Who Benefits?

As the U.S. and its allies move on what appears to be an inevitable march toward war in Syria, it seems that it might be useful to examine what Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld called the known knowns, the known unknowns and unknown unknowns. After all the blustery rhetoric from the western powers over the last days, it appears unlikely that they can now back away from war without politically “appearing weak”.

As I write this, it seems that the known knowns are that a horrific chemical attack occurred outside of Damascus last week which resulted in the deaths of many people including women and children. Among the many known unknowns are who in fact initiated this attack and what they expected to gain from it. Phyllis Bennis writes a cogent analysis of this issue on commondreams.org (the whole post is here) which I excerpt below.

“But who benefits is a little more complicated.

It’s certainly not impossible that the Syrian regime, known to have had a chemical weapons arsenal, used such a weapon. If so, why? Despite remaining under pressure from sanctions and facing increasing international isolation, Damascus has been seeing some success on the battlefield. It’s certainly possible a mid-level Syrian officer, worried about some past defeat and desperately afraid of being held accountable for it, might have chosen to use such a weapon to gain a gruesome battlefield victory despite the increase in the threat of direct military intervention. But it is very unlikely the regime’s leadership would have made such a choice. Not because they “wouldn’t kill their own people,” they’ve been doing just that. But because they stood to lose far more than any potential gain. It’s not impossible. But as brutal as this regime is, it isn’t crazy. It’s unlikely.

Then there’s the other side, the diverse opposition whose strongest fighters are those claiming allegiance to al Qaeda and similar extremist organizations. Those who benefit from this attack, are those eager for greater US and western military intervention against the Assad regime in Damascus. Further, al Qaeda and its offshoots have always been eager to get the US military—troops, warplanes, ships, bases, whatever—into their territory. It makes it so much easier to attack them there. Politically it remains what US counter-intelligence agents long ago called a “recruitment tool” for al Qaeda. They loved the Iraq war for that reason. They would love the Syrian war all the more if US targets were brought in. All the debate about “red lines,” the domestic and international political pressure to “do something,” the threats to the UN inspectors on the ground—who inside Syria do we think is cheering that on?

(And as for the opposition’s capacity and/or willingness to use such weapons…we should also remember that the opposition includes some defectors. Who knows what skills and weapons access they brought with them? And do we really doubt that al Qaeda wanna-be extremists, many of them not even Syrians, would hesitate to kill civilians in a suburb of Damascus?)”

The unknown unknowns are what the consequences of a military strike will be. No war plan survives the first contact with the enemy. As I drove home today, I saw a sign saying “War used to be the name of a card game”. Oh for those simpler days.

 

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