The limits of compellence in Syria

As events in Syria unravel, there is a growing concern that Syrian despot Bashar Assad will use his chemical weapons arsenal to punish those rising up against him in a desperate bid to stay in power.  Eli Lake reports that the CIA is, as I type this, "scrambling to get a handle on the locations of the country’s chemical and biological weapons."

What can the U.S. do?  Elsewhere on Foreignpolicy.com, Andrew Tabler argues that the U.S. needs to be firm: 

Washington and its allies must lay down and enforce red lines prohibiting the use of Syria’s chemical and biological weapons (CBW), one of the Middle East’s largest stockpiles. To do so, Washington should push for a U.N. Security Council resolution under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter, which sanctions the use of military action, on mass atrocities in Syria — including a reference that those responsible for the use of CBW would be held accountable before the International Criminal Court. Washington should not water down the text to make the measure toothless, as it has done repeatedly on Syria over the last year in an attempt to avoid a Russia veto. In the event of further Russian obstructionism, the United States should lead its allies  — 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. (emphasis added)

I’m neither a Middle East nor a nonproliferation expert, but I know a little bit about compellence, and Tabler’s strategy sounds like an unsuccessful one in compelling the Syrian leader.  Assad’s behavior to date suggests that he really doesn’t care about anything other than staying in power — and he’s perfectly willing to use whatever tactics are necessary to stay in power.  He is now facing an adversary that, based on this week’s bomb attack in Damascus, is perfectly content with using unconventional tactics.  There is simply no way that Assad will constrain himself in response to a Western threat — no matter how credible it is —  when his alternative is losing power. 

Let’s be blunt — the only "immediate military response" that would matter would be a full-blown ground invasion (I don’t think Seal Team Six could pull off an Assad decapitation at a tolerable amount of risk). It will take quite some time for that kind of operation to mobilize.  And even if there is a ground assault, Assad would likely find his way across Iraq to Iran.  Using ground force might be an advantage to using this kind of force as a signal to future leaders contemplating the use of WMD — but I suspect it’s a very weak effect. 

I tweeted parts of this critique earlier in the day, which prompted Bob Wright to suggest an alternative strategy: 

One obvious way to strengthen the incentive structure would be to pose a cornered Assad with a different choice: If you don’t use chemical weapons, and just give up power peacefully, you can have a long and happy life.

But it’s hard to offer him that option, because the Syrian army has already committed enough atrocities to get Assad indicted and convicted by an international tribunal and locked up for the rest of his life. So, to him, surrender may seem to entail a fate not much more attractive than death….

Suppose that, 10,000 Syrian lives ago, we could have offered Assad the option of safe haven if he surrendered power peacefully. Or, maybe, we could have offered him the option of safe haven after serving a year of jail time. Or two years, or whatever.

Now, you might argue that to let him off that lightly would have been to dishonor the 8,000 or so Syrians who had already died. Point taken. But tell that to the other 10,000. And tell that to the many thousands who may die yet.

The problem with this is that one has to assume that both the United States and Russia likely did make this offer to Assad a year ago – and he likely rejected it. 

Unfortunately, Syria is not a case that will end well.  An external ground invasion would put Western troops in the middle of a sectarian conflict.  No external intervention will allow the sectarian conflict to fester even more.  As for the United Nations, well, fuhgeddaboutit.

This is one of those cases in which the limits of U.S. influence — or any great power’s influence — over the situation can be exaggerated.  This seems obvious to me — but I thought it might be a useful point to make to the rest of the foreign policy community. 

Am I missing anything?