[Senate Hearing 112-608]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
S. Hrg. 112-608
NEXT STEPS IN SYRIA
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
AUGUST 1, 2012
__________
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts, Chairman
BARBARA BOXER, California RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey BOB CORKER, Tennessee
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
ROBERT P. CASEY, Jr., Pennsylvania MARCO RUBIO, Florida
JIM WEBB, Virginia JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma
JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire JIM DeMINT, South Carolina
CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
TOM UDALL, New Mexico MIKE LEE, Utah
William C. Danvers, Staff Director
Kenneth A. Myers, Jr., Republican Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Dobbins, Hon. James, director, International Security and Defense
Policy Center, RAND Corp., Washington, DC...................... 11
Prepared statement........................................... 15
Kerry, Hon. John F., U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, opening
statement...................................................... 1
Indyk, Hon. Martin, vice president and director of foreign
policy, Brookings Institution, Washington, DC.................. 6
Prepared statement........................................... 8
Lugar, Hon. Richard G., U.S. Senator from Indiana, opening
statement...................................................... 4
Tabler, Andrew, senior fellow, Program on Arab Politics,
Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Washington, DC...... 19
Prepared statement........................................... 21
(iii)
NEXT STEPS IN SYRIA
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WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1, 2012
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m., in
room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. John F. Kerry
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Senators Kerry, Casey, Webb, Shaheen, Coons,
Udall, Lugar, Corker, and Isakson.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN KERRY,
U.S. SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS
The Chairman. The hearing will come to order. Good morning.
Thank you all for being here with us today.
We have a very distinguished panel. We are grateful for
some good friends coming in here today to share thoughts with
us about an issue that is really dominating concerns in the
Middle East right now in many different ways and which presents
a lot of complicated policy questions, and that is the evolving
situation in Syria obviously.
I think all of my colleagues will agree that we are
currently looking at a dangerous and downward spiral in the
heart of the Middle East and one that has the potential--not
necessarily but certainly the potential--to threaten the
security of key regional friends and partners, including Israel
but other countries also. And it has profound strategic
implications for our country and for other countries in the
region. The international community, with American leadership
and support, must continue to help the opposition both in
ending Assad's reign of terror and in preparing for what comes
next after he is gone.
I know that reading today's newspapers, it is clear with
Kofi Annan's mission and the difficulties he has faced that
President Assad does not yet believe that, or at least
certainly does not evidence any indication that he is
contemplating that possibility. But most observers, most people
analyzing the situation and seeing increasing defections,
increasing violence, increasing capacity by the opposition, as
well as other indicators, draw the conclusion that the days are
numbered.
We know that Bashar al-Assad and his supporters are
steadily losing their grip, and as the fighting spreads to
Damascus and Aleppo and the defections from the Syrian military
increase--and they are--Assad's grip on power becomes more
tenuous. The July 18 bombing that eliminated at least four of
the regime's most dangerous henchmen demonstrated the growing
reach and sophistication of the armed opposition.
But on the other side, make no mistake. Assad's military is
a potent force and it remains a potent force so long as it
remains a unified and functioning force. And that is evidenced
by the appalling destruction that his forces are inflicting
upon Aleppo. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled their
homes, many of them children. All told, perhaps 20,000 people--
and these are estimates, obviously--have been killed and
hundreds of thousands more have had their lives forever
changed. And what is difficult about this is there was a period
there where the counting seemed to be going on on a relatively
precise and regular basis. Now the danger is people have
stopped counting to some degree, and we do not know completely
what is happening.
I am told by some people that certain things would be a
game-changer--use of weapons of mass destruction, for instance,
or some massive massacre. But that notion that a massive
massacre might be a game-changer somehow begs the question of
where to draw the distinction between 100 people a day, 1,000
people a week, 3,000-4,000 a month. And what does the total
mean to all of us and to the civilized world? That is certainly
something that Russia and China and some other countries in the
region need to ask themselves as we go forward here.
We all know the regime has threatened to use weapons of
mass destruction against foreign intervention, though it has
denied that it would deploy them against its own people. The
danger is not just Syria's use of these weapons. As the regime
slowly disintegrates, there is a very real danger that these
weapons could be misplaced, stolen, or fall into the wrong
hands.
We also know that al-Qaeda and other extremist groups are
seeking to capitalize on the instability. And as we have
learned from previous experiences in Lebanon and Iraq,
unwinding cycles of sectarian and terrorist violence can take
years. A negotiated political transition remains Syria's best
chance to avoid a further descent into chaos, and I think it is
clear that time is an important component of this. The longer
it goes on and the more disorganized and ad hoc that it is, the
greater the prospect that the very people you least want to see
involved become more engaged, the greater the prospect that
radicals have an opportunity to take advantage of the
situation. The faster it were to change and the more orderly it
were to change, the less prospect there is for the kind of
disruption that threatens the region and that empowers the very
people that you least want to see empowered.
That is something that ought to weigh heavily, I think, on
our Russian friends because I believe they have the greatest
ability to be the game-changers here. And so I think we need to
keep engaged very, very aggressively in our diplomacy and in
our efforts to try to persuade everybody to see what is in, in
fact, everybody's similar interests here.
But with Assad employing a scorched earth policy, the
longer his regime stays in power, the deeper Syria's plunge
into sectarian civil war is likely to be, and clearly the more
dangerous it is for all of the interests that many, many
countries share in that region.
So that is why it is imperative that we work to expedite
President Assad's exit. Clearly we need to continue to try to
convince Russia and China that it is in their interests to seek
a political transition that does not include Assad. I think
that the votes that have been taken thus far at the U.N. by
Russia and China are inevitably beginning to come back to haunt
them in ways that they are increasingly becoming aware of. So I
think we want to try to approach this thoughtfully, give them
the room to move, but also try to do so in a timeframe that
meets everybody's imperatives here.
I do believe the time has come to shift our emphasis at the
same time to other multilateral vehicles and not just have all
our eggs in one basket with respect to Russia. That means the
Friends of Syria or, if necessary, organizations such as NATO
or alliances ad hoc as we have done before in other instances
with the Gulf States or others in the region. What is clear is
we cannot appear to be feckless or impotent or ineffective in
the face of this kind of use of force by anybody against their
own people with the implications that it has for the region
itself.
And we cannot allow negotiations in the Security Council to
block the provision of vital support to the opposition--that
is, from humanitarian aid to nonlethal supplies. And I say that
because we all know that others in the region, the Saudis, the
Qataris, and others are pursuing their own view of interests,
and there certainly is no lack of lethal supplies at this point
moving around in that part of the world.
There are steps that the United States could take to help
the armed opposition, some of which we want to explore today,
and we want to explore a number of questions. What more can be
done to facilitate Arab efforts to increase the capabilities of
the Free Syrian Army as a cohesive fighting force? Is it
appropriate to share intelligence selectively and responsibly
with the opposition, particularly on regime force movements?
Are there specific instances where we may wish to provide
lethal assistance? Are calls for the creation of safe zones or
other forms of direct military intervention, such as a no-fly
zone--are they either practical or advisable?
I continue to believe that prudent military planning is an
imperative, but I also believe we have to be very clear-eyed
about that. It would be important not to repeat the mistakes of
the past by thinking we can just willy-nilly commit some forces
to a conflict without a defined or achievable objective and
certainly without sober evaluation of the costs and
implications thereof. That is owed not just to the American
people but certainly to the men and women of our Armed Forces
who have been stretched over these years.
Assad's removal is only the beginning. At last month's
Friends of Syria conference, 130 countries and entities agreed
to support a transition plan developed by a broad array of
Syrian opposition groups. That is not insignificant, my
friends. One hundred thirty countries have already agreed to a
transition plan, and increasingly countries in the region are
becoming more committed to that transition.
So we need to conduct greater planning with these groups
and the international community to prepare for that transition.
Our plans should include power-sharing provisions, ensure that
all of the key sects are brought into the process, give greater
definition than we have today to the Free Syrian Army and to
the opposition. That is something they have to do for
themselves, but we have to encourage it and help provide the
capacity for it and the framework for it, much as we did with
Libya and in other instances. In addition, we learned the hard
way in Iraq that a winner-take-all transition where key
minority groups are excluded and the military is unable to
provide basic security is simply a recipe for prolonged civil
war.
So to help us navigate these difficult policy challenges,
we have, as I said earlier, three very distinguished witnesses.
Ambassador Marin Indyk is vice president and director of
foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. He twice served as
our United States Ambassador to Israel and is a trusted advisor
and confidante to many of the members of this committee and
certainly to me as chair, and we value that.
Likewise, Ambassador Jim Dobbins, director of the
International Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND
Corp., previously served in numerous crisis management and
diplomatic troubleshooting assignments in Afghanistan, Kosovo,
Bosnia, Haiti, and Somalia.
And Andrew Tabler is a senior fellow in the Program on Arab
Politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and
he has spent years living in Syria. We welcome his knowledge
and expertise here today.
So thank you all for joining us today and we look forward
to your testimony and to a good dialogue.
Senator Lugar.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD G. LUGAR,
U.S. SENATOR FROM INDIANA
Senator Lugar. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I join
you in welcoming our distinguished witnesses. We will
appreciate their testimony as we continue to consider policy
options toward Syria.
I would mention in behalf of the committee that we have
been busy with regard to hearings on Syria, but they have been
closed and I felt, as did the chairman, it was very important
that we have an open hearing that we could hear the witnesses
but so could the public and so could the press and help
likewise our understanding as we have dialogue with our
constituents and others about this very, very important topic.
So we appreciate very much your coming.
I would just say since our last hearing in the committee in
April, the regime of Bashar al-Assad has carried out further
horrific killings, the chairman has mentioned, of innocent
civilians, reportedly the use of aircraft, helicopter gunships,
to attack cities, has made chilling threats to use chemical and
biological weapons to oppose foreign military intervention.
And we have witnessed Syria's descent into a civil war with
the cost in lives now exceeding 19,000 lives. Tens of thousands
of Syrians have fled to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq, and
some Syrian diplomats and military officers have defected
rather than to continue to associate themselves with the Assad
atrocities. A bombing by rebel forces killed three senior
military figures within Assad's inner circle last month.
Yet, we have little reason to be hopeful today for a
political settlement. For a third time, U.N. Security Council
efforts to address the crisis have been stymied by Russian and
Chinese intransigence, and the U.N. observer mission has been
drawn down. We have seen reports of the growing presence of
terrorists and jihadist elements in Syria attempting to take
advantage of the chaos.
Meanwhile, opposition forces and political groups who are
coordinating more still remain divided, and this raises
concerns that divisions within the opposition are a precursor
to what we might expect in a post-Assad political environment.
We remain hopeful that this bloody conflict will ultimately
yield to a political process that addresses legitimate
aspirations of the Syrian people. But the way forward is far
from clear as characterized by significant threats, and I
remain concerned about the creation of new space in Syria for
terrorist groups and the security of the country's stockpiles
of unconventional weapons. The risk that sectarian conflict in
Syria could spread is very real, and events on the ground will
affect Syria's neighbors, including our close ally Israel.
Now, although Assad's departure anytime soon is far from
certain, we should be preparing for what is, or who is, likely
to emerge after him. The United States must continue to work to
limit regional consequences stemming from the Syrian conflict.
We must also focus intelligence and counterproliferation assets
on containing the Syrian chemical and biological weapons
threats. We should be ready to respond quickly to opportunities
to help safeguard these stockpiles in a post-Assad environment.
More broadly, we should recognize that our ability to
manufacture a predictable outcome of this crisis is extremely
limited. Intervention scenarios in Syria come with risks of
unintended consequences. We should be skeptical about actions
that could lead the United States to an expensive military
commitment in Syria.
I thank the witnesses and look forward to their testimony.
And thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Senator Lugar.
I might just mention, as you begin your testimony,
obviously one of the complications here is I think most people
feel that the last thing you want is to pursue a policy that
winds up with a total implosion of the Syrian state because
that would be the most dangerous thing of all. And so there is
a real threading of the needle here that is pretty tricky to,
as I say, get the faster resolution rather than the longer. And
I hope you will each sort of address how you think that might
be leveraged more effectively now and sort of what options are
in the alternative as we go along here.
So, Ambassador Indyk, would you lead off please and then
Ambassador Dobbins and Mr. Tabler.
Thank you.
STATEMENT OF HON. MARTIN INDYK, VICE PRESIDENT AND DIRECTOR OF
FOREIGN POLICY, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION, WASHINGTON, DC
Ambassador Indyk. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman,
Senator Lugar, gentlemen. It is a great pleasure to address the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee again, and thank you for the
invitation.
At the outset, I want to simply associate myself with the
remarks of both the chairman and Senator Lugar and say that
they provide a very good introduction for what I have to say,
and therefore I am not going to repeat what you have said,
simply agree with it, and focus on the two things that in my
short presentation might be most useful to you, which is, first
of all, I was asked to define American interests in this
situation and then to talk about what the United States can do.
I want to emphasize that the way things are going, as
Senator Kerry has already suggested, things are likely to get a
lot worse before they get any better, and the human suffering,
therefore, is likely only to increase, perhaps dramatically.
And therefore, what the United States does is not only
important but it is urgent.
In terms of our interests, they can be summarized I think
quite simply, and I think it is fairly noncontroversial in this
context. Syria is, of course, as you all know, geostrategically
located in the center of the Arab-Israeli heartland bordering
Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, and Israel and has served in the
recent decades as the conduit for Iran's efforts to advance its
bid for dominance in this sensitive Arab-Israeli heartland. The
interests from the United States point of view is because Syria
is in a sense in a pivotal position how to draw it into the
American-led Arab-Israeli peace camp, and much of the effort
over the past decades, since the Nixon Presidency, have been
focused on trying to bring Syria into peace with Israel. And
that would serve two core interests of the United States,
strategic interests, which is stability in this vital but
volatile region and the security of our ally Israel.
Beyond that, cutting the Syrian conduit that Iran has used
to promote instability on Israel's borders through its
Hezbollah and Hamas proxies is also a strategic imperative.
Preventing the proliferation or use of weapons of mass
destruction, preventing
al-Qaeda from taking advantage of the chaos there to establish
a base of operations in such a sensitive area, promoting
Lebanon's independence from Syria, and deterring Syrian
destabilization of Jordan are also important American
interests.
Finally, the United States has an interest in advancing the
human rights of the Syrian people, which is entirely consistent
with our approach to the Arab Awakenings which is to support
the pursuit of freedom and dignity for the people of the Arab
world.
The point about this is that in other parts of the Arab
world, as the United States has had to confront what to do as
the revolutions have spread from Tunisia to Egypt now to Syria,
is that there was always an inherent tension between our
strategic interests and our values, our desire to promote
freedom and dignity for the Arab people. In Syria there is no
such tension. Our strategic interests and our values coincide
in a way that I think makes this different and again imperative
that we act in an effective and urgent way to ensure an orderly
transition, if that is at all possible, to a post-Assad Syria.
The question, of course, is how to do that, and I have five
steps that I think are important. I focused on the diplomatic
side of things. That is my area of expertise. I know you have
questions about the military side of things, and I am happy to
participate in that, but that is not what my presentation is
focused on.
Diplomatically, as the chairman has said, the most
important challenge at the moment is to work on the Russians
because Russian backing for the regime is important in terms of
its avoiding the isolation in the international community and
because we need U.N. Security Council cover for so many of the
other steps that we need to take. The Chinese are not the
problem here. They will go along if we can move the Russians,
but our singular inability to do that up to now is hamstringing
our efforts to concert an international intervention in support
of this process of an orderly transition to a post-Assad Syria.
How to do that, I think, is going to be advantaged in
precisely the way you suggested in your opening remarks, Mr.
Chairman, by the fact that the Russians sooner rather than
later are going to recognize that their position in support of
the Assad regime is basically untenable, and there are already
indications that they see that. If they are worried, as I think
they are, about chaos on their southern borders, the rise of
Islamic extremists that can have an influence on their own
Muslim populations, then sticking with Assad is the surest way
possible of guaranteeing the outcome that they seek to prevent.
And that surely must be coming more and more obvious to them as
time goes on. If they are worried, as I think they are, about
Syria being shifted from the Russian column into the American
or Western column, then again, the more that they stick with
Assad, the more that they are guaranteeing the result that they
seek to avoid.
So it is time, I think, to address them at the highest
levels, and I think more can be done by the President with
President Putin to try to find a way forward that starts with
agreeing that Assad has to go and focusing on what it is that
needs to be done to ensure that what comes after him is better
than the chaos that is now being threatened.
The second step is, I think, critically important and we
can play a role there. It is to guarantee those communities
that now support the regime, because they fear the consequences
of breaking with it, that there is a secure future for them in
a post-Assad Syria. This particularly applies to the Alawites
but also to the Christians and other minority communities. How
to do that in a credible way is something we can perhaps
discuss, but it is an urgent priority to make the Alawite
community in particular feel that there is an alternative to
the scenario that seems most likely to unfold if we do not find
a way to stop the descent into chaos which is the creation of
an Alawite rump state in the mountains around Latakia and
Tartus that will only guarantee a deepening civil war,
sectarian conflict with dramatically negative consequences.
Connected to that, I think, is the need to work actively,
although below the radar, on Assad's Alawite generals. The
defections that the chairman referred to are taking place of
senior officers, but they are not the Alawite generals and we
have not yet seen any defection of whole units. Indeed, it is
interesting to note that for all of the publicity given to the
defections, the fact that the army has essentially stuck
together in support of the regime is, I think, a reflection of
the fact that they, like the regime itself, see at the moment
that there is only a binary choice: to kill or to be killed.
And we have to start to work on them to try to convince them
that there is a place for them in a post-Assad Syria. Indeed,
they can play an important role as the army in securing the
stability of the state in this post-Assad environment. We have
learnt from Iraq how dangerous it becomes when the army
disintegrates, and we have to think about whether there is a
way that we can take advantage of the incredible strain on the
army officers to convince them that there is life after Assad
rather than the alternative of just sticking with him and going
down with him. Again, I have some other ideas about that which
we can explore.
Coordination with the Arabs and Turks and Israelis who have
the greatest stake in what happens in post-Assad Syria is also
essential. That is already taking place and I think that as the
Saudis and the Qataris and the Turks take the lead in terms of
arming and training the opposition, we have an important
supportive role to play. But we also have to talk to them about
something that I think they are less concerned about than we
are, and I think they should be concerned about it, which is
that they should not be doing things which have the potential
to fuel a sectarian Sunni-Shia-Alawi conflict that can spread
quite easily from Syria to Lebanon, to Iraq, and to Bahrain as
Iran decides to play payback for the loss of its Syrian ally in
Bashar al-Assad. And there is a real danger to our interests
and, I would argue, to their interests in this kind of
sectarian breakout, and I do not think they are sufficiently
concerned about it but they should be.
Finally, the opposition. It is essential that the
opposition get its act together, and it seems that we have
limited ability to influence that but we have to try, I think,
a lot harder, particularly with the insiders who are carrying
the fight on at the moment, to try to find a way to get them to
act in unison to put forward a coherent political platform and
to convey to these minority communities, the Alawites and the
Christians, the guarantees that I talked about, that they have
a future in a post-Assad Syria as well. None of these things
are easy and there is no sure-fire recipe for producing an
orderly transition, but we have to keep our eye focused on that
and do whatever we can in an urgent and effective way to try to
bring it about.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Indyk follows:]
Prepared Statement of Martin Indyk
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to address your
esteemed committee on a matter of critical urgency and importance to
U.S. interests in the Middle East. The situation in Syria today is a
source of immense human suffering with a death toll of over 100 Syrian
citizens a day, and a cumulative death toll that exceeds 20,000 people.
Now a major refugee crisis is brewing: hundreds of thousands are
fleeing fighting in Syria's main cities of Damascus and Aleppo and are
crossing Syria's borders with Jordan, Turkey, and Lebanon. Images of
Syrian artillery and warplanes attacking the suburbs of ancient Aleppo,
reports of sectarian massacres, open discussion of circumstances in
which Syria's arsenal of chemical weapons might be used, and
indications of jihadist elements joining the battle, all point to a
heightening conflict in which the death toll is bound to rise, perhaps
dramatically. If Syria is indeed ``spinning out of control,'' as
Defense Secretary Panetta recently declared, then what he has witnessed
in the past 16 months of revolt might just be the harbinger of a far
greater human disaster to come.
This is especially alarming because Syria is not like any of the
other Arab countries that have undergone revolution since January 2011.
The regime represents an Alawite minority community that numbers some
1.5 million people and enjoys the support of a Christian community of
an additional 2.2 million people. That represents roughly 20 percent of
the population. The Alawites fear that if the regime falls, they will
be slaughtered--that there is no place for them in a post-Assad, Sunni-
dominated Syria. Sixteen months of killing has not yet generated any
major defections from these minority communities--only Sunni officers,
diplomats, and business elites are now breaking with the regime. With
their backs to the wall, the Alawite regime considers its choice as
binary--either kill or be killed. And it has a well-armed fighting
force of perhaps 300,000, a paramilitary force--the feared ``shabiha''
(ghosts)--of several more thousand, and the backing of Iran and
Hezbollah to carry on a fight to the death.
Although the regime and its core supporters have the will and means
to fight on, it is nevertheless impossible to imagine that they will
prevail against a Sunni majority that has every right to be enraged by
Assad's killing spree and that is gaining strength as it garners
fighting experience and outside military support from the Sunni states
of Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. Already the regime has ceded
control over much of the country and its borders; the Syrian Kurds are
busy establishing an autonomous zone in the east; the economy is in
free fall; and its international isolation is growing.
Since the dynamics of this situation suggest that things will get a
lot worse before they get any better, and the human suffering will only
increase, perhaps dramatically, what is the United States to do?
It is worthwhile in these circumstances to begin with a definition
of United States core interests in Syria, which is geo-strategically
located in the center of the Arab-Israeli heartland--bordering Lebanon,
Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, and Israel--and which has served as the conduit
for Iran's efforts to advance it's bid for dominance in this sensitive
region. Henry Kissinger famously remarked that there could be no Arab-
Israeli war without Egypt and no Arab-Israeli peace without Syria. For
that reason, successive United States administrations have sought to
bring Syria into the peace camp with Israel in order to shore up two
core, strategic interests: stability in a volatile but vital region;
and security for Israel. In that context, cutting the Syrian conduit
that Iran uses to promote instability on Israel's borders through its
Hezbollah and Hamas proxies is also a strategic imperative. Similarly,
preventing Syria from proliferating or using weapons of mass
destruction serves our strategic interests. The promotion of Lebanese
independence from Syria and the deterrence of Syrian destabilization of
Jordan are also important American interests though of less strategic
weight. Finally, the United States has an interest in advancing the
human rights of the Syrian people, consistent with its pursuit of
freedom and dignity for the people of the Arab world.
In other Arab states where the people have revolted against their
authoritarian rulers, the United States has had to balance promotion of
its values against the pursuit of its interests. In Libya, for example,
the United States had a quite limited strategic interest but chose to
support military intervention because of the desire to prevent the
almost certain massacre of the citizens of Benghazi. In Bahrain, by
contrast, the United States chose to put its strategic interest in
stability in neighboring Saudi Arabia ahead of its support for the
rights of Bahrain's citizens, one-third of whom were in the streets
demanding fundamental reforms.
In Syria, however, there is no such tension between American
strategic interests and American concern for the human rights of the
Syrian people. Both would be well-served by the prompt removal of the
Assad regime, especially because its continuation in power will not
only cause immense suffering to the Syrian people, but also because the
longer it stays the higher the likelihood of a descent into chaos that
could cause severe damage to our other interests in Syria and the wider
region (the stability of Syria's neighbors, avoidance of conflict with
Israel, prevention of the use or proliferation of Syria's chemical
weapons, avoidance of the spread of a sectarian Sunni/Shia conflict,
etc.).
Thus, how soon the regime falls, and how it passes from power have
become vitally important questions for U.S. policy. But the Obama
administration finds itself hamstrung in this situation. It has good
reason to be reluctant to intervene militarily: the American people are
weary after 10 years of war in the greater Middle East; the
international community is, at least for the time being, divided; the
Syrian army still wields considerable capabilities--including chemical
weapons--that could drive up the cost of intervention; and the
opposition is divided and unable so far to present a coherent
alternative that the United States could actively help take power. All
of these factors can and probably will change over time: the American
people will become increasingly angry with the wholesale slaughter of
innocents; Russia and China will find it increasingly untenable to
block U.N. Security Council action; the Syrian army will likely crack
under the strain of prolonged conflict with its own citizens; and the
opposition is already beginning to coalesce around a more coherent
platform for transitioning to a post-Assad Syria.
However, the longer it takes for these developments to unfold, the
harder it will be to effect an orderly transition to a post-Assad
Syria. The Alawites could repair to a ``rump state'' in the mountains
around Tartus and Latakia, resulting in a prolonged sectarian civil war
that could generate ethnic cleansing, large numbers of displaced
persons and refugees, and a possible overflow to Lebanon (where Shia
Hezbollah dominates over restive Sunni and Christian communities), Iraq
(where a Shia government in Baghdad is now confronting an al-Qaeda
resurgence), and potentially Bahrain (where a Sunni king rules over a
Shia majority in revolt and where Iran might well play ``payback'' for
the loss of its Syrian ally).
Time is therefore of the essence, and action needs to be taken
nothwithstanding the many constraints. I believe a combination of the
following steps is now necessary:
1. Work With the Russians on a Political Process: Because Russian
backing for the regime is increasingly untenable, and because we need
U.N. Security Council cover for so many of the other steps, it is
essential to persuade the Russians that their interests can be better
protected by working with us rather than against us. Secretary of State
Clinton has been working this issue hard but as the Russians begin to
see the light, it will be important for the President to engage Putin
on a more regular and intense basis to help remove his distrust of our
motives and convince him that we have a common interest in preventing
the rise of Islamic extremism near his borders by working on an orderly
transition together. That orderly transition begins with Assad standing
aside in order for a United States and Russian-sponsored political
dialogue to be launched. At the moment the Russians insist that the
dialogue be with Assad, which is a nonstarter for the opposition. We
have to find a way to convince them that helping to remove Assad is the
only way to produce the dialogue that they want.
2. Guarantee the Christians and Alawites: As long as these
communities fear for their very survival they will stick with the
regime. They need to receive credible guarantees that their lives and
interests will be preserved in a post-Assad, Sunni-dominated Syria.
These guarantees will likely need to be backed by a U.N.-sponsored
protective force since they will have no faith in commitments extended
by the opposition. Planning should get underway now for such a blue
helmet force that will need to be ready to intervene either when Assad
steps aside or when he is overthrown. But there can be no such force
without Russian cooperation (hence step #1).
3. Work on the Alawite Generals: If credible guarantees can be
provided to their community, these generals may be more willing to
consider splitting with Assad and his henchmen. Their units are already
under considerable strain; their inner sanctum has already been
penetrated; some of them must see the writing on the wall. If an
orderly transition is to be sustained, the army will need to play a
stabilizing role which requires generals with their intact units
defecting to the opposition. The Russians can play a useful role here
if they are in harness with us; other means can be used to contact
them. At a certain point it might also makes sense for Israeli and
Turkish units to conduct large-scale exercises on their respective
borders with Syria (they each have recently reinforced their troops
there). IDF positions on the Golan Heights are 40 kilometers from
Damascus; Turkey has a lengthy border with Syria. Military exercises on
their own sides of the border could concentrate the minds of the Syrian
generals on the potential for a three-front war if they don't move
against Assad and his inner circle.
4. Coordinate With the Arabs, Turks, and Israelis: Saudi Arabia and
Qatar have taken the lead in concerting Arab League opposition to the
Assad regime and in arming the opposition. We need to work closely with
them to ensure that their arms are going to the elements in the
opposition that have an interest in an orderly post-Assad future for
all Syria's citizens. In particular, the Saudis and Qataris need to be
cautioned against lighting a sectarian fire that could easily spread to
Bahrain and cause immense instability in the gulf.
Turkey has a key role to play in promoting an orderly transition.
Prime Minister Erdogan and Foreign Minister Davutoglu have spoken about
the creation of humanitarian corridors across the Turkish border in
Syria. With the potential for a large-scale refugee inflow, the Turks
may soon be ready to move. However, that will require a U.N. cover and
NATO support. We should be planning for both those contingencies now.
We should be consulting closely with the Israelis, given their
knowledge of the Syrian army and their intense interest in ensuring
that Syria's chemical weapons are not transferred to Hezbollah or fall
into the hands of jihadist elements. There may be low profile ways in
which they can help the opposition too.
5. Concert the Opposition: One of the most problematic challenges
to the achievement of an orderly transition--beyond persuading Assad to
step down--is to get the opposition to generate a coherent and credible
leadership that commands the loyalty of a majority of the many factions
that have now assumed a role in the Syrian revolution. Progress on this
effort has been frustratingly slow. Hopefully the greater focus now on
the internal opposition will yield a more detailed and accurate mapping
of all these groups that will then make an effort to unify them more
possible.
None of these steps are easy and there is no sure fire recipe for
producing an orderly transition to a post-Assad Syria. Nevertheless,
there is so much at stake for our strategic interests and so much to
gain from preventing a descent into chaos that we must do our best by
acting quickly and resolutely.
The Chairman. Thank you, Ambassador. Appreciate it.
Ambassador Dobbins.
STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES DOBBINS, DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL
SECURITY AND DEFENSE POLICY CENTER, RAND CORPORATION,
WASHINGTON, DC
Ambassador Dobbins. Thank you, Senator Kerry, Senator
Lugar. It is always a great privilege and a pleasure to appear
before this committee and I thank you for having me back again.
As you said, Mr. Chairman, in your opening remarks, I think
I have been invited not as an expert on Syria, which I am not,
but as somebody who has had experience in previous crisis
management situations, military interventions, stabilization
operations
to perhaps comment on what those lessons might mean for the
choices we face with respect to Syria.
I would like to start by examining the case for a greater
external intervention in Syria and then look at the
requirements for post-war stabilization and reconstruction in
that country.
In considering any possible military intervention in or
over Syria, there seem to be at least three questions which
would need to be addressed. First, whether we should, in fact,
support and perhaps participate in such an operation. Second,
what form such an operation might look like, and thirdly, what
sort of international role the United States and others might
play in a post-conflict reconstruction phase.
In determining whether or not an external military
intervention would occur, it seems to me that three conditions
would need to be fulfilled. First of all, there would have to
be an adequate justification. Second, there would have to be
some prospect for success. And third, the interests of major
powers with the capacity to influence events would have to be
sufficiently engaged to make them accept the risks and the
costs.
I think the first of those criteria can be pretty easily
dealt with. I think in both of your own remarks you have
already laid out the case that justifies international
intervention should states choose to move in that direction. It
is clear that President Assad is not exercising his
responsibility to protect his population, and it seems to me
clear that the international community has just cause to step
in to do so if it chooses.
The next question would be whether there is some prospect
for success in such an operation. Peace enforcement operations
in Syria would be quite demanding. Syria has a reasonably well
equipped and so far largely loyal army, relatively modern air
defenses, a large arsenal of chemical weapons. It has at least
one ally, Iran, and some support from Russia.
On the other hand, the Assad regime's core domestic support
comes from a minority of the population. The rebels are
increasingly numerous and effective, if not yet politically
unified. The rebellion draws its support from the most numerous
segment of the population. The rebels enjoy an effective
sanctuary in neighboring Turkey, and whereas the regime is
largely isolated internationally, the insurgents are already
drawing moral and material support from a very wide range of
countries, including the United States.
Most observers have concluded, including if one reads in
the press, most U.S. Government analysts have concluded that
the Syrian regime's days are numbered, that it is only a
question of time before Assad and his regime will fall, the
major issues being how much damage it will do before that
occurs and how much chaos will ensue thereafter.
This is in contrast to Libya. In Libya, the United States
and its partners intervened in support of what was at the time
the losing side in that civil war and helped it reverse the
tide. In Syria, by contrast, the issue would seem to be whether
to intervene on what appears to be the winning side in order to
help it terminate the conflict more quickly.
But even if direct military engagement could accelerate an
acceptable conclusion, it would not be cost- or risk-free, and
therefore, it raises the question of whether we or others have
adequate strategic interests to accept the risks and the costs.
I think largely because of Syria's alignment with Iran, the
conservative Sunni regimes of the region have a strong interest
in Assad's fall.
Similarly, the newly democratizing Arab nations have a
similar interest, one that both secular and Islamist parties
can share since both democrats and Islamists can both expect to
increase their influence in a post-Assad Syria.
The United States and its European allies also have a
strong interest in Assad's fall, again largely due to that
regime's alignment with Iran. Syria provides the main bridge
through which Iran is able to support Hezbollah and Hamas,
influence Lebanon, out-flank its Sunni Gulf adversaries, and
threaten Israel. Absent that bridge, it will be much more
difficult for Iran to support any extremist groups in the
Levant, and without an ability to do that, Iran would retain
little practical means of damaging Israel. The case for
international and specifically American support for the Syrian
uprising, thus, seems to warrant serious consideration.
The next question would be what an intervention might look
like. The United States is already providing nonlethal
equipment and advice. So the question would be to move beyond
that to provide some levels of lethal equipment or, even beyond
that, to join in some sort of international intervention
perhaps in the form of an imposed no-fly zone. This would
certainly be more difficult than the air campaigns that the
United States led over Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, or
Libya, in none of which the United States lost a single pilot.
But the task does not seem beyond the capacity of the United
States and its partners.
There is, of course, the danger that any external military
involvement in Syria, if it lacked broad international support
and broad international participation, would only encourage
others to interfere on behalf of the regime, thereby extending
and even widening the conflict. In order to avoid such an
outcome, I believe, therefore, that several conditions would
need to be fulfilled before the United States would want to go
down this path.
First, the Syrian opposition would need to ask for such
help. It has not done so and it may never do so. But they could
be quietly encouraged to consider the possibility seriously.
Second, most Arab League governments would need to endorse
such a call as they did with respect to Libya. Turkey, and
Saudi Arabia in particular would need to take the lead, much as
Britain and France did with respect to Libya, in canvassing for
broader international support for such an operation and in
participating in any military coalition. Most NATO allies,
particularly the more powerful, would also need to participate
in such an effort.
A U.N. Security Council resolution would certainly be
desirable, but as was the case in Kosovo, not absolutely
necessary in order to secure broad international support and
approbation.
For these reasons, I do not think the United States should
get out in front of the Syrian opposition or the Arab League or
the major regional powers in championing such an action, but I
do believe that the still-escalating violence in Syria will
generate more serious consideration of these steps in the
coming weeks and that the United States should not be resisting
such a flow but instead trying to encourage quietly the meeting
of these conditions. In the meantime, the administration should
consider how to step up other forms of support for the
resistance.
This brings me to my third question, which is what about
post-war stabilization. I suspect the major question in
American minds is whether we are in danger of being sucked into
another manpower-intensive stabilization operation that then
turns into a long counterinsurgency campaign. I think this is
unlikely for the following reasons.
First, as a general rule, civil wars that end in negotiated
settlements often require some third-party oversight to
implement whatever agreement has been reached because the two
parties remain armed, they remained mutually suspicious and
they are unlikely to fulfill the conditions of any peace
settlement because they fear that the other side will fail to
do so, and therefore, some third party is usually necessary to
oversee implementation.
By contrast, civil wars that end in a clear-cut military
victory by one side and a clear-cut defeat by the other
generally are less dependent on external intervention to
provide security and oversee the implementation or the
emergence of a sustained peace.
It seems to me that serious civil war is unlikely to end in
a negotiated agreement between Assad and the opposition.
Provided the rebels get sufficient external support, the war
also seems unlikely to result in an indefinite stalemate. A
more likely result--not a certain one, but a more likely
result--will be something more akin to Libya in that the rebels
will eventually win decisively and the former regime will
collapse and be unable to reconstitute a threat.
On the other hand, Syria more resembles Iraq than it does
Libya in the sense that it is divided religiously and
ethnically, not just tribally. And the likelihood, as Martin
has already indicated, of sectarian violence in the aftermath
of the fall of the regime is quite likely. The United States,
we will recall, intervened in Kosovo to protect the Albanian
Muslims from the orthodox Serbs, and then spent the next 10
years protecting that Serb minority from the Muslim majority.
We had the same experience in Iraq where we intervened. We
liberated the Shia majority and then spent much of the next
several years trying to protect the Sunni minority from the
retribution.
It is not impossible that we will see this kind of descent
into sectarian war in Libya, and al-Qaeda has already
positioned itself to engage in this kind of sectarian violence.
In my written testimony, I provided some details, courtesy
of my colleague, Seth Jones, on al-Qaeda's penetration into
Syria which should be a real source of alarm. We face the
prospect of an expanding al-Qaeda presence and that of other
extremist groups, and a presence allied effectively with a
rising Sunni-dominated resistance movement, a presence, that
once consolidated, can eventually pose a risk to all of Syria's
neighbors, including Israel, and to the United States.
In order to avoid an Iraq-like sectarian violence in Syria,
it will be important to work during the civil war, not just
after it, to unify the opposition, marginalize al-Qaeda and
other extremist groups, encourage defections from the regime,
particularly from its Alawite core, and encourage inclusion of
representatives of that community within the opposition
leadership. Martin has already spoken about all of those
things. I certainly agree, but I also tend to think that our
influence will be greater during the war than afterward and
greater if we are engaged on the side of the opposition than if
we are standing on the sidelines providing unsolicited advice.
I am sure the Obama administration is already advising the
Syrian opposition along these lines, but our ability to advance
these goals will tend to be in direct proportion to the help
the United States provides the opposition in their fight to
overthrow the regime. Promises of post-war aid will mean less
in forging a relationship with the eventual rulers of Syria
than decisive action now. The new Syrian leadership will be
formed in the crucible of war and in all likelihood will prove
resistant to the admixture of elements that did not participate
in the fight or to influence from governments that did not
support them in it. It would, for instance, be a great mistake
to allow the emerging leadership of Syria to conclude that al-
Qaeda had done more to help them prevail than did the United
States.
I am pleased to learn that the State Department, through
the U.S. Institute for Peace, has been working with Syrian
emigres and more recent refugees on post-war planning and
reconstruction. This is very important. But what is more
important now for the U.S. Government than drafting plans is
forging relationships with those likely to next govern Syria.
These relationships should be developed at many levels--
diplomatic, covert, military, economic, and political--to
include democracy building work by our Republican and
Democratic institutes, and contacts with individual Members of
Congress, as well as with all the relevant arms of the
executive branch.
As I said, my expectation is that Syria's civil war will
probably result in the regime's collapse, not a negotiated
settlement, that the victors will not want foreign troops on
the ground, and that there will, therefore, be no serious
consideration of a large-scale manned stabilization force.
Having myself been involved in international military
operations, as you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, in Somalia, Haiti,
Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan, not all of which were famously
successful, I would be the last to minimize the complexities,
dangers, and costs associated with any such effort in Syria. It
is for this reason that I do not believe the United States
should become the standard bearer for such an intervention. I
do believe, however, that the United States should up its
assistance to the rebels, quietly let those on the front lines,
particularly Turkey and Saudi Arabia, know that it will back
initiatives they may wish to take toward more direct military
engagement, and provided the earlier-mentioned conditions are
met, America should provide those military assets needed for
success that only the United States possesses in adequate
numbers.
Thank you again for having me.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Dobbins follows:]
Prepared Statement of James Dobbins
Chairman Kerry, Ranking Member Lugar, and members of the committee,
thank you for the opportunity to appear before you this morning. I come
to this discussion about policy toward Syria not as a country or even
regional expert, but as someone with experience of other civil wars,
international military interventions, stability operations and post
conflict reconstruction efforts.
In debates over earlier missions, I observed that those most
familiar with the conflicted societies in question often tend to be the
most pessimistic about the prospects for pacifying and reforming them.
By contrast, those who come from a background in stabilization and
reconstruction tend to believe that peace can be restored and some
measure of political and economic reform achieved, but only with a
significant commitment of time and effort.
A third category of individual, those with little knowledge of the
society in question or the process of stabilization and reconstruction,
sometimes believe that the desired results can be achieved quickly,
easily, and cheaply. This group was much more in evidence before our
invasion of Iraq than it is today. Indeed, the pendulum may have swung
too far in the opposite direction, encouraging an equally erroneous
belief that military interventions can never produce positive results
at acceptable costs.
In considering any possible military intervention in or over Syria,
there are several questions to be addressed. First, should the United
States support and perhaps even participate in such an operation? If
the answer is yes, then second, what form should such an operation take
and what role should the United States play? Third, what should be the
international and American role in the post conflict reconstruction
phase?
Three criteria will dominate any decision to intervene militarily:
the humanitarian, the practical, and the strategic. Has the violence
reached a level that both justifies and provides broad international
support for intervention? Is there a reasonable prospect that such an
intervention could succeed in ending the fighting on acceptable terms?
Are the strategic interests of states--in particular those powerful
enough to effectively intervene--sufficiently engaged to lead them to
do so? Unless the answer to all these questions is yes, external
military intervention to stop the fighting is unlikely.
The first of these criteria can be readily established as regards
Syria. A repressive regime with a history of extreme abuse is making
war on its own people, shelling and bombing its major cities. This
behavior has been widely, indeed almost universally condemned, but in
reaction to repeated demands to halt attacks on its civilian
population, the regime has only escalated the level of violence.
Clearly the Syrian Government is not fulfilling its responsibility to
protect its population, and the international community now has just
cause to step in to do so.
But sufficient justification does not automatically translate into
practical feasibility or sufficient motivation. Peace enforcement
operations in Syria would be quite demanding. Syria has a reasonably
well equipped and so far largely loyal army, relatively modern air
defenses and a large arsenal of chemical weapons. It has at least one
ally, Iran, and some support from Russia. On the other hand, the Assad
regime's core domestic support comes from a minority of the population;
the rebels are increasingly numerous and effective, if still not yet
politically unified; the rebellion draws its support from the most
numerous segment of the population, that is to say the Sunni community;
the rebels enjoy an effective sanctuary in neighboring Turkey; and
whereas the regime is largely isolated internationally, the insurgents
are already drawing moral and material support from a wide range of
countries including the United States.
Most observers, including it seems U.S. Government analysts,
believe the Syrian regime's days to be numbered, the open issues being
how much damage it will do before falling and how much chaos will ensue
thereafter. In Libya, the United States and its partners intervened in
support of what was--at the time--the losing side and helped it reverse
the tide. In Syria by contrast, the issue would seem to be whether to
intervene on what appears to be the winning side in order to help it
more quickly terminate the conflict.
Even if direct international military engagement could accelerate
an acceptable conclusion to the conflict, it would not be cost or risk
free. This is where the strategic interest of external parties comes
into play. Largely because of Syria's alignment with Iran, the
conservative Sunni regimes of the region have a strong interest in
Assad's fall. The newly democratizing Arab nations have a similar
interest, one that both secular and Islamist parties can share, since
both democrats and Islamists can expect to increase their influence in
a post-Assad Syria.
The United States and its European allies also have a strong
interest in Assad's fall, again largely due to that regime's alignment
with Iran. Syria provides the main bridge by which Iran is able to
support Hezbollah and Hamas, influence Lebanon, outflank its Sunni Gulf
adversaries and threaten Israel. Absent that bridge, it will be much
more difficult for Iran to support for extremist groups in the Levant
without which Iran would retain little practical means of damaging
Israel.
The case for international and specifically American support for
the Syrian uprising thus seems worth serious consideration, both as
regards justification, feasibility and strategic interest. The next
question is what such an intervention might look like and how it might
be structured.
The rebels are already getting arms, equipment, training and
sanctuary from abroad, although so far the American role has reportedly
been limited to nonlethal equipment and advice. A further step might be
overt international military involvement, which could take the form of
some aerial engagement, perhaps to impose a ``no-fly'' zone over some
or all of Syria. The enforcement of such a zone would almost certainly
require substantial American participation, particularly in the early
stages when Syrian air defenses would need to be taken out. Doing so
would present a tougher challenge than faced during the air campaigns
over Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan or Iraq, in none of which the United
States lost a single pilot, but the task is hardly beyond the capacity
of the United States and its partners, so long as regional states
provide basing and overflight rights.
There is the danger that external military involvement in the
Syrian civil war will only encourage others to increase their backing
of the regime, thereby extending and even widening the conflict. In
order to avoid such an outcome, there are several preconditions that,
in my judgment, would need to be met before the United States would
want to consider backing and participating in any such effort. First,
the Syrian opposition would need to ask for such help. So far they have
not and they may never do so. But they might be quietly encouraged to
consider the possibility seriously. Second, most Arab League
governments would need to endorse such a call, as they did with respect
to Libya. Turkey and Saudi Arabia, in particular, would need to take
the lead, much as Britain and France did with respect to Libya, on
canvassing for broader international support and participating in the
military coalition. Most NATO allies would need to support and several
of the most important would need to participate in such an effort. A
U.N. Security Council mandate for military action, such as was had in
Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Libya, would also be highly desirable, but, as
was demonstrated in Kosovo, not absolutely necessary to secure broad
international approbation.
Russia and China can be expected to oppose any such intervention,
even if it had clear Syrian rebel and overwhelming regional support.
Russia might even increase its material assistance to the Syrian
regime, although it seems unlikely that Moscow would risk Russian
forces in confrontation with a very broad international coalition.
Indeed, faced with the prospect of such a coalition and the thereby
increased likelihood of a rebel victory, Moscow might even decide to
step out of the way rather than be humiliated and lose any remaining
influence it might have in post-war Syria.
I do not think that the United States should get out in front of
the Syrian opposition, the Arab League, the major regional powers and
its European allies in publicly championing such action. But I do
believe that the still escalating violence in Syria will generate more
serious consideration of an external intervention in each of those
quarters. I believe the United States should not resist such a flow but
instead begin quietly trying to channel it, as the Obama administration
ultimately did with respect to Libya. In the meantime, the
administration should be considering how to step up other forms of
support for the resistance.
This brings me to my third question: what about post-war
stabilization and reconstruction? Here, I suspect that the major
question in American minds is whether we are in danger of being sucked
into another manpower intensive stabilization operation that then turns
into a counterinsurgency campaign. I think not, for the following
reasons.
First, as a general rule, civil wars that end in negotiated
settlements are normally more in need third-party oversight if peace is
to stick. Both parties remain armed and mutually suspicious and neither
will implement those elements of the peace accord that might weaken its
capacity for self-defense. Only a substantial third force can provide
sufficient confidence to both parties to the agreement to carry out its
provisions. By contrast, those civil wars that end in clear-cut
victories rather than negotiated settlements or drawn out stalemates
tend to be less prone to resumption, and the societies in question tend
to be less dependent on external forces for their security in the
immediate post-war environment.
Syria's civil war seems unlikely to end in a negotiated agreement
between Assad and the opposition. Provided the rebels get sufficient
external support, the war also seems unlikely to result in an
indefinite stalemate. A more likely result will be something more akin
to Libya, in that the rebels will eventually win decisively, and the
former regime will collapse and be unable to constitute a threat to its
successor.
On the other hand, Syria more resembles Iraq (and former
Yugoslavia) than Libya, in that it is divided religiously and
ethnically and not just tribally. As the persecuted Shia majority in
Iraq, once liberated, turned on its Sunni oppressors, and as the
persecuted Muslim majority in Kosovo, once liberated, turned on its
Serbian Orthodox oppressors, so in Syria, revengeful Sunni extremists
seem quite likely to turn on the Alawite minority.
Al-Qaeda is already positioning itself to engage in such sectarian
violence. As my RAND colleague, Seth Jones, has pointed out, al-Qaeda
makes up a small part of the resistance movement, but its strength
appears to be rising. Since last December, al-Qaeda has conducted
roughly two dozen attacks, primarily against Syrian security service
targets. Virtually all have been suicide attacks and car bombings, and
have resulted in more than 200 deaths and 1,000 injuries. According to
estimates from one intelligence service in the region, al-Qaeda has at
least doubled its ranks to some 200 operatives composed of Iraq jihad
veterans, small numbers of foreign fighters, and local extremist
recruits.
What explains al-Qaeda's rise? One factor is the draw of a new
jihad--smack in the middle of the Arab world. While roughly three
quarters of Syria's Muslims are Sunni, the government is ruled by a
minority Alawite sect that is an offshoot of the Shia version of Islam,
albeit one most Shia also regard as heretical. For Sunni extremist
groups like al-Qaeda, a Shia government in Sunni territory is
unacceptable.
Since 2003, Syria has been the primary transit hub for foreign
fighters headed to Iraq. Now the tables have turned on Syria. Al-Qaeda
in Iraq has apparently sent small arms and light weapons--including
rifles, light machine guns, and rocket propelled grenades--to its
Syrian contingent. Al-Qaeda in Iraq has also sent explosive experts to
augment its Syrian contingent's bombmaking capabilities and deployed
fighters to boost its ranks.
Jones reports that with this assistance Al-Qaeda leaders in Syria
have begun to establish an organized political and military structure.
They have appointed a management council, set up a headquarters, and
created regional networks with military and religious leaders to run
operations, manage cross-border facilitation, and procure weapons and
other supplies.
We are thus faced with the prospect of an expanding Al-Qaeda
presence in Syria, one allied effectively with a rising Sunni dominated
resistance movement, a presence that once consolidated can eventually
pose a threat to all of Syria's neighbors, including Israel, and to the
United States.
In order to avoid Iraq-like sectarian violence in Syria, it will be
important to work during the civil war to unify the opposition,
marginalize Al-Qaeda and other extremist elements, encourage defections
from the regime--particularly from its Alawite core, and encourage
inclusion of representatives of that community within the opposition
leadership. I expect that the Obama administration is already advising
the Syrian opposition along these lines. But American influence and
ability to advance such goals will tend to be in direct proportion to
the help the United States provides the opposition in their fight to
overthrow the regime. Promises of postwar aid will mean much less in
forging a relationship with the eventual rulers of Syria than decisive
assistance now. The new Syrian leadership will be formed in the
crucible of war, and in all likelihood will prove resistant to the
admixture of elements that did not participate in the fight, or to
influence from governments that did not support them in it. It would,
for instance, be a great mistake to allow that leadership to conclude
that Al-Qaeda had done more to help them prevail than had the United
States.
I was pleased to learn that the State Department, through the U.S.
Institute of Peace, is assisting Syrian emigres and more recent
refugees to plan for the post-war reconstruction. This is certainly a
useful exercise. Yet planning divorced from resources and power, as
these efforts necessarily are, will likely have only limited impact on
actual events. What is more important for the U.S. Government to do at
this stage than drafting plans is forging relationships with those
likely to next govern Syria. These relationships should be developed at
many levels, diplomatic, covert, military, economic and political, to
include democracy-building work by our Republican and Democratic
Institutes, contacts with individual Members of Congress, as well as
with all the relevant arms of our executive branch.
As we get to know the Syrian opposition better, we will discover, I
have no doubt, that not all are democrats, that many are ill disposed
toward the United States, and that most if not all are ill disposed
toward Israel. We will also discover, I expect, that most are even more
ill disposed toward Iran, and therefore not inclined to help Tehran
extend its influence into the Levant.
My expectation is that Syria's civil war will result in the
regime's collapse, not a negotiated settlement, that the victors will
not want foreign troops on the ground, and that there will therefore be
no serious consideration of a large-scale foreign manned stabilization
force. One can envisage circumstances where very limited external
military assistance might be needed, for instance to secure chemical
weapons sites, but a far better outcome will be for the regime's armed
forces to remain largely intact, albeit under new command, and thus
still responsible for the security (and eventual disposal) of these
weapons. Contrary to Iraq, where the American military dropped leaflets
informing Iraqi troops that they would be killed if they remained in
uniform and under arms, the Syrian opposition should be encouraged to
assure rank and file Syrian soldiers that they will be safe, and indeed
paid and protected as soon as they cease fighting. It appears that the
Obama administration is so advising the Syrian opposition.
Having myself helped organize international military operations in
Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan, I would be the last to
minimize the complexities, dangers, and costs associated with any such
effort in Syria. It is for this reason that I do not believe the United
States should become the standard bearer for such an intervention. I do
believe, however, that the United States should up its assistance to
the rebels; quietly let those on the front lines, particularly Turkey
and Saudi Arabia, know that it will back initiatives they may wish to
take toward more direct military engagement; and provided the earlier
mentioned conditions can be met, America should provide those military
assets needed for success that only the United States possesses in
adequate number.
Again, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I
look forward to taking your questions.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Mr. Tabler.
STATEMENT OF ANDREW TABLER, SENIOR FELLOW, PROGRAM ON ARAB
POLITICS, WASHINGTON INSTITUTE FOR NEAR EAST POLICY,
WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Tabler. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Lugar. Thank you for the opportunity to testify before the
Senate Committee on Foreign Relations today.
I have met with many of you personally and your staff since
I left Syria nearly 4 years ago, and over my years of working
in Syria and Lebanon, I followed closely the committee's
hearings on Syria and United States attempts to deal
effectively with Bashar al-Assad's regime. I think I speak for
all my Syrian friends and their families in thanking the
committee for convening this hearing at a key time not only in
the Syrian people's attempt to throw off 40 years of tyrannical
rule, but in taking the big next step with them of building a
better, more democratic Syria.
However, if Washington's limited policy of diplomatic
isolation, sanctions, and piecemeal support for the opposition
continues as is, I feel the next government in Syria, whatever
part of Syria that is, will more likely than not be suspicious
and hostile to United States interests. The reason is simple:
Washington invested too much time in diplomacy at the United
Nations instead of directly helping the Syrian people hasten
Bashar al-Assad's demise, which is apparently our policy
objective. This should now include the provision of lethal
assistance to elements of the Syrian opposition with which the
United States can acquire agreements on code of conduct and end
use. The good news is that it is not too late to change course,
but time--and I cannot emphasize this more--is very, very
short.
I have been asked to make a few comments about the
situation on the ground, as I see it, based on not only my
observations from here but from my trips to the region. The
death toll in Syria's 17-month uprising, as Chairman Kerry
said, is around 20,000, with 30,000 around in detention, but
hundreds of thousands are internally displaced. The uprising
started civilian in nature but has since morphed into an armed
uprising, insurrection, in response to the Assad regime's
crackdown. The Assad regime, armed to the teeth by Russia and
Iran, continues to implement what they call in Syria the
``security solution'' to cow the opposition into submission.
Much to the regime's chagrin, it can militarily clear areas but
it cannot hold them. Akin to the carnival game, whac-a-mole,
every time Assad attempts to hit the opposition's head, it
disappears only to pop up somewhere else. The opposition is
giving the Assad regime precisely the opposition it cannot
decapitate which slowly wears down the regime's forces but,
sadly, not before the regime and its killing machine take
thousands more Syrians with it. Before Syria achieves its slow
motion revolution, it seems set to suffer, as Chairman Kerry
outlined, a slow motion massacre.
Washington's response to this worsening situation has been
to isolate Assad, sanction his regime and its members, and
pursue U.N. action that, if achieved, would open the door for a
multilateral effort to bring down the Assad regime. It has not
worked because Russia continues to veto resolution after
resolution on Syria, most recently a chapter VII resolution to
implement the Action Group for Syria Communique of June 30.
Meanwhile, Washington has given its Middle East allies, Turkey,
Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, a nod to support the opposition with
lethal as well as nonlethal assistance. And some dedicated
people in the U.S. Government, who I applaud, have spent the
last few months reaching out to the opposition inside of Syria
and mapping their positions and providing limited nonlethal aid
to the nonviolent opposition.
The picture is still far from clear, but the Syrian
opposition can best be described as headless but not leaderless
and with a general flat structure. Had we based our strategy
last winter on what was happening on the ground in Syria, we
would have had much better visibility not only in terms of
military operations, but these groups' political aspirations
now and into the future as well. The YouTube videos streaming
out of Syria tell us how they fight and their immediate goal of
bringing down the Assad regime. But they tell us precious
little about their long-term political aspirations, assessments
that can only be achieved kinesthetically through working with
groups directly on the ground. And by not directly working with
the Syrian opposition, armed and unarmed, the United States
will know little about how to influence them. In some cases, it
will be because we do not know them. But if we continue on our
current path, it is more likely that they will be angry that
the United States stood by and did far less than it could have
to accelerate Assad's demise, which is apparently our policy
objective.
As has been mentioned earlier, third forces are afoot in
Syria, some against United States interests, and they are
stepping in to fill the void that has been created in this
chaotic situation in Syria. Anecdotal and media reports
indicate that individuals and governments in Turkey, Saudi
Arabia, and Qatar, as well as others, are sending much-needed
lethal support to the opposition. In fact, there was a report
yesterday that MANPAD's had actually showed up in Aleppo.
In terms of state policy, all openly support the U.S.
short-term interests of bringing down the Assad regime, but it
is still far from clear if they support U.S. long-term
interests, including a democratic and secular Syria that
respects minority rights and shuns terrorism, let alone Middle
East peace. In addition, third forces such as al-Qaeda
affiliates, including Jebhat al-Nusra or the Nusra Front, have
established a presence in Syria. There are increased reports
over the last few months of increased foreign fighters entering
Syria, and that is in all areas not just in the north where it
was previously outlined.
In my written testimony, I have talked a bit about laying
down redlines for the Assad regime which surprisingly, despite
the length of the uprising, the Obama administration has not
yet done even with news recently that the Syrian regime is
moving its chemical weapons, which has set off extensive
speculation in the U.S. Government about what Assad may be
prepared to do with those weapons as his control over the
country deteriorates. It would be comforting to think that
Assad knows that using such weapons of mass destruction would
be crossing a redline, but unfortunately, that would be too
optimistic. In fact, I think as the evidence shows, Assad's
response to the uprising thus far--he has ignored every
international ultimatum.
The international community, therefore, faces a dilemma.
Should chemical and biological materials be put at the disposal
of those running a possible Alawite rump regime and those
directing the shabbiha armed gangs roaming the Syrian
countryside, there is much greater likelihood of atrocities or
genocide. And it is not only the pro-Assad groups that the
United States must worry about. As the Syrian regime loses its
grip on power, the roughly 45 different CW facilities and tons
of chemical weapons materials that United States officials
estimate are scattered across the country could fall into the
hands of Sunni extremists. Like the regime, these extremists
cannot be counted on to act responsibly about CW. They might be
tempted to use it against the regime and its supporters as
well.
In conclusion, my best estimate is that it will be those on
the ground who are now taking the shots against the Assad
regime that will be calling the shots after he is gone. While
the Obama administration is reticent to intervene militarily in
Syria, in some cases for good reason, while in others not,
actively assisting the opposition within Syria to take power
would be a foreign policy ``threefer'' for Washington: Assad
and those directly linked to his killing machine would be gone;
the United States would have an opportunity to foster a new
relationship with an emerging political entity or entities in
what is today Syria; and we would eliminate a major ally of the
Islamic Republic of Iran in the Levant.
I think I differ here a little bit from the previous
presentations in that I think it is much more likely that the
Assad regime is not going to fall, but it depends on what
falling means. I think it is much more likely that it is going
to contract. I see no way of effectively doing and intervening
and trying to influence these developments in Syria without
some sort of intervention from the United States, be it
directly in response to CW use or mass atrocities or indirectly
by supporting the Syrian opposition. I am not advocating
dropping weapons on the Syrian opposition and wishing them good
luck, but rather reaching out to them, identifying which groups
with which the United States can work, supplying them with what
they need, and watching closely what they do militarily and
politically in what remains a long and bloody fight for freedom
in Syria.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Tabler follows:]
Prepared Statement of Andrew J. Tabler
Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Lugar, thank you for the
opportunity to testify before the Senate Committee on Foreign
Relations. Over my years of working in Syria and Lebanon, I followed
closely the committee's hearings on Syria and United States attempts to
deal effectively with Bashar al-Assad's regime. I think I speak for all
my Syrian friends and their families in thanking the committee for
convening this hearing at a key time not only in the Syrian people's
attempt to end over 40 years of tyrannical rule, but its taking the big
next step of building a better, more democratic Syria. If Washington's
limited policy of diplomatic isolation, sanctions, and piecemeal
support for the opposition continues as is, however, I fear the next
government in Syria will more likely than not be both suspicious and
hostile to United States interests. The reason is simple: Washington
invested too much time in diplomacy at the United Nations instead of
directly helping the Syrian people hasten Bashar al-Assad's demise. The
good news is it is not too late to change course. But time is very
short.
situation on the ground
The death toll in Syria's 17th month uprising is now around 20,000,
with 30,000 in detention or missing, putting the conflict on par with
that of the Libyan Revolution. An uprising that started out as civil in
nature has in response to the Assad regime's use of live fire,
shelling, helicopter gunships and fixed wing aircraft morphed, quite
naturally, into an armed insurrection. The Assad regime, armed to the
teeth by Russia and Iran, continues to implement what they call the
``security solution'' to cow the opposition into submission. Much to
the regime's chagrin, it can assert itself militarily but cannot
``clear and hold'' areas where the opposition operates. Akin to the
carnival game ``whac-a-mole'', every time Assad attempts to hit the
opposition's head it disappears, only to pop up somewhere else. The
opposition is giving the Assad regime precisely opposition it cannot
decapitate, which slowly wears down the regime's forces. But, sadly,
not before the regime and its ``killing machine'' take thousands more
Syrians with it. Before Syria achieves it slow motion revolution, it
seems set to suffer a slow motion massacre.
washington's response
Washington's response to this worsening situation has been to
isolate Assad, sanction his regime and its members, and pursue U.N.
action that, if achieved, would open the door for a multilateral effort
to bring down the Assad regime. It has not worked because Russia
continues to veto resolution after resolution on Syria, most recently a
Chapter VII resolution to enforce the Action Group for Syria Communique
of June 30--a skeleton transition plan for Syria. Meanwhile, Washington
has given its Middle East allies Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar a nod
to support the opposition with lethal as well as nonlethal assistance.
Meanwhile, some dedicated people in the U.S. Government have spent the
last few months reaching out to the opposition inside of Syria and
mapping their positions. The picture is still far from clear, but the
Syrian opposition can perhaps be best described as headless but not
leaderless with a generally flat structure. Had we based our strategy
last winter on what was happening on the ground in Syria, we would have
much better visibility not only in terms of military operations, but
these groups' political aspirations as well. The YouTube videos
streaming out of Syria tell us how they fight, and their immediate goal
of bringing down the Assad regime. But they tell us precious little
about their long-term political aspirations--assessments that can only
be achieved kinesthetically through working with groups directly on the
ground. And by not directly working with the Syrian opposition--armed
and unarmed--the United States will know little about how to influence
them. In some cases it will be because we do not know them. But if we
continue on our current path, it will be because they are angry that
the United States stood by and did far less than it could have to
accelerate Assad's demise.
third forces afoot
Others forces, some inimical to U.S. interests, are stepping in to
fill the void. Anecdotal and media reports indicate that individuals
and governments in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, as well as others,
are sending much-needed lethal support to the opposition. In terms of
state policy, all openly support the U.S. short-term interest of
bringing down the Assad regime. But it is far from clear if they
support U.S. long-term interests of a democratic and secular Syria that
respects minority rights and shuns terrorism, let alone supports Middle
East Peace. In addition, ``third forces'' such as al-Qaeda affiliates,
including Jebhat al-Nusra, have established a presence in Syria. There
are increased reports over the last few months of increased foreign
fighters entering Syria.
the mass atrocity red line
More and more members of the Syrian opposition, especially the
armed or unarmed elements inside the country, realize that it is up to
them to take down Assad. While the exiled opposition continues to argue
over chairs and positions, albeit while doing some laudable work on
preparing for a post-Assad Syria, all aspects of the Syrian opposition
continue to advocate direct U.S. intervention in Syria--air strikes,
no-fly zones, humanitarian corridors, and safe havens. It is unclear
which option may occur and when, especially in the face of repeated
U.S. and allied announcements about the limits of all military options
in Syria, but mass atrocities and/or the use of chemical and biological
weapons (CBW) would seem the most probable triggers.
Since the beginning of the Syrian uprising, Washington has
repeatedly demanded that President Bashar al-Assad desist from
employing the most brutal tactics against his own people--only to see
the Syrian regime use them anyway. With the recent assassination of
four senior Assad regime members coming only days after reports that
Syria is moving its chemical weapons stockpile, the U.S. Government
must now draw a line in the sand for Assad. And this time, the Obama
team must stick to it, or risk a humanitarian and national security
calamity.
Recent news that the Syrian regime is moving its chemical weapons
has set off speculation within the U.S Government about what Assad may
be prepared to do with those weapons as his control over the country
deteriorates. It would be comforting to think that Assad knows that
using such weapons of mass destruction would be crossing a redline--but
unfortunately that would be too optimistic. After all, Assad has
ignored every other international ultimatum directed at him since the
beginning of the revolt.
The same pattern has held true with attempts to force Assad into a
negotiated transition through the U.N. Security Council, where Russia
and China recently vetoed for the third time a resolution that would
have imposed sanctions against the regime if it did not end its brutal
crackdown.
This must end. Washington and its allies must lay down and enforce
redlines prohibiting the use of Syria's chemical weapons--one of the
Middle East's largest stockpiles. To do so, Washington should lead its
allies in the ``Core Group'' of the Friends of the Syrian People
gathering--Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi
Arabia--in issuing a stark warning to Assad that mass atrocities in
Syria will be met with an immediate military response.
Assad's most recent moves are part of a well-established pattern
that test and push U.S. and NATO redlines. The Assad regime has
increasingly deployed artillery and combat aircraft to suppress the
Syrian opposition, despite Washington's warning not to do so. A few
weeks ago, Syria shot down a Turkish F-4 fighter jet, a provocation for
which it received only verbal condemnation by NATO. The Syrian
Government's history of such reckless moves stretches back years: In
2010, Assad reportedly transferred Scud D missiles and M-600 rockets to
the Lebanese militant party, Hezbollah, essentially handing strategic
weapons to a third party and removing his ability to restrain the self-
proclaimed Party of God.
When Bashar was master of Syria, such behavior was seen as an
annoyance rather than a threat to U.S. national security interests.
Today, all that has changed. The Assad regime is mired in a grinding
conflict with the Syrian opposition, in which it is steadily losing
control, as demonstrated by the July 18 assassinations of senior regime
figures in the heart of Damascus and recent battles there and in Aleppo
with the opposition. Furthermore, a number of massacres by Alawite
forces in Sunni villages around the cities of Homs and Hama indicate
that Alawites and the regime they dominate may be attempting to clear
Sunni villages in order to set up a rump Alawite enclave in their
historic homeland along the Syrian coast in the event of regime
collapse.
The international community therefore faces a dilemma: Should
chemical and biological materials be put at the disposal of those
running a possible Alawite rump regime, and those directing the
shabbiha ``armed gangs'' roaming the Syrian countryside, there is much
greater likelihood of atrocities or genocide. And it's not only the
pro-Assad groups the United States must worry about: As the Syrian
regime loses its grip on power, the roughly 45 different CW facilities
and tons of chemical weapons materials that U.S. officials estimate are
scattered throughout the country could fall into the hands of Sunni
extremists. As I mentioned, these groups not only do not share
America's long-term interests in Syria, but increasingly resent
Washington for standing by and doing little while Syrians are
slaughtered. This sentiment is unlikely to improve if Washington and
its allies simply watch and hope for the best while the Assad regime
moves around its chemical weapons stockpile.
The time to act is now, before disaster strikes. By leading an
effort to warn the Syrian regime about the dire consequences of using
its chemical weapons stockpile, and raising the possibility of a
military response in the event that effort fails, Washington will be
communicating to Assad that he would be sealing his fate if he crosses
this last remaining redline.
end game
My best estimate is that it will be those on the ground who are now
taking the shots against the Assad regime that will be calling the
shots after he is gone. While the Obama administration is reticent to
intervene militarily in Syria--in some cases for good reason, while in
others not--actively assisting the opposition ``within Syria'' to take
power would be a foreign policy ``threefer'' for Washington: Assad and
those directly his killing machine would be gone, the U.S. would have
an opportunity to foster a new relationship with the emerging political
entity or entities in what is today Syria, and we would eliminate a
major ally of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Levant. Getting there
will be hard, but if Washington does not start now the United States
runs the risk of playing catch up when it is too late.
The Chairman. Thank you very much. A lot of information on
the table, a lot of different concepts.
Let me pursue with you, Mr. Tabler, just a couple things.
You particularly prompted my curiosity with a couple of your
last comments, and I want to explore it a bit.
But let me just say beforehand so people are aware: This is
our third hearing on Syria publicly, but we have had four
classified briefings/hearings, one as recently as last night,
and then last week, the Foreign Relations Committee alone had
one. So we are digging into a lot of this stuff, and some of
the things that you assert are--for instance, with respect to a
redline, I cannot go into the details here, but I can tell you
there is a redline and people know what it is. The people who
need to know know what it is without going into any further
discussion of it.
But let me sort of explore with you a couple things first.
You just said in some cases for good reason they have chosen
not to be supportive, and in some cases not. Can you flesh that
out a little bit for me?
Mr. Tabler. Sure.
The Chairman. What are the instances where it is for good
reason and when is it not for good reason?
Mr. Tabler. Right. I think that oftentimes there are--I
find it very interesting that when talking about intervening in
Syria, that there seems to be a laundry list of reasons to do
very, very little. I understand that because I lived in that
country. I understand its complexities, its political
complexities, and then in terms of intervention, as Ambassador
Dobbins laid out, there are military complexities as well.
I realize Syria has formidable air defenses. I think that
the United States and its allies can take care of them if it
wanted to or if it had to.
The Chairman. Well, let me just say there is no question
that we can. I mean, that is not the issue.
Mr. Tabler. Correct.
The Chairman. The question is at what cost and with what
implications.
Mr. Tabler. Well, exactly. I think, though, that it depends
on what your foreign policy objectives are at this moment. I
think the Obama administration was wise in saying that
President Assad had to step aside and that that is actually the
solution to this problem. The problem is, though, by not doing
more to accelerate that, is that you are setting off that
sectarian war in the Levant that you supposedly want to avoid.
It is because the regime is dominated by Alawites. It is not
completely Alawite, but dominated by Alawites and other
minorities, and the opposition is primarily Sunni. The clash
between these two forces very quickly turns into that sectarian
war that you fear.
So if we really fear that--and we do not want to set that
off for a variety of reasons, including chemical weapons and
biological weapons and so on--then doing more sooner rather
than later would seem to make sense. It would be easier to
control direct action in Syria than indirect action, but we
seem to be very reticent to do that as well. So then we get
into the very difficult game of supporting indirectly groups
inside of Syria.
And I can tell you we do not know that much about--I think
you have been receiving briefings. I can tell you I have never
seen a conversation in Washington where there is such a free
flow of information between those of us that work on Syria and
the U.S. Government in terms of what is actually going on on
the ground inside. And it is there--and I emphasized this in my
testimony--we were just far, far too late in recognizing that
this conflict is being driven, this hurricane, political
hurricane that has developed, by events on the ground not by
what happens in Geneva or in New York.
So I think that there is a lot more to do, but the question
is what is the wisest move. It seems right now that the wisest
move, in terms of moving our lines forward, would involve
supporting the opposition inside of Syria with all the pitfalls
that go along with it.
The Chairman. Well, there has been, as you know, in the
meeting in Paris and the other meetings--Istanbul or
elsewhere--very significant efforts made to flesh out who is
the opposition. I mean, do you know precisely who you would
provide weapons to?
Mr. Tabler. Absolutely not, but----
The Chairman. Well, do you not think we need to know that?
Mr. Tabler. Absolutely.
The Chairman. I mean, that component of the opposition is
in the process of now consolidating and in fact defining its
goals and leader hierarchy.
Mr. Tabler. That is correct. Then therefore, as I outlined,
I think the first step is that we are going to have to do a
much, much better job of actually not only identifying and
mapping these groups, which I think a lot of the U.S.
Government has been doing including in the State Department--I
was actually praising a number of them who have taken on this
task--but also we are going to have to directly engage with
these groups and see what they can do. It is because in my
opinion I think this is more likely to be a grinder conflict in
which the regime contracts. Ambassador Indyk talked about a
rump Alawite state. I think that the breakup of Syria, at least
temporarily, is much more likely than the regime just tipping
over, and therefore, we are going to be dealing with multiple
communities inside of Syria that could simply--some of which
could be supportive of United States interests and some of
which could be directly opposed to us.
The Chairman. I would like to ask all of you to sort of
comment on this next question, which is part of that. What is
the danger here--and is there anything at all we can do about
it--of this majority Sunni emergence, for very understandable
reasons, supported by other Sunni nations in the region with an
Islamist agenda?
Mr. Tabler. It would depend on what kind of Islamist agenda
it would be. Is it likely that groups which have Islamist
agendas, including the Muslim Brotherhood or Salafists, are
going to have a strong role in a post-Assad Syria? Yes, that is
likely. But Syria's Sunni community is also very divided and I
think will remain so. Sunnis from the northwest who are very
conservative are very different than tribal Sunnis from the
east or those who are tribal but settled in the south in Daraa,
let alone the minority communities which will probably not join
Islamist parties, at least not in large numbers.
In terms of extremists, it is possible that in a post-Assad
Syria, if they have completely fill the void that has been
created in the country without more, I think, assistance from
the West, I think it is likely they could perhaps shoot above
their weight in a post-Assad Syria, but I do not think they
would be able to hijack that Sunni political space.
The Chairman. Ambassador Indyk.
Ambassador Indyk. First of all, as a general principle, I
think we have got to be careful of avoiding falling into the
trap of the jihadist bogeymen that has been used by our
previous allies like Hosni Mubarak to convince us not to do the
thing that we thought was the right thing to do. So, Andrew I
think laid out of the complexity of Syria. But Syria has been a
secular country for a long time and there is not a natural
breeding ground for al-Qaeda there. It is the conflict that
provides the opening.
And I endorse the idea, which I think you also support and
the administration is now doing, which is more active
engagement with the insiders, the people who are doing the
fighting. I thought that Jim Dobbins put it very well. That is
where the leadership is going to be forged in ``the crucible of
war.'' His words. But I think it is exactly right.
And part of the engagement in which we should be looking at
the question of whether we need to arm them, but in that
process, we need to make clear there are certain requirements.
And one of the most important is that they stand up and
articulate a vision of a post-Assad Syria which stands against
the kind of things that
al-Qaeda and jihadists want to promote. They need to be taking
the lead in defining the kind of Syria that they want, and if
it is consistent with our vision, then we should be supporting
them more actively.
The Chairman. Do you want to comment, Ambassador Dobbins?
Ambassador Dobbins. Please. I mean, al-Qaeda and similar
groups are essentially parasites. They will attach themselves
to any Muslim insurgency anywhere in the world. They will pick
sides and they will participate in an effort to gain
credibility, to gain recruits, to gain visibility.
The best way to marginalize extremist groups like that is
not to suppress the insurgents but to support the insurgents.
This is what we did in Bosnia where we supported Muslim
insurgents against orthodox Christian persecutors. This is what
we did in Kosovo. This is what we did in Afghanistan where we
supported the Northern Alliance, the Muslim insurgents, against
an oppressive Taliban government. And this is what we did in
Libya where we supported the insurgents. And in each case, we
were successfully able to marginalize these more extreme groups
within the resultant regimes.
There is not an insurgent in the world who would not rather
have American support than al-Qaeda's if he is given that
choice. And so what we are arguing--at least what I am arguing
here--is that we ought to give them that choice.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Senator Lugar.
Senator Lugar. I would like to ask sort of the basic
question we perhaps began with and that is the idea that we do
have a foreign policy with regard to Syria right now and that
is that Assad must go. And so having come to that point, this
sort of follows that Mubarak must go and that Qadhafi must go.
And we seem to have adopted a pattern with regard to the Arab
Spring and the Middle Eastern states that these are
authoritarian regimes. It is simply a matter of time until
people in the country decide that they want to replace their
leadership.
We could, I suppose, note that there are authoritarian
regimes in many other continents, really all over the world,
and that as a matter of fact, it may very well be in the course
of a few years of time that people will want to revolt in those
countries. And our first analysis may be that whoever the
leader is must go, that it finally is time that the
authoritarian regime is gone. But as some have pointed out, we
have been down that trail.
Without oversimplifying it, I was impressed with Tom
Friedman's column in the New York Times on Sunday in which he
points out that essentially in Iraq, we adopted the thought
that Saddam Hussein must go and, as a matter of fact, sent in a
very substantial military force to make sure that occurred.
Then we really did intervene with regard to who should rule the
country. It is a long story, but we spent the better part of 10
years working our way through this situation until finally some
elections were held and the Iraqis decided that we ought to go.
And they may or may not have determined their fate finally. But
this was very expensive in terms of hundreds of billions of
dollars, loss of American lives, and so forth. But,
nevertheless, we have not been deterred from this kind of
thinking with regard to other countries.
What I want to ask just basically, if you are a ruler of a
country and you may be a very evil ruler with very bad thoughts
about life in general, why is it necessary that we as a matter
of American foreign policy dictate that you must go? And is it
not logical that if you are such a ruler, you will use whatever
force you have to retain control of your situation?
And now making it more complex, as you have all pointed
out, in the case of Syria, if you are with a small group, the
Alawites--and as a matter of fact, they are not deserting, and
you have all suggested it may end up with a breakup of Syria
geographically with the Alawites, as a matter of fact, becoming
a small country or part of the picture. As opposed to whether
Assad goes or not, the Alawites may decide we do not want to
go. As a matter of fact, we are prepared to fight.
So we can give advice to all sorts of other groups in Syria
on how to deal with Assad, but then we begin to get into the
facts of how do you deal with the Alawites. Do you go after
them? Is our mission then a united Syria?
And the question will rapidly arise outside of the forum of
this committee with the American people as a whole, what kind
of popular support is there in the United States for this sort
of complex intervention country after country? And my judgment
for the moment is very little. As a matter of fact, foreign
policy as a whole, as many have pointed out, has a very small
part in our own national debate currently. So this is occurring
on the fringes but it occurs very rapidly in the middle if it
costs money, if it costs lives, and if it sets a precedent for
further intervention.
So I am sort of basically asking the question why should
the United States, as a matter of foreign policy, our own
security policy, intervene at all beyond at least the debates
that we have had in international fora asking the Arab League
what do you have to do about all of this. There are others who
are much more intimately involved, it would seem to me, in
terms of their national interests than our own.
Can you give me an overall thought as to what the interests
finally are of the United States that are so vital that we
ought to risk money and lives in Syria?
Mr. Indyk.
Ambassador Indyk. Thank you, Senator Lugar.
First of all, on your point about declaring the objective
as being that Assad must go and Mubarak must go or Qadhafi must
go, I actually think it is a mistake for the United States to
be deciding those things in that way or making it look like we
decide when they can stay and when they can go. I think it is a
lesson from the Arab Awakening that the Obama administration
should take on board. It is up to the people of Egypt or Libya
or Syria to decide whether their leaders should go or not. And
in the case of these authoritarian leaders, we should support
that. But we should be supporting it; we should not be
dictating it. And we have too often in the Arab Awakenings put
ourselves in the position where it looks like we are dictating
it, and I think that is a mistake.
It is particularly a mistake--and I think this is what you
were getting at. It is particularly a mistake if we articulate
the objective and we are not prepared to take the action to
achieve that objective because then it opens up a gap between
our objective and the means that we are prepared to use to
support it and that creates a credibility problem for the
United States.
And the third problem, which was really driven home by what
happened in Libya, is that if we get a Security Council
resolution in that case with the acquiescence of the Russians
and the Chinese and the Indians and the Brazilians that was
designed to protect the Libyan people but had nothing, no
language, there about overthrowing Qadhafi, that we would have
been much better off using the language of protecting the
Libyan people that would have led to their overthrow of
Qadhafi, which in fact happened, but without the expression of
the objective because that torqued the Russians and the Chinese
in particular and gave them an excuse, which has come back to
haunt us in Syria, that they are not going to allow any kind of
U.N. Security Council resolution because we took it and used it
as an excuse for a regime change, which they are not prepared
to support, at least not yet.
So for all those reasons, I think it is a mistake to
articulate it in that way even though it may be our objective.
We should be supporting the aspirations of the people of Syria
who seek to overthrow the regime, and that presentation I think
is important.
Now, the second point is will the American people support
an intervention. And I think it is true that you would know
this better than I because you have constituents that express
this, but the American people seem to me to be war-weary
particularly of wars in the greater Middle East, 10 years on,
the longest wars in our history, as you said, a huge price paid
in both blood and treasure. People are not ready for another
intervention in the Middle East, and I think that is why there
is a constraint that operates on the behavior both of President
Obama and of Governor Romney in terms of the positions that
they articulate in this situation.
But as the situation deteriorates and if we see the kind of
humanitarian disasters that we fear, that is, massacre on a
large scale or use of chemical weapons for the purpose of
ethnic cleansing, then I think the American people will reach
the point where they say the United States has to do something
about that.
It would be unfortunate if we had to get to that situation,
and that is why I think the discussion about other ways to help
the opposition which, as Jim Dobbins has pointed out, they are
on the winning side--they are making surprising progress. I
must say I was surprised--maybe Andrew was not--that they were
able to carry the fight to Damascus and Aleppo so quickly. And
I think that we really need to get behind them with all the
other things that we talked about this morning to try to avert
the situation in which the American people finally come around
to supporting a much more boots-on-the-ground type military
intervention of the United States.
Senator Lugar. Thank you very much.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Lugar.
Senator Coons.
Senator Coons. Thank you, Chairman Kerry, for holding this
hearing.
And I want to thank this panel of distinguished witnesses
for their insight and their experience and what you have shared
with us about the increasingly volatile situation in Syria and
the unconscionable levels of violence. As we all know, the
Assad regime has moved from an aggressive internal crackdown to
now mass atrocities against its own people and seems likely, as
has been suggested, to engage in a grinding internal conflict
that hopefully will not cross redlines of using weapons of mass
destruction against
its own people, but they have so far shown no limitation in
their capability, willingness, and inclination to use heavier
and heavier weapons.
So I am gravely concerned that we need to do more. We must
do more to rally the international community to lead
responsibly. And you have laid out a number of very challenging
and interesting questions about how we can more effectively do
that.
I am strongly inclined to join Senator Rubio in supporting
tougher sanctions. I am going to urge more active engagement,
as you suggest, in mapping the opposition and in engaging with
them both within and outside Syria and doing more to support
what I think will ultimately be the successful opposition in
their efforts to remove Assad and his regime.
But I would be interested in hearing some concrete input on
a few more points, if I could.
How do you think we can actively engage with the opposition
on the ground within Syria and outside in the region in a way
that is best likely to bridge divides, sectarian and regional
divides internally, that is best able to give Alawite generals
some sense of a post-Assad future and some buy-in to a
transition and that is most likely to lead to some prospect for
a post-Assad Syria that remains a unitary state and where there
is respect for human rights and some prospect for democracy?
And where can we make the greatest missteps in that engagement?
Mr. Tabler strongly suggests that by really solely focusing
on a U.N. and a Geneva outside-of-the-region multilateral
effort, we are failing to address emerging conditions on the
ground.
Ambassador Indyk, you I think raised some very important
points about encouraging defections and not overreaching.
And I believe, Ambassador Dobbins, you were also pointing
out that the post-Saddam Iraq has some very pointed lessons for
us about not completely dismantling the security forces and the
very real risks should that happen.
So my core question, How can we best engage on the ground
in Syria with the opposition and regionally to encourage a
transition that bridges rather than exacerbates sectarian
divides? If you would just in order, Ambassador Indyk,
Ambassador Dobbins, Mr. Tabler.
Ambassador Indyk. Well, first of all, I do not think it
should be done at the expense of that diplomatic effort at the
international level.
Senator Coons. Agreed.
Ambassador Indyk. And there is no reason why we cannot do
both at the same time because we need both.
And I am interested to hear you say that about the
sanctions because I do think there is more that we can do on
the sanction front. In fact, we have not done as much as the
Europeans have done on that front to make it much more
uncomfortable for people to support the regime.
On the ground, well, I will defer to people who have more
expertise on that. I think Andrew can address it.
But the key decision here is to focus on the inside rather
than on the outsiders. We spent a lot of effort with the
outsiders--frankly, it has failed at least so far--to unify
them, to get them to articulate a clear vision for a post-Assad
Syria and it seems impossible. We should have learnt from the
experience with the external Iraqi opposition which was very
similar. There are plenty of Chalabis around, but to get them
all to work together in an effective way seems to be a full-on
mission particularly because they are not connected with the
people who are doing the fighting. So I think getting in there
on the ground, which I believe we are already doing, and
mapping it, trying to understand who these people are, forging
the relationships with them, figuring out who is reliable, who
is not, and then helping them, helping them in whatever ways we
can especially in terms of intelligence assistance because they
are fighting a war.
And then, of course, on the military side, whether we can
do it through the Turks and the Qataris I think would be
preferable but it may reach a point where we have to provide
them with the kind of equipment, but it is important that we do
it because we may, thereby, have a greater ability to control
what happens to it than if it is sent through proxies.
Senator Coons. Thank you.
Ambassador Dobbins.
Ambassador Dobbins. I will defer to Andrew on who we should
be engaging. I think he is much more familiar with the actors.
I would just say that if we have something to offer, we
have a better chance of a meaningful engagement. And to the
extent we are offering arms, training, and other forms of
assistance, we are going to empower those whom we engage with.
And so we have an opportunity to shift the balance within an
opposition that is still somewhat disunited toward those
factions that are most likely to work toward the future of
Syria that we have all talked about.
Senator Coons. I agree.
Mr. Tabler, you spoke to a headless but not leaderless
opposition within and without Syria. I would be interested in
your thoughts as well.
Mr. Tabler. Sure. To answer your question and its essence,
actually the Assad regime is very good at confusing those on
the outside, and there is good reason for that. It is also a
very confusing country. I found that the best way to deal with
it was to make my decisions first based on what it was that I
was after, if I was investigating a story, if I was writing
something, and it was not just in terms of what my overall
policy goal was.
So in this particular case, for example, we are looking at
a situation where we are trying to examine the opposition
within Syria. And as Ambassador Indyk says, there have been
some real limitations with the opposition in exile. Those are
actually the words of President Obama after his meeting with
Prime Minister Erdogan. What does that really mean?
Well, there are a number of groups that are on the ground
which are very influential. Revolutionary councils particularly
in Homs have been very effective. Elements of the Free Syrian
Army, which is essentially a sort of franchise organization. So
there are many different factions of it. Those would be groups
that I can identify immediately with whom we should be building
closer relationships and trying to understand. And I think that
we are, but again it was far too slowly.
The way you do that is actually quite simple and then gets
more complicated. If you go to border areas, the fighters just
are not inside of Syria or those that are in exile. They come
and go all the time. They come and go all the time not just to
Antakya and to Kilis but also to Istanbul as well. You can meet
them all the time. They have been waiting to meet with us for a
long time. U.S. Government officials were actually forbidden
from meeting with anyone in the Free Syrian Army up until
earlier this spring.
Then what you do is you can also communicate with people
who are inside the country. We do it at my institute all the
time. We Skype with people who are inside of the country. That
is one of the wonderful things about the Syrian revolution is
that so much of it takes place online in the sense that you can
easily and readily access these, oftentimes including video.
Now, of course, you have to then weigh that up. You have to
listen to your gut, and that is where you have to experiment
and kinesthetically try and understand who you are dealing with
and what they are capable of. It is very difficult work and it
is work that, though, I think if we base our strategy on that
and working with some allies as well who are doing similar
operations, we are much more likely to turn the tide against
the Assad regime inside the country. That will bend the
Russians eventually because in this case to Senator Lugar's
earlier point about interests, it is not just about morals. It
is about placing your bets going forward.
You see, the Assad regime is in systemic failure. It is a
minority-dominated regime that cannot reform, that rules over
one of the youngest populations in the Middle East outside the
Palestinian Territories. There is no way that it can hold on.
It can hold on in a more limited form, but it is just systemic
failure. You see, we are placing our bets for a future in the
Levant and the only way to do that is to engage it as it is.
And if we do not do that very rapidly, I fear that we are going
to lose all the texture of what is going on, and unfortunately,
we are going to be handing it over to, in some cases, our
allies in the region, but also a lot of our adversaries.
And this is where the earlier comments about al-Qaeda
become much more dangerous. Jebhat al-Nusra inside of Syria is
real. It is growing. There are more foreign fighters inside of
Syria. They have not hijacked the revolution, but if they are
the ones who are coming to the Syrian people's assistance while
the United States does relatively little, we should not be
surprised in a post-Assad Syria that they look upon those other
forces more favorably than they do us.
Senator Coons. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you to
the panel.
The Chairman. Senator Corker.
Senator Corker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I thank all of you as witnesses. I think this has been
one of the more interesting discussions we have had on foreign
policy in a while, and I think that part of the discussion
today centered on the fact that--talking about our national
interests. And I think one of the things that we as a committee
and Congress can do in general that we have not done is really,
in advance of issues like we have in Syria, more fully lay out
what it is that drives us into kinetic activity and what our
national interests are and to begin looking at some of the
important issues. We tend to, it seems to me, respond to many
of these things in an emotional way at the moment and say some
things, Mr. Indyk, as you have said in your testimony--say some
things--these are my words--that sort of respond to the
emotions of the time. But we really strategically do not talk
about those things in advance. We really do not develop a lens
here through which all of these conflicts ought to be looked
at. And I hope that over time the committee will do that.
As I listened to your testimony, it is sort of three
schools of thought. We have one who is really focused on
diplomacy, and I appreciate your insights. And Mr. Dobbins,
this is not a pejorative statement, but it is more a lead-from-
behind approach, if you will, I think and I think there is a
lot of merit to what you have said about that. And then a much
more direct involvement from you, Mr. Tabler.
One of the things our State Department I think would say if
they were here is, look, things are going pretty well right
now. I mean, the folks that we like are gaining momentum, and
why would we get involved and mess that up? You know, a lot of
unintended consequences. When I say that, by the way, I am very
aware of all the violence on the ground, the lives that are
being destroyed and people that are being harmed, and I am in
no way making light of that. But I think our State Department--
as a matter of fact, I know they would say it--is, look, things
are going pretty well right now. Why would we get involved and
create some unintended consequences?
Mr. Tabler, if you would, you never, to my knowledge,
responded to Senator Kerry's ask about how we militarily get
more involved, how we arm some of the opposition groups more
directly, or at least I did not hear it. And I would like for
you to respond both to what I think the State Department would
say if they were here but, secondarily, how we would get more
involved directly in a way that did not lead to unintended
consequences.
Mr. Tabler. Thank you for the question.
If the State Department was here--and I have the pleasure
of meeting with a number of them pretty regularly. I think that
actually there have been a number in the State Department who I
commend who have actually tried to look more closely at what is
going on actually on the ground in Syria and how to more
effectively for the United States to indirectly intervene. And
that involves supporting some of the groups that I talked about
earlier. That is a type of intervention. It is a slow one. It
is complicated. There are some unintended consequences but you
can turn the tap oftentimes on and off, and I think that we
have done that, not necessarily with the armed groups inside
the country at least overtly, but some of the civil groups
inside of the country.
When it gets into the question concerning the direct
intervention, that is where you have to really start looking at
triggers I think. And in there I can see two immediately in
front of us that are very realistically going to emerge from
the conflict here in the coming months and that is mass
atrocities of some type, including massive refugee flows across
borders, and then the other would be--and it could be in
combination--use of chemical weapons. These two developments
could trigger a direct intervention by the United States. There
are several different plans for that, as I think this committee
knows, everything from----
Senator Corker. So you are not then--I, by the way, have
never heard anybody lay out any redlines, OK, for what it is
worth. I have been in almost all these hearings and I might
have stepped out and taken a call. I do think that chemical use
or biological use would be a redline, and I do think that would
trigger involvement by us most likely.
But I thought I heard you advocating direct involvement
before that type of activity and now in order to shape things
in such a way that after whatever happens, we had a more
friendly group on the ground toward our interests. So, if you
will, do not talk about the redline events, because I think you
are advocating direct involvement prior to those redline
events.
Mr. Tabler. Correct, correct. And I generally describe it
and my colleague, Jeff White, at the Washington Institute as
well--we have described it as indirect intervention, and that
involves actively reaching out with groups which are inside of
the country, all of whom will speak with us and have wanted to
speak with us for some time in very lengthy conversations,
understanding what it is that they want--and this is including
armed groups as well--and then trying to weigh up, OK, do these
people support our long-term interests in Syria or not and are
they worth betting on or not. It is a very detailed--I would
say it is an intelligence operation, but it is actually beyond
that because so much of what happens now in Syria is simply out
in the public. So it also involves some kind of outreach to the
groups inside of the country much more than we are doing at the
moment.
Those in the State Department that are dealing with this--
it is a very limited number of people. They only have so much
capacity. And that is because a lot of other resources to our
approach have been directed toward diplomacy, negotiations in
Geneva, votes and vetoes ultimately in New York, which were not
successful.
Senator Corker. So you are not advocating arming directly
the opposition, if I hear you correctly. You are advocating
covert operations on the ground, CIA, DIA, other types of
involvement in that way. Is that what you are saying?
Mr. Tabler. No. I think we are already doing that. I do not
know in any kind of detail, but I can say that at this point,
given the direction of the conflict, I think that what we need
to do is assess, OK, which groups could we arm, and should we
arm, at what point and make that decision. And I think that we
are actually at that decision given where the conflict is
going.
Senator Corker. I see the other two witnesses shaking their
heads up and down. So you all are in agreement that we are at a
point body language-wise--I would love for you to verbally
state something. [Laughter.]
But you all are in agreement that we are at a point where
we should decide which groups we are going to arm and which we
are not. Is that what I see the body language indicating?
Ambassador Dobbins. Yes.
Ambassador Indyk. Yes. I think that is right. I think to
say things are going well and therefore why get involved and
mess it up is, I think, a too optimistic assessment of the
situation. There is no doubt that Assad is in a situation from
which he cannot recover, but the things we have talked about
before are the reasons to be concerned about not taking a kind
of relaxed view about this. That is, it is different in Syria
to the other situations we have dealt with. This is an Alawite
regime representing an Alawite community that essentially sees
their choice as either kill or be killed. And so the
consequences can be very bad, and they are coming down the
road. And the consequences in the region because of the
sensitivity of Syria's geostrategic location can also be very
bad for our interests.
So that is why I think it is important for us to step up
our active engagement, but to do it in a wise way because you
are absolutely right that we have to avoid the unintended
consequences to the extent that we can anticipate them, imagine
them. So that is why we need to do it in a way that, first of
all, we understand who we are supporting and what their
intentions are. And we cannot rely, frankly, on our allies to
be doing that for us. They have different standards because
their objectives are different to ours. And so that is why I
think the answer is, ``Yes.''
Senator Corker. And I know my time is up. But, Mr. Dobbins,
I normally like yes or no answers, but in this case if you
would expand on us directly arming opposition groups, I would
appreciate it.
Ambassador Dobbins. I think the time has come to consider
that and pick those groups that we think are most consistent
with our interests and our vision for the future and begin to
advantage them in terms of the internal politics by providing
assistance, including perhaps money, as well as arms and
advice.
I do think there is a dilemma here. There is a risk. We
support the resistance, the opposition. The opposition, when it
begins to win, is probably going to itself perpetuate some
atrocities. There are going to be groups that we support who
are going to go off and murder Alawites and maybe Christians
and others. I think, to some degree, that is inevitable. The
answer to that is it will be even worse if we do not support
them. If we stand aside and do not get engaged, we can keep our
hands clean, but the result will probably be an even worse
civil conflict than if we get involved and use our influence to
try to attenuate what we probably cannot entirely avoid. And
there is a political risk involved to that.
Ambassador Indyk. Could I just add one quick point, Senator
Corker, which is that this is one part of a strategy.
Senator Corker. I understand. I know a lot of diplomacy is.
Ambassador Indyk. Because if we only focus on this, then we
will not be able to achieve our objectives.
Senator Corker. And I heard everything you said on the
front end, and I agree with those points too. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Senator Shaheen.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you all for being here. I am sorry to have missed
your testimony.
But I just want to follow up a little bit on Senator
Corker's line of questioning and start by saying I do not
think, and the officials that I have heard from relative to
what is happening in Syria, that the approach has been laid
back and one that has not suggested that we are doing
everything we can to follow very closely what is going on and
to try and engage at every opportunity. So my impression has
not been what I thought I heard a couple of you say that we
were taking too laid-back an approach on Syria.
But let me ask you with respect to arming the opposition.
There have been reports that we are engaged in providing
communications equipment and other support, that there are
other countries that are providing arms to the opposition. Are
you all suggesting that that is not enough and that we should
be actively arming opposition groups at this time? And if that
is what you are suggesting, then what do you think we ought to
be looking for in terms of those groups we should be supporting
with arms and what the implications of that might be? I do not
know.
Ambassador Indyk, do you want to go first?
Ambassador Indyk. Well, I think, Senator Shaheen, that we
need to know who we are arming. That is the question that we
have to answer first. I do not think we quite have that answer
yet. When we know the answer to that question--and that is an
urgent question to answer. We need to be actively engaged and
so I think we are in trying to get that answer. But then, yes,
once we have that answer, once we are satisfied that these are
the right people to be arming, these have some responsibility
and some consistency and some leadership and are committed to a
post-Assad Syria that involves all of its communities, then
yes, we should be arming them, but only in terms of arming them
with things that they cannot get through others. And it is
precisely those things that we need to know whose hands they
are in. We need to have some accountability for them.
Senator Shaheen. Do either of you have anything different
to add to that analysis?
Ambassador Dobbins. Well, the risk of operating exclusively
through cutouts, the Saudis, the Turks--they have objectives of
their own. They will favor groups that are not necessarily the
groups that we would favor. The Saudis are likely to favor
Salafist groups.
Senator Shaheen. I understand, and I am sorry to interrupt.
But can you, if you would, describe the kind of groups we ought
to be looking at if we were looking at arming particular
groups? What criteria should we have and what kind of values
should we be looking for?
Ambassador Dobbins. Well, I think Martin has given a good
expression of this. I think we should be, obviously, looking at
those who are--first, there is probably a small minority who
actually want a secular, democratic Syria. But I think we also
ought to be looking at moderate Islamists, including perhaps
the Muslim Brotherhood representatives who are prepared to
operate within a democratic environment based on popular
sovereignty and operate much as the governments in both Tunisia
and Egypt seem to be operating.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you.
Mr. Tabler, you mentioned chemical weapons in your exchange
with Senator Corker, and it is one of the things that I have
been very concerned about. I know a number of other folks have
too. When I asked Secretary Panetta about this issue back in
March, we talked about it in the context of what we saw in
Libya with the MANPAD's, and he said it would be 100 times
worse in Syria. I wonder if you could interpret the recent
reports of movements of the chemical weapons in Syria and how
we should view that.
Mr. Tabler. Sure. There is a lot that is handled--this
issue is traditionally handled by the intelligence community.
It is well known that Syria has one of the stockpiles of
chemical weapons in the Middle East. It is not a secret.
I think that there is particular worry in the regime moving
them. There are several worries. One is that moving these
materials makes them subject then to being captured by other
forces which are actively operating in the country. But I think
maybe more importantly if these materials are, say, moved to
some of their facilities near Homs, for example--there is a lot
of fighting in Homs. Homs is adjacent to the Alawite coast and
the Alawite mountains where that sect hails from. So if you
move them into facilities there, they could be not only put at
the disposal of the regime, which is fighting a struggle
against the opposition, but could also be put at the disposal
of an Alawite rump state or an entity of some type. It might
not even be a state. It could be used as a fear tactic. It
could be used as a deterrent so that they are not attacked into
the future, probably a pretty effective one. And that could
affect the next steps that we all have to make in Syria.
Then there is the other problem in that there are so many
different sites and, from what I understand, so much of it is
weaponized that it could fall into the hands of some of the
insurgents and then they could, of course, use them against the
regime in a fit of fury, which would of course not be good for
all concerned, including the United States I think. But also
those materials then could be sold outside of Syria. And then I
think it becomes a larger security question for the United
States. It is incredibly complicated and one again that if you
stand back and you do not do more in this regard, then I think
it becomes more risky going forward.
Senator Shaheen. So are you saying then that you think the
movement of the weapons is because the Syrians are interested
in having all of those options for using them. It is not, as
some have speculated, to move them to a safer place to make
them more secure.
Mr. Tabler. It depends on safer for whom. I think that the
regime would like to have it at their disposal. It is not
because they do not believe that they are trying to sort of
live up to whatever commitment they have, even privately,
concerning nonproliferation. I think that they would like to
have it at their disposal to use as they are on their way out.
But ultimately those choices are with Bashar al-Assad and his
regime.
And I can only say from someone who lived in Syria for a
long time, Bashar al-Assad is not a very rational actor. He is
quite unpredictable and Janus-faced. And this goes for his
entire regime. It makes him very different than his father
Hafez. It was a major miscalculation to think otherwise.
Unfortunately, Bashar, when cornered--we just do not really
know what he is going to do. So in such a case, it would be
better to err on the side of caution.
The question is what can we really do other than issue some
of the private redlines that I think have not issued recently.
Senator Shaheen. Mr. Chairman, my time is up but could I
ask one more followup?
The Chairman. You may.
Senator Shaheen. I asked General Mattis, the CENTCOM
commander, this question back when he was before the Armed
Services Committee, and his response was that it would require
an international effort to secure the chemical weapons. I
wonder if you, Mr. Tabler, or either of our other panelists
could speak to what that international effort might look like
and whether we should feel like it is underway now, or have we
heard any attempts to address it?
Ambassador Dobbins. It depends on what we mean. I think the
actual dismantling of these weapons could take place under some
sort of international regime, not a military regime, but
technicians who would come in with the cooperation of the then
Syrian government and begin to dismantle these weapons. I think
there are precedents for that, and that is perfectly plausible.
I think some sort of international military force that
would rush in and seize the sites is less plausible. I think
the desirable outcome is that the Syrian military continue to
secure these sites under the oversight of a new government, and
that is why, as others here have suggested, we want to, and
are, counseling the opposition not to go down the road we went
down in Iraq to disperse the military but rather to try to
retain them as a coherent and cohesive force under a new
government and thereby retain control of those weapons. And
either Syria will continue to have the weapons or it will be
under diplomatic pressure from the United States and others to
give them up in an internationally monitored way.
Ambassador Indyk. I did not hear General Mattis' remarks,
but there is potentially other interpretations of the word
``international'' which means Israel. Israel has made it clear
that this is a redline for them. You know, Israel is not up in
space in this situation. The Israeli defense forces on the
Golan Heights are 40 kilometers from Damascus and it is
downhill. And they have a capable army. This for them is
unacceptable if the chemical weapons are handed over to
Hezbollah. So I think that is their particular redline that
they are looking at. I would guess that Secretary of Defense
Panetta has been talking to them about under what circumstances
it might be necessary to intervene.
In this very specific case, because I do not think it is a
good idea for the Israelis to be intervening in Syria--I do not
think they want to in other circumstances which would enable
Assad to turn this into an Arab-Israeli conflict. But in these
particular circumstances, the Israelis have a better ability
than I think anybody else to get control of those weapons,
particularly if they have been transferred or if they are about
to be--I mean, if the control of them is disintegrating and
they are about to be taken up by elements that we would not
want them to get hold of, that is, jihadi elements.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Shaheen.
Before we wrap up here, I want to try to bear down on a
couple of things that I think are sort of hanging out there
that, at least in my mind, are not quite as clear as I would
hope they might be.
Senator Lugar appropriately put the larger question of
intervention on the table and bore down on the experiences of
Iraq and elsewhere and the larger balance here, and I think
everything that he said is a very important check on anybody's
approach to or thinking about the stakes here. But at the same
time, we have interests and I would like to see if we can put
this into a tighter framework. I do not know if you can.
But, for instance, there seems to be an agreement that if
something were to happen with these weapons of mass destruction
or if there were a sufficient perception of a threat to our
interests directly or to the region or to allies in the region,
that we might have to move. Is that agreed? And do you believe,
each of you, that if that were the case, that would merit
potentially some kind of intervention? I see nodding, but let
us have a verbal.
Mr. Tabler.
Mr. Tabler. Yes.
The Chairman. Mr. Dobbins.
Ambassador Dobbins. Yes, although I am not sure how
effective that intervention would be ex post facto. The threat
of the intervention, however, might be very important to
prevent the use.
The Chairman. Ambassador Indyk.
Ambassador Indyk. Yes. And on this issue, we will have the
Russians with us, and I do not know whether you have noticed
their statements on this, but they too have warned the Syrian--
--
The Chairman. They have been pretty clear on it. I agree.
Ambassador Indyk [continuing]. The Assad regime.
The Chairman. The second potential trigger that I have
heard is people talking about some very significant massacre,
that if all of a sudden there seems to be a blood letting, not
dissimilar to what prompted President Clinton to move in the
Balkans, et cetera, that that might trigger us. Is there an
agreement on that?
Mr. Tabler. Yes. I think that not only would that be a
trigger, but I think in terms of getting to Senator Lugar's
earlier point, there is quite a bit of support in terms of the
American people about issues of mass atrocities and genocide.
There was recently a study, a poll that was conducted by the
U.S. Holocaust Museum in which you can see that the Syrian
issue itself, isolated, is not a major political issue, but if
it is combined with other Middle Eastern issues or on genocide
or mass atrocities, it actually moves very quickly up the
ladder.
The Chairman. Do you both agree with that?
Ambassador Dobbins.
Ambassador Dobbins. Yes, but I would go a little bit beyond
that. I am not sure we just sort of passively wait for some
trigger to move us forward.
The Chairman. Well, that is my next question.
Ambassador Dobbins. I think Senator Corker said correctly I
think that I am advocating that we lead from behind on this.
But the lead is as important as from behind; that is, I do not
think we should become the standard bearer for an international
intervention, but I think we should be quietly working behind
the scenes to try to align the various things that would need
to occur to make such an intervention feasible and successful.
Ambassador Indyk. Yes, but there is also a deterrent
factor, just as we discussed in the chemical weapons case, that
we need to be signaling--and not just us, but the international
community needs to be signaling to the Assad regime that this
kind of mass atrocities, ethnic cleansing, the deployment of
chemical weapons for that purpose is a redline for the whole
international community. And we need to try to deter that from
happening rather than to wait for it to happen before we
intervene.
Ambassador Dobbins. A plausible redline, short of chemical
weapons use, is the use of fixed wing aircraft to bomb large
urban conglomerations, and I think that is a redline one ought
to at least think about. It is the kind of intervention that
could be taken--it could be just simply cruise missiling their
air bases. If they did it, it would not necessarily require an
air war to deter that kind of thing. But there are options
short of these massive casus belli.
The Chairman. And in order to do that, do you believe that
it would require a U.N. resolution of some kind or would it
require support? Could NATO authorize that? Could the GCC, as
we saw in Libya, be a sufficient authority for that kind of an
activity?
Ambassador Dobbins. I think a Security Council resolution
is
obviously desirable. Kosovo demonstrated that you can get
international support, broad international support, without one
if necessary. I would think you would want an Arab League
endorsement or at least a vast majority of the Arab League, the
GCC, most of NATO, and a clear call from the Syrian opposition.
The Chairman. Here you get into a sort of fuzzier line, but
if we are talking about the possible trigger of some sort of
``large'' massacre, how do you draw the line between a hundred
people a day in Homs or the army unleashed to walk through a
neighborhood to kill children and women and just pull people
out of their apartments and send enough terror in that
community but, quote, not quite get into that line where
everybody sees it? I guess what I am saying is there is kind of
a new normality, and maybe that new normality is way over a
line that people ought to be willing to accept.
Ambassador Indyk. I mean, I take your point and it is a
disturbing observation. But I do think that there is a
difference in the kind of mass atrocities--imagine deployment
of chemical weapons that we saw in Iraqi Kurdistan against
whole areas, designed to clean out Sunnis from this Alawite
rump state. I think that is the distinction we are talking
about.
Also, now that the fighting is in Syria's biggest cities,
the chances for much higher casualties grows, and that is where
the fixed wing aircraft issue comes in as well. So I think that
we are approaching a point where the new normal, as you
describe it, will look like a picnic compared to the horrors
that could unfold. So even though I feel kind of queasy about
this because in a sense you are in danger of legitimizing the
things that are happening now by drawing a redline against
those terrible things, but nevertheless, if your standard is to
try to save as many lives as possible, it is important to do
it.
The Chairman. Just so the record is really crystal clear on
this: Some people might argue or some Americans might feel,
hey, we have got enough problems. We've got unemployment. We've
got stuff going on here. We just pulled out of--you know, got
our troops out of Iraq. We are slowly transitioning in
Afghanistan and so on and so forth. And so some arguments are
made, hey, it is their fight and they've got to figure this
out.
Why is it in our interest to be engaged in the
``diplomacy''? Senator Corker was sort of--you know, there was
a chuckle in the audience about increased diplomacy. Obviously
not a lot of folks have a huge sense of confidence that that is
going to work.
What is the interest here for us? Obviously there are
interests. I think there are very significant interests.
Ambassador Indyk, in your testimony you specifically talk about
the stability of the region and our ally Israel, and those are
only two, I think, of a number of interests. But I would like
you guys to articulate for us what are the compelling interests
here, seriatim, which ought to compel us to say we do need to
think about arming people or we do need to be more proactive in
working with the Turks and the GCC and others. What are the
interests? Why is America's--what, if any, are the interests
that are at stake?
Mr. Tabler. Of course, the most immediate issue--and the
way this is usually handled in public concerns moral and
ethical issues about how we respond to these kind of atrocities
and this kind of brutality in Middle Eastern countries. But I
look at it--I mean, I can never advocate letting the Assad
regime survive for any moment longer than it has to for those
reasons.
But I think in terms of direct interests, what I outlined
before. What you are witnessing in Syria now is authoritarian
karma. In the 10 years following the 1982 Hama massacre, most
Syrians stayed home, the society contracted. And what happens
when men and women stay home for long periods of time together
without any good TV? Well, you have a surge in birth rates.
Syria was among the 20 fastest-growing populations on the
planet. All those people born of that time and a little after
are swarming that regime, and it is just in systemic failure.
And, Senator Lugar, again responding to your earlier
question, I think it is about America actually betting on, like
any business would or any individual would, what is coming in
the very, very near future.
Second, I think there is the avoidance of a much more
expensive war in the Levant which could affect directly
Americans in terms of fuel prices or concerning Israel or a
number of our other interests that are in the Middle East.
Syria's importance is geography, and I think that is something
that we can all recognize.
There is, of course, the interests in terms of avoiding
genocide, as I outlined before, and I think those are
formidable.
But last but not least--and we have not talked about this
today, and this is something that affected me as a young person
watching politics in the Levant and getting interested in the
Middle East. This would be a decisive blow for the Islamic
Republic of Iran. I cannot emphasize that enough. And I think
that is in our interests to roll back Iranian influence
wherever we find it, as we try and deal with preventing their
nuclear program. We can do prevention and containment at the
same time.
So I think that constellation of interests, alongside these
moral questions, will guide our choices in the future.
The Chairman. Ambassador Dobbins.
Ambassador Dobbins. I would second that last comment. I
think despite the war-weariness that you suggested, our country
is poised on the lip of a war with Iran, a war which would be
far more consequential than getting involved on the side of the
winners in Syria. And that threat and that potential course of
action seems to have broad support within our country.
And yet by far the most decisive thing we could do to
reduce Iran's capacity to threaten Israel is not eliminate its
nuclear program. It is to eliminate its access to the Levant
which it gets principally through Syria. If Iran is denied its
ability to support surrogates on Israel's border, it no longer
has any practical way of threatening Israel. It could threaten
a nuclear exchange in which the United States and Israel would
both respond overwhelmingly. That is not a plausible threat and
it would have no other threat. So there is nothing more
effective, I think, to put the Iranian threat in some
perspective and reduce its pressure on Israel than to flip
Syria.
The Chairman. The Honorable Indyk.
Ambassador Indyk. Yes, flip Syria. If only we could do
that.
Look, this is not about our interests in a secure Israel in
my view. Obviously, that is important, but Israel in these
circumstances can look after itself, including dealing with the
problems of a Syria serving as a conduit to Hezbollah on its
northern border and Hamas in the south. Hamas has already moved
out of the Iranian/Syrian camp. That is already plus one for us
and for Israel and those who want to see peace in the region.
And Hezbollah is now in danger and feeling quite anxious about
its situation in Lebanon.
It would definitely be in our strategic interests if Iran
were to lose its conduit through Syria. So do not get me wrong
on that. That is a strategic plus. But what we have got to
worry about is a strategic minus which is that what happens in
Syria destabilizes Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and ultimately
Bahrain. And I say that because a Sunni-Shia sectarian conflict
that starts in Syria is going to spread. We already see its
potential for spreading to Iraq and certainly in Lebanon and
Jordan is feeling very pressured at the moment. And if the
Iranians lose Syria, which is a strategic plus for us, they may
well play payback in Bahrain, and Bahrain with its Shias
presents a potential for the way that the Sunni king is dealing
with it I think is a tragic mistake. There is already
the potential to blow there. But with Iranian involvement, it
can blow and spread to Shias in Saudi Arabia who are already in
the early stages of a revolt, and that can have profound
strategic consequences.
So that is, I think, the interests that we have that is
paramount in this situation, and in order to shape the outcome
in Syria, we have to be involved in what is going on not in
terms of military intervention with troops on the ground except
in the circumstance we have already discussed, extreme
circumstances, but certainly in trying to shape the outcome in
a way that prevents these worst case scenarios from happening.
The Chairman. Well, I am glad you laid that out the way you
just did because I think, with all due respect, I agree with
the comments made by each of our other witnesses, but I think
what you have just talked about is the strategic centerpiece of
why it is critical for us not just to be involved, but to try
extra hard to see if we cannot move the Russians to understand
the dangers also to them of that flow of events and to the
region as a whole. To me that is the centerpiece of this, which
is a Sunni, Shia, sectarian, religious explosion that could
have profound long-term impact.
I do not think there is any such thing as a sort of
permanent rump Alawite state. I think the Alawi would be
enormously challenged if there were the complete implosion of
the state. I mentioned earlier I think avoiding that, that is
the threading of the needle here that is so vital, and that is
why I think we have to look very carefully at all of these
other alternatives that you have put on the table, gentlemen.
So I thank you very, very much.
Senator Webb has arrived. I have a 12 noon that I need to
attend to and Senator Lugar does. So I will recognize Senator
Webb, ask him to close out the hearing, if he would. Senator
Shaheen, if you want another round----
Senator Webb. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to ask some questions and then I may allow
Senator Shaheen to close the hearing since I know she has
several other questions as well.
The Chairman. That is great. I appreciate that enormously.
And let me thank our witnesses very, very much for being
here today. We really appreciate it.
Senator Webb.
Senator Webb [presiding]. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And gentlemen, I watched most of this hearing from my
office. I followed the discussions, the statements that have
been made and your answers. Watching the past 15 or 20 minutes
caused me to want to come down here and ask a couple of very
specific questions. I think they are important for the record
and also for the challenges that we have been going through in
terms of the unilateral use of Presidential power in our
foreign policy particularly since the Arab Spring.
But three issues come to mind here listening to the
conversations that have taken place. And the first is: When
does a regime, any regime, lose its legitimacy to the point
that the international community decides that something needs
to be done? And we are talking about Syria today, but I had a
conversation with Secretary Panetta in the Armed Services
Committee on this point when we were talking about Libya. And
he had made a statement that any regime that deliberately takes
the life of its own people who are involved in a peaceable
dissent loses its legitimacy. And I said, would you include
China in that category given the events of Tiananmen? Would
that fall into that category? And he said personally, rather
than as policy, he believed that it would.
The second question from watching your discussions today
is: What redlines actually exist in any of these situations
where we might be calling for an intervention?
And a third, which really compelled me to come down here to
hear your views, is: How is it decided? This issue was brought
up. How was it decided then--Ambassador Indyk, it was your
comment about--I think it was you who made the comment about,
well, if you would have an arbitrary line, if it is 100, if it
is 200 where the line is, it kind of might even confuse the
situation even more on the ground. So how is it decided that
the United States itself should get involved in these
situations? Chairman Kerry said, should this be NATO? Should it
be a United Nations Security Council vote? Should it be the
encouragement of the Arab League?
And I would say that when it comes to this relatively new
concept of humanitarian intervention, that the best way that we
should be resolving that question is to put it to a vote in the
United States Congress. We never even got a floor debate on
Libya. I just think that is wrong. I think if the
administration had properly put the issue before the Congress,
the likelihood is that it would have been supported. But you
begin to see, listening to the discussions that are taking
place today and the gradations that are involved in the events
that we would be looking at in these countries, how important
it is in my opinion that we resolve that by a vote here.
And so I would like your thoughts on those three points and
what seems to me to be missing here. Ambassador Indyk?
Ambassador Indyk. I think that the Panetta rule is the
right one, but a regime that starts firing on its own people by
definition is losing its legitimacy. It has lost all legitimacy
and therefore should step aside. I would say that is something
the people who are affected by this should be the ones to
decide that because legitimacy supposedly comes from the
people. What does it mean to lose legitimacy? But you are
dealing with authoritarian regimes, and the people do not get
to express themselves through the ballot box. But when you see
large-scale demonstrations against the regime and the hundreds
of thousands and millions in the case of Syria all across the
country and the regime responds by opening fire on peaceful
protestors, then I think you can say it walks like a duck. They
have lost the legitimacy.
Senator Webb. So if Tiananmen occurred today with the
Chinese Government rolling out tanks and killing hundreds, if
not thousands, of its own people, that it would also fit the
Panetta rule.
Ambassador Indyk. Yes, I think that is right. As an
objective standard, they would have lost legitimacy if they
fired on their people in that way.
One of the redlines--we went through a lot of that
discussion, but I think that use of weapons of mass destruction
is a clear redline. Massacres and ethnic cleansing should be a
redline. We have already seen some but they are limited in
scope. I am talking about large-scale massacres should be a
clear redline.
How is it decided? I mean, yes, I think you are right that
the people's houses should have a decision--should have a say
in when the nation goes to war. But in the Libyan case it seems
to me a little less clear-cut. There was a clear and immediate
danger that needed to be addressed. There was not time to take
a vote. And one can anticipate the kinds of interventions we
have been talking about today, and I think there is more time
to have that discussion just as I do not think that we should
be intervening unless we have the support of the international
community with us well. So it is both of those things. But
ultimately we should be doing those things, but the bottom line
is they should not hold us up from intervening if it means
enforcing those redlines.
Senator Webb. Well, I would submit to you there was plenty
of time in Libya. We had months once the initial action was
taken. There were a number of us, including Senator Corker and
myself, who were asking this to be brought up for debate. The
situation we had with the humanitarian intervention is kind of
unique in our history. I just do not think we have resolved
this properly in terms of the balance of power between the
executive and legislative branch, unique because--and you
obviously know--there is not a treaty involved, we are not
under attack, we are not under imminent attack, we are not
responding to situations where we are rescuing Americans. It is
clearly a unilateral decision, and in my view, time not being a
factor, it ought to be brought up here.
Gentlemen, would you like to add anything else? I am now
taking up Senator Shaheen's time.
Ambassador Dobbins. As I said in my testimony, I think that
any international intervention, U.S. or otherwise, three
questions have to be answered affirmatively before it is going
to happen. First of all, do you have an adequate justification,
which is part of your question, you know, what is the
threshold? Second, do you have a prospect of success? And
third, do you have sufficient interests engaged to make the
costs and risks worthwhile? You have to answer all three of
those questions positively.
In the Chinese case, you might argue that you have gotten
the first one. You know, Tiananmen Square might have provided a
justification. You certainly had absolutely no prospect of
success, and your interests would not have compelled U.S.
military intervention. And so even if you cross the first
threshold, you have not crossed the other two.
Now, in terms of what justifies, the international
standards have changed. You now have an international standard
which was adopted by a global summit which is called the
``responsibility to protect,'' and what it says is that
governments have a responsibility to protect their citizens,
and when they fail that responsibility in some serious way, the
international community has a right to intervene to take over
that responsibility to protect those citizens. So that is now a
global standard, which of course you can then debate endlessly
in any particular situation, but I think with respect to Libya
and now to Syria, most of the world believes that particular
threshold has been crossed.
Senator Webb. Let me just quickly respond to both points
you just made so that we can see if Mr. Tabler wants to say
anything before I yield to Senator Shaheen.
With respect to the Tiananmen situation, the point to be
made is if we stand for anything as a country, then we would
have an obligation to declare those sorts of acts of a
magnitude that we would not recognize the validity of that
government. I think that is really the point, whether we would
intervene directly or not. You cannot have two different
standards just because one country is more powerful than
another country in terms of the validity of a regime.
Ambassador Dobbins. I think you are confusing recognition
with legitimacy.
Senator Webb. No, I am not confusing either. If the
government is so repressive that it deliberately kills its own
people--that is the standard where you say that government no
longer has validity--then it does not matter how powerful that
government is.
And second, with respect to the responsibility to protect,
I understand the concept. My position is, my belief is that
when you make that determination, you should be making it in
the U.S. Congress not by one individual of whichever party who
happens to be the President.
Ambassador Dobbins. I do not disagree.
Senator Webb. Mr. Tabler, would you like to add anything?
Mr. Tabler. I am OK.
Senator Webb. Thank you.
Senator Shaheen.
Senator Shaheen [presiding]. Thank you and I appreciate the
patience of each of you testifying. I know we have gone beyond
the time that we promised to keep you here, but I had one final
question. It is not as philosophical and broad as Senator
Webb's.
But in the discussion that I have heard, there has not been
any reference to the idea of safe zones in Syria, and that is
something that a number of people have called for. And I just
wanted to get your thoughts about that and what would really be
involved in setting up a safe zone. And could it be effective?
Mr. Tabler.
Mr. Tabler. I will try and answer that as best I can. I
think that it depends on what triggers the creation of a safe
zone. And if we look at other cases and sort of compare to the
trajectory of the struggle in Syria, I think what is very
likely to happen is something akin to the Balkans. So you have
this grinding conflict between the regime and the opposition.
Already areas of the country are outside the government's
control, but they can still reassert themselves in those areas.
If the opposition takes a stand and the regime tries to
reassert itself and fails, the opposition could simply plant
the Free Syria flag in the ground and declare liberated
territory. That would then be similar to the Balkans.
That then would put Turkey and I think the United States
and its allies in a dilemma. What do you do because the regime
is going to throw everything they can at that to make sure that
that is no longer valid. That is going to drive up refugees
flows into Turkey, death tolls, internally displaced persons.
And then the question is, What do we do to protect that area?
And there is a whole escalation chain that goes along with
that, that goes the whole way from sending in troops, for
example, from Turkey or air strikes.
But I think there is a general lesson from the Balkans that
you do not create safe zones that in some ways just set
themselves up to be possible hostages going forward. And I
think that policymakers are aware of that. And the question is,
How would that apply to Syria? And again, I think it is going
to be driven by how this unfolds on the ground.
Senator Shaheen. But when you talk about the importance of
being able to actually defend and preserve a safe zone, are you
not ultimately talking about needing to have boots on the
ground from some place?
Mr. Tabler. Yes. I mean, it would depend on where. There
are a number of border areas of Syria where this is, I think,
likely, for example, a pocket north of Aleppo, Idlib province,
Daraa, even eastern Syria. All of these areas it could happen.
It would depend on what the--you know, the country was able to
intervene.
I think in the case of Turkey, that is a possibility
because they are well placed to do that. In Lebanon and Iraq,
even Jordan, it is more difficult.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you.
Ambassador Dobbins. I think you might plausibly or possibly
be able to defend a safe zone with air power alone. For
instance, the United States and its allies defended Benghazi
with air power alone.
Senator Shaheen. I understand that but the situation is a
little different in Syria. Is it not?
Ambassador Dobbins. Well, you could probably not defend all
safe zones, but you might be able to defend safe zones where
the combination of insurgent capacity on the ground and a
commitment of air power would provide a reasonable degree of
security if you were prepared to commit air power to that
extent. I mean, you would need to get an expert. But air power
has certainly shown in Libya the capacity not only to create
safe zones but to push them, to extend them ever forward.
Senator Shaheen. Sure. But I assume that assumes that the
Syrian military is not able to strike out air power that would
come in to defend those safe zones, and there is some capacity
to do that right now.
Ambassador Dobbins. If they challenged, then you would have
to take out their air defenses, which would be a major
operation, but probably more feasible than actually putting
troops on the ground except in maybe a very limited geographic
area. I would defer to Andrew, but my guess is the Syrian
opposition does not want foreign troops on the ground.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you.
Ambassador Indyk. Well, just as a practical matter, the
Turks have made clear in several statements by their Prime
Minister, their Foreign Minister. They have called for
humanitarian corridors which are, in effect, safe havens. And I
think that is the most likely circumstance in which it would
come about, that is to say, the Turkish Army would provide the
boots on the ground that you are talking about to protect a
safe haven for the Free Syrian Army and all of the refugees
that are now flowing across the border into Turkey and are
being housed on the Turkish side of the border. I mean, if we
get a massive refugee flow, that would become the justification
for doing that. And as a NATO member, there might well be a
need for NATO to provide the kind of air cover that we have
discussed here. So as a practical matter, that is the way I
could see it unfolding and it may be coming soon, depending
on--I think the trigger will be the refugee situation, the
refugee flow of a major nature toward the Turkish border.
Ambassador Dobbins. Another just example of this was what
we did in the Kurdish areas of Iraq after the first gulf war
when the Turks who feared a large influx of Kurdish refugees,
which was the last thing they wanted, put pressure on the U.S.
Government to force Saddam to essentially give up those areas,
and we used exclusively air power to do that.
Senator Shaheen. But I guess the point I was--and you have
indicated, Ambassador Dobbins, that at least given the current
circumstances of the Syrian military, that there could be some
significant collateral damage as the result of taking that kind
of action. Did I understand you to agree with that?
Ambassador Dobbins. Yes. I said that we managed to conduct
the air wars in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya
without losing a single pilot. We probably could not replicate
that with respect to Syria.
Ambassador Indyk. But I would just say that on the other
side, although that is certainly possible, the Syrian Army is
under huge strain already, and we have pilots flying and
defecting, taking their aircraft to Jordan and so on. And we
have seen in the past when the Turkish Army mobilizes, the
Syrian Army was not prepared to confront them. So although
there is potential for the kinds scenarios that you just
discussed, I actually think the risk is lower than we fear. But
it has to be a Turkish lead in my judgment. I do not see it
working in any other way.
Senator Shaheen. Well, thank you all very much. We
appreciate your willingness to stay so long and all of your
insights.
At this point, I will close the hearing.
[Whereupon, at 12:30 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
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