Assad of supporting Kurdish militants in order to inflame tensions between the Kurds and Turkey. Fourth, American leadership on Syria could improve relations with key allies like Turkey and Qatar. Both the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and his Qatari counterpart have criticized the United States for offering only nonlethal support to the rebellion.
Finally, American action could end a terrible human-rights disaster within Syria and stop the exodus of refugees, which is creating a burden on neighboring states. And by putting allies in the lead, Mr. Obama could act without sliding down the slippery slope toward a ground war.
Assad toppled as soon as possible. France and Britain could also be counted on to help, as they did in Libya. Yet none of them will move until America does. We cannot wait for the United Nations to act; that is highly unlikely. Nor can we expect the Free Syrian Army to oust Mr. Assad on its own; it is not a cohesive organization.
Instead, America must identify those elements on the ground that are the most effective, easily supplied and amenable to help. The last thing most Americans were thinking about was war in a far-off Middle Eastern country. But Obama faced a dilemma. The decision he was about to announce would come to be seen as a defining moment for his presidency. It also marked a tipping point for the international strategic balance of power. It was a moment that would transform the civil war in Syria into the epic failure of our age.
Revolutions in Yemen, Egypt, Libya and elsewhere ensue. A brutal police response prompts peaceful street protests, which spread. The opposition to the regime takes up arms after Assad refuses concessions. The Free Syrian Army is formed, backed by armed forces defectors.
More armed groups, including the al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front, join the fight. As the opposition fragments, neighbouring states intervene, backing rival rebel forces. Civilians in east Ghouta are attacked with sarin gas. Th e UK parliament votes against military action. US leader Barack Obama ignores his own red line banning chemical weapons use and declines to intervene. Europe faces an unprecedented influx of millions of Syrian refugees.
The influx causes an anti-immigrant backlash, notably in Germany, which controversially opens its borders. Islamic State Isis achieves dramatic territorial gains in Syria and Iraq, seizing the cities of Raqqa and Mosul, killing thousands and laying waste to cultural heritage. It declares a caliphate and jihad against the western powers and their allies. The coalition forms an alliance with the Kurdish peshmerga.
There is however little appetite for deploying western ground forces. Backed by Russian fighter jets, the Assad regime increasingly targets civilian areas where it claims that rebel forces are based. Hospitals, schools and clinics are routinely hit. As a result, civilian casualties grow steadily across the country. There are also reports of more chemical weapons attacks despite the agreement to end their use in the country.
Isis is defeated and expelled from Raqqa. But as the year ends, there are reports of the Islamists regrouping in Anbar, Iraq, and of a growing al-Qaida presence in north-west Syria. The collapse of Russian-sponsored peace talks in Sochi prompts an all-out regime offensive against rebel strongholds, with mass casualties and further displacement.
Turkish troops cross the border into northern Syria and enter the Kurdish held enclave of Afrin. Ten days earlier, Assad had launched just such an attack, in eastern Ghouta, near Damascus. Sarin nerve gas dropped from the air killed more than 1, people , hundreds of them children. Waiting reporters fully expected a declaration of imminent US action. But Obama blinked. He announced the US would not attack the Assad regime — not yet, anyway.
Instead, he would first seek authorisation from Congress. But the British vote gave him a plausible fig-leaf. In the ensuing debate, it became clear much of the American public opposed involvement in another Middle East war. Yet before the issue came to a head, there was another surprise. Fatefully, Obama agreed. In effect, he outsourced the war to Moscow. Given the disparity between the two sides, it is unreasonable to conclude that the West or the Arab world encourages a heavy mechanised war between two opposing armies.
Indeed, supplying the FSA requires a more subtle approach, encouraging the use of guerrilla tactics, requiring mobility, communication support, and light weaponry no heavier than an RPG and anti-tank weaponry. This serves two purposes; firstly it vastly cuts down on training time by removing the need for preparing mechanised vehicles.
Secondly, by limiting the scope of the war to a guerrilla style insurgency, there is far less risk of advanced weapons from the West ending up in the hands of armed forces with whom we are not fully conversant or familiar. Most importantly for the international community is the need to understand that for the Arab states, the diplomatic option is fast running its course. Following the failure of the Arab League Monitoring mission, largely due to the refusal of the Assad regime to cooperate with the demands of its observers, the Arab League and in particular Qatar and Saudi Arabia are committed to seeing the end of the Assad regime.
For Saudi Arabia this indicates a huge shift in its policy position. King Abdullah, vehemently opposed to regime change in Bahrain, and reticent to overtly call for change in Syria, has repeatedly offered Assad the chance of redemption. On 8 August Abdullah stated 'Syria should think wisely before it's too late and issue and enact reforms. Either it chooses wisdom on its own or it will be pulled down into the depths of turmoil and loss.
That Assad did not heed the warning has led the Arab states into a position where they can no longer countenance his regime remaining in power. It is a message that the West has acknowledged but the Russians and Chinese have not, at least not openly. It is to date, the first time that Qatar, the perennial victor in the Arab Spring, has ever issued such a threat in the public sphere, and one that should not be taken lightly.
That China and Russia have stymied the diplomatic option will now put into place a series of events that they will have little control over. Those familiar with the Arab world will know that neither Qatar, nor Saudi Arabia has shied away from funding covert operations in their neighbourhood in recent years. Doha and Riyadh will now seek through the Arab League to arm the Free Syrian Army, provide it with organisational and logistical assistance, and perhaps even extend this to placing covert elite forces on the ground to engage in fighting.
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