisions exist. Moreover, every intervention is a unique case. That is exactly why it is so difficult to conclude general lessons and attain directives for action.

One of the lessons of the interventions of the past years is that the goal to overthrow a government can be achieved relatively quickly through the military. The problems begin when the country has to be pacified and rebuilt.

Liberation is followed by occupation that is soon experienced by the population with all its negative consequences. The larger the cultural gap is between the helpers and the locals, the more difficult the process of civil and political reconstruction becomes. Democracy and Western values cannot simply be exported, but have to be maintained by internal supporters, take root and grow slowly. But neither the international community nor the Western governments have the patience to wait for that.

With the end of the Cold War, the founding mission of the Western alliance became redundant. In Brussels, the slogan “out of area or out of business” made the rounds. NATO was searching for a new sphere of activity as the main international helper for crises and as the military arm of global politics, whose goal it was to create a “new world order” as proclaimed by the elder Bush after the end of the first Iraq war.

This has turned out to be a utopia. Considering the previous experiences, no one believes that the Syrian crisis, with its political, religious and ethnic tensions and divisions, can be ended through military intervention. Even if the West overthrew Assad’s government, the conflicts in Syria and the problems in the Middle East, which combine to form a mess that cannot be untangled, would remain.