Expanding Iraq War into Syria is lunacy

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http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051019/OPINION04/510190380

 

Article published Wednesday, October 19, 2005

 

Expanding Iraq War into Syria is lunacy

 

AS I suspected six months ago, and U.S. military and Bush

Administration civilian officials confirmed, U.S. forces have invaded

Syria and engaged in combat with Syrian forces.

 

 

 

An unknown number of Syrians are acknowledged to have been killed; the

number of Americans - if any - who have died so far has not yet been

revealed by the U.S. sources, who, by the way, insist on remaining

faceless and nameless.

 

The parallel with the Vietnam War, where a Nixon administration deeply

involved in a losing war expanded the conflict - fruitlessly - to

neighboring Cambodia, is obvious. The result was not changed in

Vietnam; Cambodia itself was plunged into dangerous chaos which

climaxed in the killing fields, where an estimated 1 million

Cambodians died as a result of internal conflict.

 

On the U.S. side, no declaration of war preceded the invasion of

Syria, in spite of the requirements of the War Powers Act of 1973.

There is no indication that Congress was involved in the decision to

go in. If members were briefed, none of them has chosen to share that

important information with the American people.

 

Presumably, the Bush Administration's intention is simply to add any

casualties of the Syrian conflict to those of the war in Iraq, which

now stand at 1,970. The financial cost of expanding the war to Syria

would also presumably be added to the cost of the Iraq war, now

estimated at $201 billion.

 

The Bush Administration would claim that it is expanding the war in

Iraq into Syria to try to bring it to an end, the kind of screwy

non-logic that kept us in Vietnam for a decade and cost 58,193

American lives.

 

Others would see the attacks in Syria as a desperate political move on

the part of an administration with its back against the wall, with an

economy plagued by inflation, the weak response to Hurricane Katrina,

investigations of senior executive and legislative officials, and the

bird flu flapping its wings on the horizon. The idea, I suppose, is to

distract us by an attack on Syria, now specifically targeted by U.S.

Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad.

 

And then there is the tired old United Nations. An invasion by one

sovereign member, the United States, of the territory of another

sovereign member (Syria), requires U.N. Security Council action.

 

Some observers have argued that destabilizing Syria, creating chaos

there, even bringing about regime change from President Bashar Assad,

would somehow improve Israel's security posture in the region. The

argument runs that Saddam Hussein's Iraq was the biggest regional

threat to Israel; Mr. Assad's Syria is second. The United States got

rid of Saddam; now it should get rid of the Assad regime in Damascus.

 

The trouble with that argument, whether it is made by Americans or

Israelis, is that, in practice, it depends on the validity of the

premise that chaos and civil war - the disintegration of the state -

in Iraq and Syria are better for Israel in terms of long-term security

than the perpetuation of stable, albeit nominally hostile, regimes.

 

The evidence of what has happened in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in

early 2003 is to the contrary. Could anyone argue that Israel is made

safer by a burning conflict in Iraq that has now attracted Islamic

extremist fighters from across the Middle East, Europe, and Asia?

Saddam's regime was bad, but this is a good deal worse, and looks endless.

 

Is there any advantage at all to the United States, or to Israel, in

replicating Iraq in Syria?

 

For that is what is at stake. Syria in its political, ethnic, and

religious structure is very similar to Iraq. Iraq, prior to the U.S.

bust-up, was ruled by a Sunni minority, with a Shiite majority and

Kurdish and Christian minorities. Syria is ruled by an Alawite

minority, with a Sunni majority and Kurdish and Christian minorities.

That is the structure, not unlike many states in the Middle East, that

the Bush Administration is in the process of hacking away at.

 

It seems utterly crazy to me.

 

One could say, " Interesting theory; let's play it out, " if it weren't

for the American men and women, not to mention the Iraqis and now

Syrians, dying in pursuit of that policy.

 

What needs to be done now is for the Congress, and through them, the

American people, the United Nations, and America's allies, the ones

who are left, to have the opportunity to express their thoughts on

America's expanding the Iraq war to Syria.

 

A decision to invade Syria is not a decision for Mr. Bush, heading a

beleaguered administration, to make for us on his own.

 

Dan Simpson, a retired diplomat, is a member of the editorial boards

of The Blade and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.