[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
CONFRONTING DAMASCUS: U.S. POLICY TOWARD THE EVOLVING SITUATION IN
SYRIA, PART II
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
THE MIDDLE EAST AND SOUTH ASIA
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
APRIL 25, 2012
__________
Serial No. 112-146
__________
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
DAN BURTON, Indiana GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
ELTON GALLEGLY, California ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
DANA ROHRABACHER, California Samoa
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey--
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California deceased 3/6/12 deg.
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio BRAD SHERMAN, California
RON PAUL, Texas ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
MIKE PENCE, Indiana GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
JOE WILSON, South Carolina RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
CONNIE MACK, Florida ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TED POE, Texas DENNIS CARDOZA, California
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio ALLYSON SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania
DAVID RIVERA, Florida CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania FREDERICA WILSON, Florida
TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas KAREN BASS, California
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York
RENEE ELLMERS, North Carolina
ROBERT TURNER, New York
Yleem D.S. Poblete, Staff Director
Richard J. Kessler, Democratic Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio, Chairman
MIKE PENCE, Indiana GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York DENNIS CARDOZA, California
RENEE ELLMERS, North Carolina BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
DANA ROHRABACHER, California BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois ALLYSON SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania
CONNIE MACK, Florida CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania
ROBERT TURNER, New York
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
WITNESSES
Mr. Andrew Tabler, Next Generation Fellow, Washington Institute
for Near East Policy........................................... 5
Ms. Mara E. Karlin, instructor in strategic studies, School of
Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University....... 12
Marc Lynch, Ph.D., professor of political science, director of
Institute for Middle East Studies, Elliott School of
International Affairs, George Washington University............ 17
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Mr. Andrew Tabler: Prepared statement............................ 8
Ms. Mara E. Karlin: Prepared statement........................... 14
Marc Lynch, Ph.D.: Prepared statement............................ 19
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 42
Hearing minutes.................................................. 43
CONFRONTING DAMASCUS: U.S. POLICY TOWARD THE EVOLVING SITUATION IN
SYRIA, PART II
----------
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25, 2012
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on the Middle East
and South Asia,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:30 p.m., in
room 2360 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Steve Chabot
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Chabot. The committee will come to order. Good
afternoon, everybody. Sorry for the change in location.
Normally we are on 2172, but we had a bunch of hearings
happening at the same time so we are here in the Small Business
Committee room this afternoon. So sorry for any inconvenience
to anyone.
I want to welcome all my colleagues to the hearing of the
Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia. As has been
well documented, the human rights abuses being perpetrated by
the regime in Damascus are simply horrifying. Recent reports
suggest that nearly 10,000 Syrian civilians have now died.
Approximately 75,000 have fled the country and over 200,000 are
internally displaced within Syria itself.
This is now the fourth hearing that this subcommittee has
held on Syrian human rights violations, and I am deeply
saddened that each time these numbers continue to grow by leaps
and bounds. What is more, the situation shows no sign of
improving any time soon. The English language does not have
words strong enough to adequately condemn the horrifying abuses
that have been committed by the Assad regime and its allies
against the Syrian people.
Beyond questions of legitimacy, these despicable acts are
proof that the Assad regime is morally depraved, and it is my
belief that we and all other responsible nations have a moral
imperative to ensure that Bashar al-Assad is removed from power
as soon as possible.
Today's hearing is being called to examine U.S. policy
options to address the continuing crisis. This subcommittee has
had the privilege of hearing testimony from Assistant
Secretaries Feldman and Posner as well as Frederic Hof, Special
Coordinator for Regional Affairs and one of the
administration's point people on Syria.
Although the administration has taken a number of steps on
Syria for which it deserves credit, I am deeply concerned that
none of these will actually lead to a resolution of the current
crisis. While the sanctions that have been implemented by the
U.S. and its allies around the world are certainly having an
effect, I fear they will not achieve the stated goal to
actually bring about the removal of Assad from power.
Some today are looking to Kofi Annan's six-point plan for
Syria, the Assad regime's recent acceptance of a ceasefire
agreement and the passage of U.N. Security Council Resolutions
2042 and 2043 establishing an observer mission with optimism. I
am afraid that I do not share that optimism. Although diplomacy
must always be given an opportunity to succeed, I do not see
one iota of evidence to suggest that the Assad regime is
sincere in any of its international commitments.
Recent reports reference satellite imagery which indicates
that the regime has not yet removed all heavy weaponry from
population centers in violation of the ceasefire agreement. If
it continues, as it has for years, to shirk its international
commitments regarding its nuclear program, why should we expect
it to honor this agreement now? And if years of sanctions and
international isolation have not yet altered the Assad regime's
calculations, upon what are we basing the hope that they will
now when the regime views itself as in a struggle for its very
existence? Hope may be an effective campaign catchphrase, but
it is not an effective policy. Indeed, we had all hoped for a
clear path forward, that there might be some way through a
combination of pressure or enticements to convince Assad to
leave power. Those days are long gone.
I fear that those who are advocating for the Annan plan are
doing so not because they believe it has any chance of
succeeding, but because they do not want to make a far harder,
even if necessary, decision.
One lesson that this administration appears not to have
learned in over 3 years is that making no decision is, in fact,
a decision in and of itself. And the cost is real. As a former
official recently noted, ``Suppose the administration had not
sat on its thumbs and had started delivering nonlethal aid 1 or
2 or 6 months ago. By now we would, in fact, know a great deal
more about the opposition, who is real and who has no military
capacity, who can get things into Syria and who can't, who is
corrupt and who is effective. That we know so little about the
opposition is not so much an intelligence failure as a
deliberate policy.''
Our chief priority must be to get Assad out of power as
soon as possible. The longer Assad is allowed to stay in power,
the greater the number of innocents killed will be and the
higher the likelihood of the conflict evolving into a full-
scale civil war will be. Furthermore, Assad's removal would
deal an important blow to the regime and Tehran and the
terrorists it funds, like Hezbollah.
As our witnesses will outline today, what remains before us
are a series of options that range, unfortunately, from bad to
worse. As we examine these options, however, we must not allow
ourselves to be deluded into thinking that Assad is something
that he is not. That he can be coaxed out of power or that he
can lead any kind of transition or reform process. He is beyond
salvation.
I would now yield to the distinguished ranking member of
the subcommittee, Mr. Ackerman from New York, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Ackerman. I thank the very distinguished chairman.
Atrocities can provoke two kinds of errors from those who
witness them. The first is moral collapse, to look away and to
refuse to see what is before one's eyes. Whether by impassivity
or apathy or rationalization, the nonresponse to horror fails
the test of moral responsibility. Each of us, I suspect, has at
some point walked away from someone or something which made a
claim on our heart. Likewise, we as a government, and we as a
nation, have sometimes failed to live up to our own highest
aspirations.
The second kind of failure is a form of reflex, a heedless
leap into the fire of need. Such acts of selflessness by
individuals are often properly understood as heroic, but in the
life of nations they may be extremely unwise. Promising to pay
any price and bear any burden sounds good on the East Lawn of
the Capitol. I suspect those words sound less appealing while
trying to survive a night on patrol in a Vietnamese jungle or
an Iraqi slum. A man who jumps into the freezing waters to save
another may succeed, but as every Boy Scout knows, it would be
better to search for a pole or a rope and to pull from solid
ground. And indeed, once the leap is made the would-be savior
may quickly become a victim as well, doubling the stakes of the
crisis.
When this subcommittee met last year to consider the
implications of the Syrian revolution, my fear was that we had
fallen into the trap of indifference and were seemingly
heedless of both the need of the people of Syria as well as the
profound strategic implications in the potential collapse of
the Assad dictatorship.
While innocent protestors' blood was running in Syria's
streets, State Department spokesmen were still rigidly calling
for a ``restraint on all sides.'' A smarmy, condescending
phrase that really ought to be expunged from our Government's
lexicon, and it made the Obama administration seem to be
paralyzed. Behind the scenes, however, and to their credit, the
Obama administration was working hard on developing the
foundations for the broad, international consensus which exists
today and has imposed unprecedented political, diplomatic and
economic sanctions on the Assad regime, that has opened
contacts with the would-be successors to the existing Syrian
Government and that is continuing to support the demand of the
Syrian people to be free of Assad's tyranny.
Today, I fear the pendulum is swinging toward the second
and more potentially dangerous error of precipitous action. I
want to be very clear. Profound moral outrage at what the Assad
regime has done is not an impediment or a failing. It is a bare
requirement for standing in the human race. But the loathing,
contempt and anger provoked by Assad's atrocities are poor
counselors and doubtful policymakers.
As human beings we must be informed by what we have seen.
We cannot pretend to see these events as trivial or somehow
normal. The butchery of thousands of men and women, the torture
of children, the shelling of civilians in order to sow terror
are crimes against humanity and we must not shy away from
declaring these acts and insisting on their recognition. We
serve no purpose but our own disgrace by hiding, obscuring or
downplaying these facts, but our goal must be more than the
satisfaction of our appetite for justice.
As a nation and as a leader in the international community,
we continue to have powerful interest in seeing the ultimate
destruction of the Assad regime. But that doesn't mean that we
want to see Syria in anarchy without any government. We want
Assad's forces to stop the killing. We want Assad gone. But
that doesn't mean sundry airstrikes or the mere declaration of
safe zones will succeed in achieving these ends. We want the
Syrian opposition to cohere, to stake out strong, determined
positions regarding a liberal, Democratic, pluralistic Syria to
come. But it doesn't necessarily follow that releasing a flood
of arms will facilitate that objective. We need to engage both
our heads and our hearts.
Yes, Assad must go and we need, from both a moral and a
national interest position, to facilitate that effort. But
determining how to do that is considerably more complex than
simply declaring it to be good to do so. It is all well and
good for politicians and pundits to make robust speeches. For
some, exhortations meet the definition of duty. Nevertheless,
words, however righteous and mightily declared, do not feed
refugees. They do not send soldiers back to their barracks.
They do not collapse corrupt, bloody, failed regimes.
Diplomacy that makes space for the Syrian people's
continued popular protests, international cooperation that
facilitates the movement of relief supplies, economic sanctions
that pressure and squeeze don't inspire us. No statues will be
built and no parades will be marched to honor the slow and
hopefully steady constriction of a still tightening political-
economic noose around Assad and his thugs.
Our goal of course is not wish fulfillment or glory. We are
engaged in this work because it is our essential moral
obligation and because it serves key national security goals.
And that is why despite the starts and stops, despite the
agonizing slow pace, despite the endless frustration of
coalition building and the diplomatic engagement with
adversaries, we must keep at this work until it is done. Assad
must go, and for that the noose must tighten. And with the
means we have we must speed the work.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you very much, Mr. Ackerman. We
appreciate your statement. And we certainly appreciate the
distinguished panel that we have before us this afternoon, and
I will introduce them at this time, before they will have 5
minutes to testify, each.
We first have Andrew Tabler who is a Next Generation Fellow
in the Program on Arab Politics at the Washington Institute
where he focuses on Syria and U.S. policy in the Levant. Tabler
served most recently as a consultant on U.S-Syria relations for
the International Crisis Group, and is a Fellow of the
Institute of Current World, writing on Syrian, Lebanese and
Middle Eastern affairs. Mr. Tabler received his B.A. from
William and Jefferson College, and his M.A. from the American
University in Cairo. We welcome you here this afternoon.
And next we will have a speaker, Mara E. Karlin who is a
lecturer and Ph.D. Candidate in Strategic Studies at Johns
Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies.
Previously she served in a variety of policy positions in the
U.S. Defense Department including Levant director and special
assistant to the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. In
connection with her work at the Pentagon, she received the
Secretary of Defense Meritorious Civilian Service Award. She is
a consultant to the office of the Secretary of Defense for
Policy, and an adjunct scholar at the RAND Corporation.
And our third and final witness will be Marc Lynch who is
an associate professor of Political Science and International
Affairs at the George Washington University, where he also
directs the Institute for Middle East Studies. He is also a
nonresident senior fellow at the Center for a New American
Security, and director on the Project on Middle East Political
Science. He is also the editor of the Columbia University Press
book series, Columbia Studies in Middle East Politics. He
received his Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University.
And we welcome all three of you here this afternoon, and as
you know our rules allow 5 minutes from each, and we have a
lighting system on your desk. The yellow light will warn you
that you have 1 minute to wrap up, and the red light means that
we would appreciate it if you would complete your testimony at
that time or shortly thereafter.
So we will begin with you, Mr. Tabler. You are recognized
for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF MR. ANDREW TABLER, NEXT GENERATION FELLOW,
WASHINGTON INSTITUTE FOR NEAR EAST POLICY
Mr. Tabler. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member
Ackerman, and thank you for this opportunity to testify before
the subcommittee today on the situation in Syria, and U.S.
Government efforts to force Bashar al-Assad to step aside, as
outlined by President Obama in August 2011.
During Part I of this hearing in December of last year, a
representative of the Obama administration characterized Assad
as a ``dead man walking.'' I agreed with that assessment at the
time and I think much of it still holds true. International
pressure and sanctions placed upon the Assad regime are having
an unprecedented effect on its ability to fund its operations,
and evidence shows that hard currency reserves are being
rapidly depleted. Unfortunately, however, repeated vetoes by
Russia and China at the United Nations Security Council, the
overall lack of defections from the core of the Assad regime,
and the findings of a recent visit I made to southern Turkey
and Lebanon have all helped me understand that Assad still has
many more political and military resources that he can call
upon to continue what is literally now a death march for months
if not years to come. To force Assad to step aside, the United
States will need to accelerate efforts from the ground up by
supporting the opposition ``within Syria'' in concert with
allies forming the core of the Friends of the Syrian People
group of countries.
The Assad regime's continued suppression of the Syrian
opposition continues, and has claimed upwards of 10,000 lives
thus far. Thousands more have been arrested or displaced
including those that have fled to Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.
Recently the United Nations Security Council passed a
resolution backing a six-point plan developed by special envoy
Kofi Annan intended to bring about a cessation of hostilities
and a process to facilitate a ``Syrian-led political transition
to a democratic, plural political system.'' Despite agreeing to
this plan, the Assad regime has failed to meet agreed deadlines
to cease use of live fire and heavy weapons as well as its
commitments to withdraw its forces from population centers.
The United Nations has also approved a plan to place 300
monitors in Syria for up to 3 months to observe implementation
of the plan. Given the regime's failure to observe the
agreement thus far, it is unclear if the monitors will be able
to do their jobs. What the regime's failure to implement the
agreement thus far shows, however, is that what has become
known as the Annan plan may be able to deal with some of the
symptoms of the crisis in Syria, including introduction of
monitors and delivery of humanitarian assistance, but has
little hope of dealing with the disease itself, a minority-
dominated regime with a 42-year track record of being unable to
reform, now brutally suppressing an opposition carved out of
one of the youngest populations in the Middle East outside of
the Palestinian territories.
The regime has thus far had a harder time dealing with
civil resistance over the past year than armed resistance.
Assad's actions thus far indicate that he wants to use the
Annan plan to grind down not only the armed opposition in the
country, but the overall protest movement as a whole. Thus the
Annan plan as currently implemented serves Assad's interests
and directly undermines those of the United States.
The introduction of monitors is a positive development, but
only insofar as it will help guarantee Syrians' right to
peacefully express themselves in favor of the Assad regime
stepping aside. Quite simply, the regime is failing to
implement point two of the Annan plan, halting fighting and use
of heavy weapons and withdrawing its forces from population
centers, because it knows well it cannot implement point six of
the plan, respect freedom of association and the right to
demonstrate peacefully as legally guaranteed.
Assad knows well that peaceful protestors, who have
continued their activities unabated as the international
community has focused its attention on the armed opposition,
will fill in the main squares and demand his departure or
worse. To preclude this scenario he has labeled the peaceful
protestors as terrorists and used live fire to put them down.
The best way the United States has of ensuring that
President Assad steps aside and expediting the more democratic
government in Syria is to implement Plan B, a coordinated
effort to pressure the regime from the ground up, including
support for the opposition within Syria. This effort is already
underway, partially, and would be implemented in addition to
the sanctions and other diplomatic pressure. So I want to
emphasize this would not replace what the administration has
done up until now but would augment it.
The United States is a member of the Friends of the Syrian
People, a collection of 83 countries which met for the second
time on April 1st. Its core members include Britain, France,
Germany, Turkey and Saudi Arabia and Qatar, to forge and lead a
coalition of countries to more directly support the opposition
within Syria. Thus far the United States has committed to only
giving nonlethal assistance to the opposition in that country,
which could include communications equipment.
Pressuring the Assad regime to end violence against the
population and ultimately make an exit will require such U.S.
assistance and much more. In the short term, the United States
should share limited intelligence with the opposition inside of
the country on the regime's movements.
Second, the United States should intensify its examination
of the opposition within Syria and see, quite frankly, which
groups with whom we could work and perhaps with whom we cannot
work, given their long-term goals in Syria.
And third, Washington should immediately expand contingency
planning about possible direct U.S. military support as part of
actions to head off massacres or a humanitarian disaster. This
includes supporting the creation, with such allies as Turkey,
of safe havens inside of Syria. In addition, the United States
should consider what kind of military force may be required,
and under what circumstances, to assist the opposition in
deposing the Assad regime.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Tabler follows:]
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----------
Mr. Chabot. Thank you very much. We appreciate your
testimony.
Ms. Karlin, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF MS. MARA E. KARLIN, INSTRUCTOR IN STRATEGIC
STUDIES, SCHOOL OF ADVANCED INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, JOHNS
HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
Ms. Karlin. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member
Ackerman. Thank you for holding this important hearing on U.S.
policy toward Syria and for inviting me to participate.
Let me state my bottom line up front. The United States
knows what it does not want in Syria. But getting to what it
does want, the end of the Assad regime, will be messy,
difficult and unsatisfying. With that in mind and given the
varied constraints on the United States, we can best support
transition in Syria by playing a signaling role. There is no
debate about the repugnant and despicable acts of the Assad
regime in Syria. The longer this conflict lasts, the more
bloody, internecine and tragic it will be.
To expand on my bottom line, I would like to offer three
critical observations. First, let us step back and dissect what
the United States does not want in Syria. We do not want Assad
to stay in power. He has proven to be venal and vicious, a
murderous thug. We do not want a power vacuum that facilitates
continued civil war or begs for a robust long-term U.S. nation-
building effort, or enables Syrian territory to be manipulated
and disrupted by rogue nonstate and external actors. And we do
not want continued violence. Violence that has already resulted
in ten times more deaths than when the international community
first intervened in Libya last year.
Second, nearly one decade ago, General David Petraeus,
looking at the impending chaos in Iraq, posed a crucial
question, ``Tell me how this ends.'' The outcome in Syria is
not evident today, but I can say with some confidence how it
will not end. It will not end with Bashar al-Assad voluntarily
stepping aside or choosing exile. It will not end with him
making sufficient reforms to enable a transparent and free
Syria. This regime will not permit actions that serve to
undermine and ultimately overthrow its rule. Those who
predicted Assad's speedy collapse or asserted his willingness
to inaugurate a new Syria have been proven spectacularly wrong,
for Syria today remains immersed in violence and Assad remains
entrenched. And how and when Assad departs, will invariably
affect the contours and dynamics of the new Syria.
Both of these points illustrate how messy, difficult and
unsatisfying our options are. We would be wise to recall them
as we consider what the United States should be doing to
effectively support transition there, which brings me to my
third and final point.
Our operating maxim should be the following. Facilitate the
end of the Assad regime while coalescing alternative, viable
and inclusive leadership. Both objectives must be actively
pursued. To date, efforts to isolate, sanction and advertise
the regime's bad behavior have degraded its capabilities, and
efforts to support the opposition have helped it delineate a
vision of a new Syria. They should be redoubled, emphasizing to
key supporters of the Assad regime both inside and outside of
Syria that a transition will occur, and their interests are
best served if this happens soon.
But above all, the United States can play a signaling role.
It can leverage its comparative advantage as the critical actor
to whom other states have looked to for guidance as they
respond to the Assad regime's atrocities. Over the last year
when the United States has signaled both publicly and privately
that it supports vigorous efforts to undermine and counter the
regime, it has had an impact.
Washington's active participation in the Friends of Syria
committee is an important step, as is its increasing support to
the Free Syrian Army. In that vein, the United States has
signaled what it will provide, such as communications,
intelligence and nonlethal assistance. Providing such
capabilities signals U.S. willingness to support an alternative
to the regime but with limited cost and commitment.
The United States has also signaled what it will not
obstruct, such as other states paying salaries and providing
equipment. However, for the FSA to seriously counter the Syrian
regime and its military, it needs to be transformed into a
coherent and effective fighting force. Solely focusing on
equipment assistance will ultimately have a limited impact.
Meaningful support will require substantial training, advice,
potential reorganization and shifts in personnel, and an
overall refinement of its capabilities. To be sure, a
strengthened opposition is significant, but it is unlikely to
tip the balance in the near term.
Signaling shows that the United States will not stop other
states from taking more serious steps to counter the regime.
For those regional players that seek to more actively and
militarily confront the Assad regime, the United States should
not prevent them from doing so, and should consider how it
might play a limited complementary role. As Syria's neighbors
are flooded by refugees and increasingly destabilized by the
upheaval next door, the signal that Washington sends will be of
even greater consequence.
In conclusion, the Middle East is mired in uncertainty and
fraught with upheaval. For the United States, this arena is
more difficult and complex to navigate today than ever before.
Yet our interests are largely the same as they were before the
revolutions. We must be cautious in our decision making, to be
sure, but also cognizant of our priorities.
I thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you
today, and I am ready to answer any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Karlin follows:]
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----------
Mr. Chabot. Thank you very much for your testimony.
And finally, Dr. Lynch, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF MARC LYNCH, PH.D., PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE,
DIRECTOR OF INSTITUTE FOR MIDDLE EAST STUDIES, ELLIOTT SCHOOL
OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
Mr. Lynch. I thank you Chairman Chabot and Ranking Member
Ackerman, and thank you to my two colleagues for their very
thoughtful presentations, much of which I agree with.
I would begin with the fact that less than 2 weeks ago a
ceasefire came into effect in Syria, which many people did not
believe was possible. Four days ago, an unanimous United
Nations Security Council resolution was adopted, authorizing a
300-member team to monitor the ceasefire, something else which
many people believed to be impossible.
These accomplishments are not ones to be easily or lightly
set aside. The urgent and admirable imperative to do something
to help the people of Syria and to attempt to bring about the
downfall of the Bashar al-Assad regime should not mean that the
United States rushes into a poorly conceived military
intervention. This painstakingly constructed international
consensus and a plan which was always designed to take time to
manifest should not be abandoned before it has even had the
chance to succeed. There are no easy answers to the Syria
problem. It is one of the most difficult that I have dealt with
in all of my years working on the Middle East.
But I respectfully disagree that the Annan plan either
helps us out or hurts the United States. It remains the best
option that we have available to us to create the political
space which would make it possible for the Syrian people to
bring about a change from within, without embroiling the United
States in a protracted, messy and difficult ongoing insurgency.
There are no cheap or easy forms of military intervention which
would quickly bring down the regime of Bashar al-Assad or
effectively protect Syrian civilians. There are many measures
which we could take, which would likely increase the odds of
Assad's survival while increase the deaths of Syrian civilians,
and it is incumbent upon us to avoid making such foolish
decisions.
We also must be highly cognizant of the risks of limited
half measures which leave us unable to succeed, but find us
embroiled in subsequent steps which could end up placing us in
a situation comparable to that of Iraq, where we find ourselves
forced to patrol and take responsibility for a shattered polity
where we are not wanted.
Rejecting military action does not mean doing nothing. This
is a false choice. The United States has effectively taken the
lead in constructing this international consensus, which did
not appear by magic. The six-point plan presented by U.N.
Special Envoy Kofi Annan offers a plausible, obviously far from
certain, path toward the demilitarization of the conflict and a
subsequent political transition. The ceasefire obviously has
not ended the killing, but it has substantially reduced the
violence. Since that ceasefire began there has been a dramatic
increase in peaceful protest across the country, and this holds
out the hope and demonstrates that the will of the Syrian
people has not been broken. We must continue to place pressure
on the Syrian regime, increasing economic sanctions, its
diplomatic isolation, and preparing for future international
justice and accountability, but we should not rush into a
military intervention which might be satisfying in the short
term but leave us with something far worse than we currently
have.
In my prepared statement, I discuss in some detail the
shortcomings of a number of available military options
including safe zones, humanitarian corridors, arming the
opposition and more. I won't take time to talk about those
here, though I am happy to discuss them in the questions.
The fundamental point that I would like to make in the time
remaining to me is that while the current diplomatic strategy
is clearly frustrating, difficult and faces long odds, it is
not something which is designed simply to buy time and to not
act. There is a logic behind Annan's plan. And that logic is
that it is the militarization of the conflict which serves the
survival of Bashar al-Assad's regime. The opposition is
incapable of winning by force, and it is very unlikely that
anything that we do will change that. At the same time, the
center of Syrian politics and the very real constituencies
which continue to support Bashar al-Assad are bound to him by
fear of the future. Minority communities fear that they will
face retribution. That they will revenge killings. That they
will be butchered in the aftermath of the fall of Bashar al-
Assad.
The demilitarization and the ceasefire which Kofi Annan is
pursuing are precisely designed to reduce those fears and to
carve out the political space necessary to begin a genuine
political transition. Nobody, not me and I believe not Kofi
Annan, believes that Bashar al-Assad will agree to voluntarily
end his regime. He has never demonstrated any willingness or
ability to do so. But that is neither necessary for the plan or
its objective. Instead, the objective is to create the space
for Syrians to find a way to remove Assad by calculating that
their interests are best served to rescue their country by
removing Assad themselves. And our job must be to create the
international space to make that possible.
Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lynch follows:]
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----------
Mr. Chabot. Thank you very much, Doctor. And we will go
ahead and ask questions. At this point I recognize myself with
5 minutes for that purpose. And I would ask Mr. Tabler and Ms.
Karlin, Dr. Lynch has painted a relatively bright picture on
the Annan plan and seems to be optimistic about its
possibilities and success. I wonder if you might feel
otherwise, and if you wouldn't mind commenting on that. I
appreciate it. We will start with you, Mr. Tabler.
Mr. Tabler. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't think Marc
believes that necessarily the Annan plan is going well. What I
said in my testimony, and where I think probably we agree, is
that the Annan plan as implemented is the problem. This is not
a ceasefire. Having multiple shelling incidents a day on the
third largest city in Syria is not a ceasefire. It is not even
fragile. It is just not a ceasefire. It is a reduction in
hostilities, but even that went out the window a couple of days
ago when the death toll spiked again when they began using
shelling.
They also have not completely withdrawn their military
formations from cities, and this gets to what I think Marc was
talking about a little bit later on. The key part of the Annan
plan is that the Assad regime is vulnerable to civilian
resistance and has been for over a year. It is the peaceful
protestors that have kept Assad on his heels. The problem is,
is that they are constrained by the placement of military
forces inside the country now. They move them around, they move
them to the outskirts of town, they put them inside of
buildings, and unfortunately, when they move them to the
outside of town they begin to use artillery and mortars on the
populations inside those cities. So the Annan plan as
implemented now, and this is the problem, it contravenes a
pillar of U.S. policy going back over 1 year, and that is that
Syrians should be allowed to peacefully express themselves and
to assemble. And this was established long ago, long before the
Annan plan was established. The fact is, is that this has not
happened.
And so now we are sending in monitors, again which could
carve out that space for protestors. But my only response would
be it gets back to my original point, he cannot implement point
two of the plan because he cannot tolerate point six. That is,
he can't tolerate anything that would allow Syrians to once
again flood the main squares of cities and demand that
President Assad go, and this is where he is particularly
vulnerable. Thanks.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you. Ms. Karlin?
Ms. Karlin. Sir, I would just add, I think Andrew's point
about implementation is particularly cogent, and there are two
issues that illustrate this for us. First of all, as of
yesterday there were 11 out of 300 observers in Syria. Realize
observers should be working 24 hours a day, so that would leave
very few working at each hour of the day even if you get to the
large number of 300. So the numbers are extraordinarily small.
I will add another example which I think is telling. Right
now there is an observation force on the border between Syria
and Israel. It has been there since the aftermath of the 1973
war. Indeed, it has been an extraordinarily quiet border. But
not because of the presence of that force, but because it is in
both states' interest to have it. If it is not in the interest
of Assad to actually implement the key aspects of the Annan
plan, which involve his transition, then the observers really
won't be able to do a whole lot. Thank you.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you. Mr. Tabler, in your testimony you
stated that, ``Washington should immediately expand contingency
planning about possible direct U.S. military support as part of
actions to head off massacres or humanitarian disaster. This
includes supporting the creation with allies such as Turkey, of
safe havens inside Syria. In addition, the United States should
consider what kind of military force may be required and under
what circumstances to assist the Syrian opposition in deposing
the Assad regime.'' Ms. Karlin and Dr. Lynch also discussed
this subject. As I am sure you know, whether and how to aid the
Syrian armed opposition continues to be very contentious.
What assistance if any do you believe should be provided to
the armed opposition and under what circumstances? What do you
believe are the risks and benefits of arming or training the
armed opposition, and additionally, are foreign nations
providing aid to Syrian rebels already, and if so, how should
that factor into our decision making?
Mr. Tabler. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To answer your
question, I think that the immediate first step is to expand
the nonlethal assistance to the armed opposition within Syria.
And what I mean by that is communications gear and other kinds
of equipment that will allow them to better communicate with
each other and coordinate their operations. I think that this
is particularly the smart move in light of the Assad regime's
failure thus far to implement the Annan plan.
There are risks to dealing with an opposition that you
don't know. The opposition inside of Syria is headless. It is
not leaderless. There are many leaders. And the operations of
the opposition within Syria are civil and armed and they vary
by region. And there are some regions where we are more
familiar with the groupings, particularly around Homs for the
revolutionary councils and in Daraa. Idlib province is a bigger
concern. There are groups there which are operating, which many
perceive not to be in the long-term interest of the United
States. It is also a very confusing environment.
But what I learned from my last visit to the Turkish-Syrian
frontier was that this assistance was already going across the
border. I have heard that there is more assistance going across
the border. A lot of this assistance by the way is not funneled
via States. It is funneled via individuals. A lot of times, for
example, weapons. The armed opposition inside of Syria
obviously is getting weapons from somewhere. Where they are
getting them from is, actually Syrian officers are selling them
to Turkish intermediaries who are then selling them back to
members of the opposition. And all this requires is wealthy
people coming up with some cash. There is plenty of cash in the
Middle East and it is already making its way there. So that
trend is established.
The question going forward is, given that there isn't a
resolution to this--and I think Mara is right, I just don't see
how this settles down anytime soon. Are we going to allow other
countries in the region who don't share our long-term interests
inside of Syria be able to affect the outcome with the
opposition? Or should the United States get more directly
involved? And I think the only way to answer that is to take a
much closer look at the groups that are on the ground and
determine who you can work with and who you can't. And I think
to your original point, we should have done this much earlier
and we didn't. We worked it from the top down when we should
have also, not instead of but also, been working it from the
bottom up.
Mr. Chabot. Okay. Thank you very much. My time is expired.
The gentleman from New York is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Ackerman. I found it interesting that the chairman
invited you to fight among yourselves and nobody really rose to
the bait, which leads me to suspect that you are a lot closer
to agreeing that there is no clear solution to this problem, or
am I wrong in that?
Ms. Karlin. Sir, I think you are probably right in that.
Having spent a lot of time wrestling with these issues, I think
the three of us are cognizant of how difficult and, as I noted,
how unsatisfying the options are. That doesn't mean we
shouldn't choose one of those options, I think, as Mr. Chairman
mentioned. But I think we deeply appreciate we are now in the
13th month of this conflict. Ten thousand people have been
killed. It is hard not to be rather sober about it.
Mr. Lynch. I would agree with that. Mr. Tabler, Ms. Karlin
and I, we see the same Syria and we see the same facts. I would
say that there are two, only two clear areas where I think that
we seriously disagree. I think the first is on the potential
for the ceasefire and the Annan plan to actually have a
positive effect on events inside of Syria. And here, and
actually even here I agree with much of what was said. For
example, I think that the observer mission must be rushed in
much more quickly. The French Foreign Minister just proposed
that all 300 should be on the ground within 15 days. That is
something the United States should support strongly. This
should not be slow rolled. But if you look at what has happened
in the areas where observers are currently located, violence
stops, and then they leave and violence starts again. And that
is the point of having an expanded mission on the ground in
order to make sure that they don't have to leave and that you
can actually create that political space. So for the Annan plan
I think we disagree on the potential utility of that.
And the second, I think, very serious area of disagreement
is on the question of arming the free Syrian Army and the
Syrian opposition, which quite frankly, I think, would actually
lead to the worst possible outcome in that it would stand up--
--
Mr. Ackerman. You are for don't arm them.
Mr. Lynch. I am very much for don't arm. And the reason for
that is that by doing so what you do is you create a balance of
power on the ground in which the opposition is not going to be
able to win, but you will succeed in generating enough violence
to scare the other Syrians back into the arms of the regime and
you end up with a protracted insurgency. I look back in history
and I try and see examples of this strategy working. The only
one I can find is Afghanistan, mujahideen in Afghanistan. And
how did that end up? The Afghans stayed collapsed. The Taliban
took power and al-Qaeda was created. I can't think of another
example in modern history in which a strategy of arming the
opposition, picking and choosing who you can work with and
trying to bring down an entrenched----
Mr. Ackerman. Thank you. Mr. Tabler, do we arm the
opposition?
Mr. Tabler. I think that we need to identify groups with
whom we could work and potentially arm some of those groups.
Mr. Ackerman. If we arm those groups what does that do?
Does that bring Assad down or does that guarantee that the U.N.
peace-observing mission has nothing to observe because there is
no peace?
Mr. Tabler. Well, they are observing the implementation of
the six-point plan. They are not observing peace or even are
supposed to keep the peace, so they can observe the agreement
all they want and make their own decisions.
Mr. Ackerman. Well, I don't know. It seems sometimes that
policymakers are more interested in checking the boxes. We have
a six-point plan, one, two, three, four, five, six. We don't
care what the hell happens as long as that did whatever the
plan said.
But if the ultimate goal here is to get rid of the Assad
regime, do you do that with arming the people? And if you arm
the people, it would seem to me that what Dr. Lynch said, you
are going to give the observers a lot more to observe. Because
if you arm one side more than they are armed, they are going to
use those arms because that is what they have the arms for.
Mr. Tabler. Right. We have the ability to arm the
opposition in greater numbers, but----
Mr. Ackerman. Is it wise to do that is the question, and
what does that yield?
Mr. Tabler. They are going to get the weapons whether we
give them to them or not, and this is the problem. I mean there
is----
Mr. Ackerman. We don't have to, we can move on to the next
country and call the next panel. Are you saying we shouldn't do
anything because they are going to do it anyway, so we are
wasting a lot of time, resources----
Mr. Tabler. I am saying to blanketly not support the armed
opposition inside of Syria would not be, I think that it is
necessary to do so in order to pressure the Assad regime. That
does not mean that we throw away the rest of our policy.
Mr. Ackerman. My concern is, when there is not a clear,
everybody can agree to want to go forward plan to a horrible
situation that is festering somewhere, that what we do on this
side of the table is we break down onto our own sides, and it
becomes an exercise in let us blame the administration or let
us defend the administration. And our real concern has to be,
on both sides of our tables here, is to figure out what we do
as a humane people that is in our national interest to resolve
this situation the best and fastest way we can with the least
damage to human beings and to the greatest advantage to our
American national interest. And we don't seem to have a clear
path by which to accomplish that. Is that a fair assessment?
Forget about us bickering on this.
Ms. Karlin. Frankly, I don't know that there is a clear and
satisfying path. I will say this. To take off of Marc's points,
if we look at some historical examples, there was really 1\1/2\
years of turmoil and tumult including the positioning of
observers in the Balkans until Srebrenica happened, and that
was the spectacular attack that fomented the international
communities' involvement.
And I would also respectfully counter one of th points that
Marc had made regarding other scenarios where we have seen
arming an opposition, pushing out a government or rendering
impotent. I think if we look at Lebanon in the early 1980s,
Iran's efforts to support the formation and strengthening of--
--
Mr. Ackerman. I don't know that that is a wise thing to do
to go back in history and find out who beat who and how they
did it, because someone will then come up with an observation
that this is a different country and it is a different century.
Ms. Karlin. Indeed, sir, indeed.
Mr. Ackerman. So while it might be historically
interesting, we are not going to make any policy decisions
based on the Philistines beat the Hebrews or something
somewhere back in the----
Mr. Chabot. The gentleman's time has expired but if
somebody wanted to complete that thought that would be good.
Mr. Ackerman. That would not be me.
Mr. Chabot. Dr. Lynch, did you want----
Mr. Lynch. Sir, if I may. I think that what unites the
three of us at the table is, and I think what actually meets
your mandate of us not simply bickering is that none of the
three of us is urging doing nothing. All of us would like to
orient our policy to see that Bashar al-Assad's regime ends and
the Syrian civilian population is protected. Our disagreement,
I think, is fundamentally about what is the best way to do
that. And I think that makes for a better and more constructive
kind of policy debate, and one which hopefully can go forward.
Mr. Chabot. Okay, thank you very much. The gentleman's time
has expired. The gentleman from Nebraska, Mr Fortenberry, is
recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Fortenberry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to the
witnesses for coming today. I am sorry I don't have the benefit
of your earlier testimonies since I arrived late, and if any of
this is redundant, please forgive me.
But I think the central question here is, what does a post-
Assad regime governance structure look like? What is the
probability of that actually happening? And then the third
question is related to an interesting scenario that I
encountered on a radio call-in show recently. It was a national
program. A gentleman came on who was American but of Syrian
descent and who said that our policy ought to be to defend
Assad. He was a Christian, and because Assad protects the
Christians that should be the United States policy, which again
begs the other question as to how he holds a coalition together
that continues to empower him to provide some semblance of
governance structures in the midst of this chaos.
So everybody follow me on those three points?
Mr. Tabler. Congressman, we don't know what a post-Assad
Syria would like yet. I can tell you based on what the country
is that it would be a very diverse one. A quarter of the
population are minorities, and the Sunni community, the 75
percent of the country are divided between tribal Sunnis,
settled tribal people, urbane Sunnis from Aleppo and Damascus,
and then more conservative Muslim Sunnis from the northwestern
part of the country in Idlib province. It would look like a
mosaic.
Mr. Fortenberry. Then the binding element currently, force
and fear? It has got to be a bit beyond that.
Mr. Tabler. In the past that is certainly how the Assad
regime has ruled over the country. I think a post-Assad Syria
that would not be necessary. I would imagine that you would see
a country that would have to come up with some kind of
structure that would be able to incorporate all those different
communities into it.
But there is a tremendous amount of bickering inside of the
opposition. I think there are two distinctions here. One is,
the exiled opposition, the Syrian National Council, is
incredibly divided and they have had a lot of problems. One of
the reasons is because they are not facing any gunfire and they
are not under pressure to come together. They are arguing over
chairs. And why would they argue over chairs? Well, a lot of
Western countries, Middle Eastern countries, and including in a
de facto sense, the United States, only engaged this Syrian
National Council and they ignored the rest of the opposition
inside the country. So they have no incentive to come together
until very recently.
The opposition inside the country has come together in some
areas, have coalesced more quickly in the face of live fire.
There is nothing that focuses the mind like being shot at. And
I think that that is a trend that we have seen in a number of
different areas including around Homs.
The reason why one of your perhaps constituents was
arguing----
Mr. Fortenberry. It wasn't my constituent by the way.
Mr. Tabler. Oh, sorry.
Mr. Fortenberry. And I rejected the premise. The United
States is not going to stand by idly and watch this kind of
brutality. It is not who we are, and the times in which that
has happened we go back and question ourselves.
Mr. Tabler. Right.
Mr. Fortenberry. So I rejected his premise. But at the same
time it points to this idea of Assad being able to hold this
coalition together in some manner with some degree of
authority, whether that is legitimate authority or whether it
is through fear and force primarily.
Mr. Tabler. The Saudis call the way that President Assad
rules now, the killing machine. We call it Whac-A-Mole. It is
very simple. You send military forces into areas that you don't
control. You try to clear them but you can't hold them. And it
drives up death tolls, it drives refugees across the border.
Mr. Fortenberry. Well, it is unimaginable that he can
sustain this into time----
Mr. Tabler. The Assad regime is----
Mr. Fortenberry [continuing]. Given the state of the world
and the interconnectedness of the world, the resources that are
transnational that can flow to people who want to affect
governance outcomes.
So back to the question. What does a post-Assad regime look
like?
Ms. Karlin. Thank you, sir. Let me make two points. A post-
Assad Syria is still violent. I think we can be cognizant of
that. Because you have had an authoritarian structure really
imposing it to rule through violence and the potential for
violence for decades, we can expect violence to continue. Given
its diversity there are a couple models one could look at. One
could look at Iraq or one could look next door at Lebanon.
Neither----
Mr. Fortenberry. Is a Lebanese model multiple confessions,
government of multiple confessions viable?
Ms. Karlin. It would be difficult. I think in the near term
it is possible. The challenge with the Lebanese model is it
doesn't really function very well. I mean you have a government
that entirely impedes all actions, so those are not heartening
models. That said, compared to authoritarian regimes----
Mr. Fortenberry. It doesn't function well, you are correct.
But somehow it functions.
Ms. Karlin. But somehow it does function.
Mr. Fortenberry. In the midst of the rise of sporadic chaos
somehow the mail gets delivered at the end of the day.
Ms. Karlin. It does, messily, to be sure. And it is even
difficult for the bureaucracies to move forward in any way in
Lebanon, even something as simple as ambassadorial
confirmations. But that said, they do exist and you don't have
the same degree of violence, for example. And furthermore, in
Lebanon you do have the challenge of an extraordinarily
powerful, armed nonstate actor of Hezbollah helping govern it.
On the question that the individual asked you, it is an
intriguing one. Look, the straw man for why one would support
Assad would be that he had brought stability. And that is
really what the exchange was. He was supporting terrorist
groups, had a covert nuclear program, undermined the Arab-
Israeli conflict, fomented instability in Lebanon and Iraq, but
at the end of the day Syria was stable. That is really no
longer the case, and I don't know that anyone really predicts
that to be the case for the near to immediate term. Thank you.
Mr. Fortenberry. Thank you.
Mr. Chabot. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Fortenberry. Thank you.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you very much. We will move into a second
round here and I will yield myself 5 minutes. As the conflict
in Syria enters its second year, the prospect for a prolonged
conflict, I think many of us believe, has the potential of
intensifying. If the conflict in Syria evolves into a
protracted battle between government forces and an array of
various Sunni militias, some analysts fear that governance
inside the country could erode significantly and that the
conflict could expand to other countries in the region.
Under what circumstances do you believe the conflict in
Syria could or would spread to, or draw other countries of the
region into this? And I will just go down the line beginning
with you, Mr. Tabler.
Mr. Tabler. It is possible that the conflict, such a
conflict could spread, but as we found out from Iraq and also a
number of other conflicts in the region, domino theories and
contagions don't often hold true. I think Lebanon is
particularly susceptible to some sort of pressures from Syria,
given that you have many of the same communities that go over
the border and the close history between those two countries.
But I think what is going on, actually in Lebanon the situation
is rather quiet. Certainly is a lot hotter up in the areas in
the north where the refugees are coming across the border. I
think what is going on in Syria is a uniquely Syrian one. It is
a tempest.
Again, the prospects for the Assad regime reforming, in my
opinion based on my long experience there and particularly in
the knowledge of Bashar al-Assad's regime, is close to zero. It
is a minority-dominated regime like Saddam Hussein's. I think
the chances of them splitting any time soon, I think it is
going down by the day. On the other hand you have this young
opposition carved out of what is essentially one of the
youngest populations in the Middle East. It is headless. I
don't see how this is politically solved. Even if President
Assad wanted to cut a deal tomorrow with whom would he
negotiate? And who would be able to take people off the
streets? That is the real challenges, and I think this is one
of the reasons why all three of us have been, and many others,
have been scratching our heads the last few months.
Mr. Chabot. Okay, thank you. Ms. Karlin?
Ms. Karlin. Thank you. In terms of the spread, I think
there is actually very real potential for it. And I look at
Turkey as really the center of gravity here. You many have seen
the Turkish Prime Minister's recent comments where he had
suggested that he may ask NATO to invoke Article 5. We know the
last time Article 5 was invoked was following the September
11th attacks and really the only time since then. That is a
bold statement. It shows how discomfitted he is by the actions
of the regime in Syria and by the slews of refugees and
potential violence further plaguing the country. So it could be
increased to be sure. Lebanon, frankly, is used to----
Mr. Chabot. I am sorry. Article 5 is the mutual defense?
Ms. Karlin. Yes, sir. And Lebanon is used to being
regularly destabilized by various regional events, and no doubt
one would expect that to happen.
And then for a more creative option is really to look at
Jordan. For example, we saw slews of Iraqi refugees go to
Jordan and dramatically shift the Jordanian economy because
they came with a lot of money. And so Jordanians couldn't
afford housing. That led to some real difficulties for the
Hashamites. So there is the violent challenges, those that we
are most aware of and the tangible ones, and also the ones that
are under the radar and indirect but actually have really
problematic consequences. Thank you.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you very much. And Dr. Lynch?
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, sir. I agree again with what my
colleagues have said. I would also point to the potential
impact on Iraq, which as you know we spent a great deal of
time, blood and treasure trying to stabilize, and is uniquely
vulnerable to a spillover given the long border and the history
of cross-border relations there.
There is also the potential for reverse impact where if you
go back to the 1950s, the last time you had a really unstable
Syria, it becomes a battleground for regional conflict, proxy
war, between in this case, the Gulf States and Iran basically
becomes an arena in which they fight their battles. And that
historically is something which was very destabilizing for
Syria and across the region. And it becomes an extremely useful
place for a group like al-Qaeda, which is mostly on the ropes,
to reconstitute itself. To project itself as the defender of
embattled Sunnis in Syria, this could possibly be its only
opportunity to reestablish itself as a meaningful force in Arab
politics. It has not done so to this point. I think that much
of what we have seen is propaganda from Bashar's regime, but
looking ahead is something which any serious strategic
assessment has to take into effect.
The final part of my answer to your question and to
Representative Fortenberry's question is that much depends on
how violent the transition process is. An extended, turbulent,
violent transition process is more likely to create both a
violent, unstable situation inside of Syria and across the
region. And I think that is the great concern of the Turks in
particular as they try and find a solution.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you very much. And the gentleman from New
York is recognized for a second round, if you want to go. We
are into the second round so I can go. All right, go ahead, Mr.
Connolly. We will go to the gentleman from the Commonwealth of
Virginia. Not the State, but the Commonwealth.
Mr. Connolly. That is right. Can anyone name the four
Commonwealths in the United States? There are only four.
Mr. Chabot. Kentucky.
Mr. Connolly. Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and
Virginia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Ackerman,
for your graciousness.
Ms. Karlin, you talked about Turkey. There have been some
alleged encroachments, shooting across the border, targeting
some refugees perhaps even. How helpful has Turkey been during
the Syrian crisis from the U.S. point of view, would you say?
Ms. Karlin. Thank you, sir. The Turks as you may know had a
very close relationship with the Assad regime for a number of
years. In fact, this was how Prime Minister Erdogan really
showed his comparative advantage, was that he believed and he
articulated that he could bring the Syrians in for a close
relationship with not just the U.S. but also with the Israelis.
You might recall he had tried to broker an Israeli-Syrian peace
deal. So that relationship was critical for the Turks, and that
is why for the first few months of this conflict we saw the
Turkish leadership, both the Foreign Minister and the Prime
Minister, very enthusiastically trying to work with Assad to
reform. And then they realized he wasn't going to, and they
were scorned and they were perturbed.
And since then I would say they have actually been quite
helpful. They have welcomed in the refugees. They have
supported them as much as possible. In fact, in many ways you
could probably say the Turks have been more forward-leaning
than a lot of other states, the United States, and also in
Western Europe, because they are perturbed by what he has done.
They are particularly perturbed that Assad lied to them. They
thought he had this potential and he clearly didn't. They are
now feeling the direct effects of the turmoil in Syria, and it
is why, I think, they are the most worried about this dynamism
in the contours of what really plays out. So I think they can
be a close ally here, but I do believe they are going to look
for what role the U.S. is willing to play in support of them.
Mr. Connolly. Did you want to comment, Dr. Lynch?
Mr. Lynch. I would just add that when you look at Turkey,
the Kurdish issue, the roles----
Mr. Connolly. I was just going to ask about the Kurds. Go
ahead.
Mr. Lynch. There you are. They are obsessed and have a deep
problem with their own Kurds, and that leads them to be highly
skeptical of any post-Assad situation in Syria in which the
Kurds enjoy autonomy or any form of seemingly----
Mr. Connolly. Although correct me if I am wrong. In Syria
the Kurds have been relatively quiescent compared to say Iraq
or even for that matter, Turkey.
Mr. Lynch. For the Turks this is matter of great concern.
The rationality or the history is not something which is
necessarily guiding their decision making in that regard. But I
would say that with the Kurds, and I would say even more
broadly, again in response to Mr. Fortenberry's question, is
that the Syrian opposition has not done a good job to this
point of trying to reassure communities like the Kurds, the
Christians, the Alawis. And if there is going to be any hope of
a stable or nonviolent transition, they need to do a much
better job of guaranteeing the security and the inclusion and
participation of such minority communities.
Mr. Connolly. And you bring up a very good point. The Assad
regime has been a minority Alawite regime since its founding.
The Alawites are in some quarters of the Islamic world
considered worse than heretics, even nonbelievers. And I don't
judge that but they have got a problem in mainstream Islam in
terms of acceptance. One could look at what is going on in
Syria and differentiate it from Libya or some other situations
and say, well, for the Alawites this is do or die. If they lose
power there are a lot of other problems besides just the fall
of a regime, from their point of view.
How much of a dynamic do you think that represents and how
if at all, you talked about reach out and reassure the
Alawites. Well, that sounds good, but I mean given the dynamic
and given the current power structure that has been in place
for quite some time, that is a lot easier said than done. Any
of you can comment.
Mr. Tabler. The minority nature of the regime galvanizes it
against the kind of splits like we saw in Egypt and Tunisia. A
split meaning, for the military, acts as a and ousts the ruling
family in the name of the nation. Because the idea is that if
the Assad family is thrown out that along with it go the
prospects of the Alawites. I think that that is a real barrier.
It makes this regime much more rigid.
And the reason why the Obama administration has tried to
work with Russia in this regard is not because of any kind of
love for Russia, but rather it is based on an assumption, an
uncertain one, that the Russians have assets inside of the
Syrian military which will be able to be called upon later to
convince the generals in that country, despite the fact they
are Alawites, to expel the Assad family. I think there have
been a number of conversations in this regard. But thus far it
seems that the Russians are not willing to go along with it.
Either it is based on their own calculations in the region or,
and there are others that speculate, that it is based on their
own conversations with the Alawite generals themselves that
they realize that the regime can hold on for some time. And
that makes this a particularly difficult problem to solve
diplomatically involving Russia.
Mr. Chabot. Okay, the gentleman's time has expired. Did you
want to make a comment, Dr. Lynch?
Mr. Lynch. Yes, very briefly. I do not believe that the
sectarian dimension is the most important here in the sense of
Sunni-Shia conflict or of the Alawites being heterodox. I think
for mainstream Sunnis this is not a major issue. It is a major
issue for Salafi jihadists of the al-Qaeda variety who are as
you say deeply hostile to any form of Shiaism and including
Alawis. But I think that the real risk is that this can
increasingly become something which defines relations as the
conflict progresses, as we saw in Iraq where you did not have a
great deal of sectarian tension early on, but as the killing
proceeded the battle lines and the identity lines became harder
and harder. And even intermarriage and living in close quarters
wasn't enough to protect people from that sectarian
differentiation.
Mr. Chabot. The gentleman's time has expired. The gentleman
from Nebraska, Mr. Fortenberry, is recognized for 5 minutes in
the second round.
Mr. Fortenberry. What are your thoughts as a panel on
leveraging military assets by a coalition of nations to create
space for humanitarian relief and space for the development of
a new and just and legitimate form of governance for Syria?
Mr. Tabler. Working inside of such a coalition for the
creation of where there would be safe havens, buffer zones,
humanitarian corridors, there are a variety of concepts, is
something which there are contingency plans for this together
with Turkey which have been developed by multiple sides. It is
certainly doable. It presents a number of challenges
militarily. That would allow a space where refugees could run
as the game of Whac-A-Mole continues.
But also, and the Syrian opposition has argued this, that
this would create a space also politically inside the country
where people would be able to go and organize and essentially
have a Benghazi. It is unclear if immediately that would
happen. It certainly would have a political effect inside the
country. It certainly would be a major loss for President Assad
to lose control over areas of his country. It would depend on
though how it was carved out, if simply Turkey invaded to
prevent refugees coming across.
Where this problem intersects with the Kurdish problem is
that every time there is a game of Whac-A-Mole people die,
people go across the border into that group. And this is what
the Turks are worried about now. Turkey is worried that the
PYD, the Syrian version of the PKK, which they consider a
terrorist organization, that members in Syria now are acting as
police in the Kurdish communities. They could then melt into
these refugees going across the border, and that is a national
security threat to Turkey. It is one of the reasons why Article
5 could be invoked. And so that is one of the reasons why
Turkey would intervene.
But there is also a possibility that areas like in Eastern
Syria where the tribes are dominant could also break away. And
that would function also politically. In Eastern Syria
particularly you have serious production of oil and natural
gas. So that would very quickly constrain the regime's ability
to refine gasoline and diesel fuel as well as the production of
natural gas which fires most of their power plants.
Ms. Karlin. Let me just quickly add, sir, the creation of
such areas would no doubt be a turning point, and I think
Andrew nicely delineated what some of those might look like.
There are of course challenges inherent in what those areas do,
to be sure, but I think it is important that we are cognizant
no matter what terminology we use. Those areas generally will
look pretty similar whether they are safe havens, support
havens, no-fly zones, you name it. They will all at least
within the Assad regime's eyes be seen as the same. And that is
important to be cognizant of. Whether or not we should actually
establish them or support others doing them is a separate
issue. But I think from the Assad regime's perspective this is
all the same. Thank you.
Mr. Lynch. So without running afoul of the ranking member's
warnings about history, let me say that history is fairly clear
that safe zones don't work. That the safe zones don't work.
That either they require an enormous amount of diplomatic and
military effort to sustain, or else they become in a sense
unfunded mandates in which you offer guarantees of protection
which you are not able to deliver, then you end up with your
Srebrenicas.
And so I think that it could be a turning point, but likely
a turning point to deeper involvement. In order to establish a
safe zone, for the United States with the way its military
works, you would need to first establish a no-fly zone. That
requires heavy bombing often in urban areas.
Mr. Fortenberry. Let me be clear. I didn't say the United
States.
Mr. Lynch. Well, whoever does it. I mean I think no
military is going to be willing to act in these areas without
having the military ability to do so safely. And so basically
this is something which sounds easy, but actually it is quite
difficult when you look at what it actually entails. And then
once you have done it you then have to maintain it. If you look
at the example of in 1991 we declare Operation Provide Comfort
and we spent the next 12 years protecting the Kurdish north,
and that did not lead to a cascade of Saddam falling. We also
declared a no-fly zone in the south to protect the Shia and
that didn't work at all. And in fact, so you can go back and
you look at those examples.
I would say that whatever happens, it has to be done with
the mandate of the United Nations and with international
legitimacy. NATO, I think, cannot do this on its own. It
doesn't matter if the Arab League supports it. Those are useful
steps toward getting a Security Council resolution, but acting
without the Security Council would make this something
destructive of international laws and norms rather than
building respect for international law. And I think for this
administration or for any administration, this would be an
extremely dangerous step to take.
Mr. Chabot. The gentleman's time has expired. The gentleman
from New York is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Ackerman. I think there is a certain amount of
international naivete spearheaded by American and Western
notions of democracy, that somehow we will settle this all down
by having some kind of big general election and everybody is
going to peacefully abide by whatever the results are, which is
something we can hardly do in this country anymore let alone
expect it to happen in a place where you have such sectarian
and other kinds of interest. This is going to require, I think,
taking a close look at what Russian expectations are, how to
get the Russians on board so that they can resolve the issues
that are very important and critical to them, and other
countries as well. I will put that out there for anybody who
wants to comment on it.
But in specific, looking at the major players who can have
an influence or an effect on the resolution of this problem,
which countries are the most critical of the Obama
administration or American interests, if I could defang the
question as I started to propose it, and apply the Goldilocks
litmus test of the porridge being too hot or too cold, or who
thinks we are getting it just right? Do we have critics that
are not on board because of what we are doing, and who are
vocal of what they think we should or should not be doing?
Mr. Lynch. Let me start that. I think that Saudi Arabia and
Qatar have been very vocal in wanting us to take a firmer line.
It reminds me of an old line that we once heard from Secretary
Gates that they want to fight Syria with the last American.
Mr. Ackerman. I wrote that down before you said it.
Mr. Lynch. Yes, it is right there for you.
Mr. Ackerman. So they are not sending any of their
citizens.
Mr. Lynch. Exactly.
Mr. Ackerman. They are holding our coat and wishing us the
best in the fight.
Mr. Lynch. Exactly. I think that Russia, I think, Andrew
has already spoken of quite effectively. I would only point out
two things here. The first is that a lot of Annan strategy,
Kofi Annan strategy, is built around trying to hold the
Russians here, which is to say that this is a plan to which
they have agreed. It is their ideas, and in a sense they then
take on a certain responsibility to deliver.
The second point I would make is that everybody tends to
equate Russia and China but, in fact, their interests in this
are quite different. China has no interest to speak of in
Syria. It has a great deal of interest in the energy of the
Gulf, and they are much more likely to be responsive to Saudi
Arabia and Qatar in terms of pressure on them to shift their
position. And so I would not speak of Russia and China as a
unified bloc. They have different interests and they might
behave differently. You have already seen signs of that in New
York at the Security Council.
Mr. Ackerman. What is your view of their attitude toward
what we are doing?
Mr. Lynch. I think for China, simply standing up to the
United States at the moment is something which is useful for
them politically given their grievances and things happening in
Asia, but they have no intrinsic interest in Syria in the way
that Russia does. And as a straightforward realpolitik, which
is how I think the Chinese approach the world, it is much more
important for them to keep the energy producers of the Gulf
happy than it is for them to keep Syria or Russia happy.
Mr. Fortenberry [presiding]. The gentleman's time has
expired. So let us----
Mr. Ackerman. I want to appeal for the judges. I think the
clock was running from the last time, right?
Mr. Fortenberry. It is confusing to me too.
Mr. Ackerman. Did I go 8\1/2\ minutes?
Mr. Fortenberry. It didn't seem that long, but it is always
interesting to listen to you and time flies by. But don't know
what the time was.
Mr. Ackerman. I take that as the ultimate compliment.
Mr. Connolly. Mr. Chairman, if I may. The clock kind of
went the opposite direction.
Mr. Fortenberry. Is that what happened.
Mr. Connolly. And I believe the gentleman had----
Mr. Fortenberry. Well, I didn't want to lose my legitimacy
of authority in the chair here, so I apologize if I cut you off
prematurely.
Mr. Ackerman. No, I will abide by the decision of the
chair.
Mr. Fortenberry. Well, why don't we do this? The chairman
is back and I will return the gavel to him.
Mr. Connolly. I would ask you now to consent that the
gentleman from New York be granted an additional minute.
Mr. Ackerman. I would rephrase that and say my remaining
minute.
Mr. Connolly. Your remaining minute.
Mr. Ackerman. I would just like to hear the response of the
panel to try to get their, what I was trying to elicit, Mr.
Chairman. It was not the fault of the gentleman who was in the
chair, but the clock went haywire and reversed itself.
Mr. Chabot. Are you using your minute right now?
Mr. Ackerman. Only if you think so. I was trying to elicit
from the distinguished panel what they thought of the
assessment of other countries viewing whatever our policy is,
as whether we are being too harsh or not harsh enough.
Mr. Chabot. Okay, very good.
Ms. Karlin. Sir, I would just add, I think Marc did a nice
job of delineating those in the Middle East who are frustrated
by our policy. I would be sure to add to that the Turks who I
think have looked for very strong signals from the United
States and have not received them. And on the Russia point, it
is one worth considering in that the Russians have a lot to
lose if the Assad regime goes, and very little to gain at this
stage. They lose money. They lose a lot in arms sales. They
lose access to their only port out of what had been the Soviet
Union's territory. And for them to just do a little to impede
change in Syria delivers a lot.
They perturb the United States no doubt. They really by
themselves accede at the table. When we talk about the Annan
plan, so much of the discussion is, well, what are the Russians
going to do about it? That is really where the focus is. So for
the Russians, and of course if we look at what has happened in
the region in the last 1\1/2\ years and the massive losses that
they found in Libya given the change in administrations there,
they are not enthusiastic about seeing a new Syria.
On the China piece, I would just add to Marc's comments.
The Chinese are notoriously uncomfortable when other states
look at domestic politics, when they look at what is happening
internally and how a state treats its population. For decades,
the United States focused on Syria's foreign policy, what it
was doing outside of its borders. And now really for the first
time in a long time we are looking inside, and that is not
something that the Chinese are inherently comfortable with.
Thank you.
Mr. Chabot. The gentleman's time has expired. The gentleman
from the Commonwealth of Virginia is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Connolly. I thank the chair. And something that you
said, Dr. Lynch, intrigued me. You said safe zones don't work.
Surely that is an arguable point. There are a lot of people who
believe the safe zone, if you can call it that in Iraq, for at
least Kurds, did work, which is why that part of the country
even to this day is prospering and growing and attracting
investment and so forth. We actually kind of cordoned it off
and helped protect it from Saddam Hussein at the time. I may
take your point on the south, but wouldn't you agree that at
least an arguable case could be made that it worked in the
north?
Mr. Lynch. Yes, it could. But the cost was about 20,000
deployed troops, and it consumed an enormous amount of
America's diplomatic attention to maintain authorization for
that at the Security Council over the years. And midway
through, in 1996, one of the Kurdish political parties invited
Saddam Hussein's troops in to come and help finish off his
political rival, and our no-fly zone was unable to prevent
that. And so it was a guarded success at very high cost. But my
point would be that what it did not do was what many people
claim a safe area in Syria would do, which is to create a space
where an alternative Iraqi leadership could emerge and thrive.
Efforts to do that by the Iraqi National Congress failed rather
spectacularly and it did not create a rallying point, which
then led to a domino effect throughout the--so in other words,
yes, it was a limited success in protecting the Kurds in a
geographically concentrated space with almost complete ethnic
homogeneity----
Mr. Connolly. Yes. And I thought that was maybe the broader
point you were making which is, Syria is not Iraq. I mean it is
much more Balkanized, much more difficult to find a safe zone
to say, well, that is going to be the safe zone, and we have
three distinct, although there was lots of intermingling, but
three distinct areas in Iraq that we could have, we pointed to.
Mr. Tabler, did you want to comment on that?
Mr. Tabler. I think that the idea of safe zones, yes, they
are problematic. Yes, they are sort of a half measure so to
speak between a overwhelming direct military intervention to
sort of rip out the disease itself. And I would expect that
these solutions, a safe zone or some of these other solutions
are not perfect ones, but they are ones that are probably going
to be considered, and I know are very seriously being
considered by Turkey, as ways to try and manage the conflict as
it goes forward.
So then the question becomes, should the United States
contribute to an effort now to deal with this problem and what
it should be, or do we just wait and let this go on for 10
years which some estimates in this town indicate. And just see
where it goes and allow other people to, and including our
allies, to try and affect its outcome. I think this would be
easier to solve if I could really clearly see what the solution
politically would be, and I just can't see it. I don't know
anyone that really knows the country or knows----
Mr. Connolly. That is my final question for all of you.
Revolutions always start off better than they usually end. And
yet looking at today's Egypt and Libya I would say the jury is
out. What have we produced, collectively, not just the--and so
as we look at Syria there are reports just this week that
perhaps there has been some infiltration by extremist elements,
terrorist elements, trying to exploit the situation.
What ought to be, what could be a likely result given the
experience we have just had with the Arab Spring and given what
we know about Syria and its differences with other Arab
countries?
Mr. Tabler. The Assad regime is already destabilized and it
will continue to deteriorate one way or the other. And into
that very volatile vacuum can step other parties, for sure, and
it can suck in a lot of other countries in the region and it
can draw in a lot of other countries including the United
States as well. The ultimate outcome, the settlement of the
Syrian revolution is unclear.
But what I can tell you is this. Whether America does
something or not this is going to continue. This is not going
to settle down any time soon. I don't know anyone I have met in
the region who thought so, and we really need to be able to
look at this as a storm and how are we going to deal with it.
This is a bit different than a tornado. A tornado, you just
have to let it blow through. In this particular case there are
some things we can do, the question is now, what?
Ms. Karlin. Sir, I would just add to that. It is hard to
know when a revolution really ends. When we look at Egypt, for
example, there are large swaths of the population that still
think the country is in revolution. And yet there are those,
particularly amongst the more conservative elements, that see
the revolution as over. They have succeeded. They are in power,
and moving on. And so I think that is a dilemma that we will
see in Syria also. It is one we saw in Iran during that
revolution also, if you will excuse me for citing history
again, sir.
So the results, what we know is this will be messy and we
know that the violence will continue. It will be difficult. It
will probably embroil various members of the region. And
ideally the U.S. will be able to help shape how it plays out to
a degree. But it is not stopping. I think we are all probably
in quite a violent agreement about that. Thank you.
Mr. Lynch. And even though we are over time, I would simply
say that I agree with Andrew that this is likely to continue
for quite some time. And again, if you see what the ceasefire
did in the 2 weeks since it has come into effect, each Friday
you have seen a qualitative jump in the number of peaceful
demonstrations. And the fundamental question is whether that is
enough to develop into the sort of tide of peaceful protest
which could pose genuine problems for the regime. I think that
Andrew's sense is that if that begins to happen the guns will
come back out in much more force, which is precisely the point
at which we need a united international community ready to put
serious pressure on Assad to stop that from happening. That is
why I want the observer mission to move in much more quickly,
why it is so important to keep international consensus to the
U.N. and why we need to push that forward.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chabot. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman's time has
expired. I want to thank the members of the panel for their
excellent testimony.
Mr. Ackerman. Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Chabot. Yes.
Mr. Ackerman. If I might before you conclude. Just for the
record, I didn't mean to disparage all of history.
Mr. Chabot. It is too late now.
Mr. Ackerman. But just to try to reclaim my honor.
Mr. Chabot. It is okay, you are retiring anyway.
Mr. Ackerman. I just wanted to caution us that we are not
always informed by events in third century Babylonia as to what
to do in 21st century Afghanistan.
Mr. Chabot. Excellent. Okay, thank you very much. And we
want to thank the very fine presentation by the panel this
afternoon. I think it was excellent testimony. And without
objection, members will have 5 legislative days to submit
questions or supplement their statements. And if there is no
further business to come before the committee, we are
adjourned. Thank you very much.
[Whereupon, at 2:59 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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