’Little Doubt’ Syria Gassed Opposition

Obama orders release of report justifying Syria strike- ▻http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57600171/obama-orders-release-of-report-justifying-syria-strike

Architect of Syria War Plan Doubts Surgical Strikes Will Work | The Cable
▻http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/08/26/architect_of_syria_war_plan_doubts_surgical_strikes_will_wor

The United States appears to be closer than ever to deploying a series of surgical strikes on Syrian targets. But a key architect of that strategy is seriously and publicly questioning the wisdom of carrying it out. 

In the last 48 hours, U.S. officials leaked plans to several media outlets to fire cruise missiles at Syrian military installations as a warning to the Syrian government not to use its chemical weapons stockpiles again. On Sunday, Sen. Bob Corker, who was briefed by administration officials twice over the weekend, said a U.S. “response is imminent” in Syria. “I think we will respond in a surgical way,” he said. On Monday, Secretary of State John Kerry appeared to set the groundwork for a U.S. military incursion.

Now, a former U.S. Navy planner responsible for outlining an influential and highly-detailed proposal for surgical strikes tells The Cable he has serious misgivings about the plan. He says too much faith is being put into the effectiveness of surgical strikes on Assad’s forces with little discussion of what wider goals such attacks are supposed to achieve.

“Tactical actions in the absence of strategic objectives is usually pointless and often counterproductive,” Chris Harmer, a senior naval analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, said. “I never intended my analysis of a cruise missile strike option to be advocacy even though some people took it as that.”

“I made it clear that this is a low cost option, but the broader issue is that low cost options don’t do any good unless they are tied to strategic priorities and objectives,” he added. “Any ship officer can launch 30 or 40 Tomahawks. It’s not difficult. The difficulty is explaining to strategic planners how this advances U.S. interests.”

In July, Harmer authored a widely-circulated study showing how the U.S. could degrade key Syrian military installations on the cheap with virtually no risk to U.S. personnel. “It could be done quickly, easily, with no risk whatsoever to American personnel, and a relatively minor cost,” said Harmer. One of the study’s proposals was cruise missile strikes from what are known as TLAMs (Tomahawk land attack missiles) fired from naval vessels in the Mediterranean.

The study immediately struck a chord with hawkish lawmakers on the Hill who were frustrated with the options outlined by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey that required a major commitment by U.S. military forces with a pricetag in the billions.

“For a serious accounting of a realistic limited military option in Syria, I would strongly recommend a new study that is being released today by the Institute for the Study of War,” Sen. John McCain said in July, referring to Harmer’s study. “This new study confirms what I and many others have long argued: That it is militarily feasible for the United States and our friends and allies to significantly degrade Assad’s air power at relatively low cost, low risk to our personnel, and in very short order.”

Not all surgical strikes are created equal, of course. And there’s no guarantee that the Obama administration’s strike plan would look like Harmer’s. Regardless, Harmer doubted that any surgical strikes would produce the desired results — especially if the goal is to punish the Assad regime for its alleged use of chemical weapons.

“Punitive action is the dumbest of all actions,” he said. “The Assad regime has shown an incredible capacity to endure pain and I don’t think we have the stomach to deploy enough punitive action that would serve as a deterrent.”

He also doubted the effectiveness of taking out Assad’s chemical weapons capabilities. “If we start picking off chemical weapons targets in Syria, the logical response is if any weapons are left in the warehouses, he’s going to start dispersing them among his forces if he hasn’t already,” he continued. “So you’re too late to the fight.”

West reviews legal options for possible Syria intervention without UN mandate-
▻http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/26/united-nations-mandate-airstrikes-syria

The New York Times has reported that Obama’s team is looking at the 1999 Kosovo conflict for precedents, as that involved air strikes without a UN mandate against Russian ally Serbia, which was committing atrocities.

In Kosovo, Bill Clinton used Nato backing and the requirement to protect large numbers of endangered civilians as justification. Since then the United Nations has formally adopted the “responsibility to protect” (R2P) as an international norm which could justify outside intervention in a country’s internal affairs, if that state had failed to protect its population from atrocities. R2P, established in 2005, could be advanced as a legal justification in Syria, but its validity in the absence of a security council mandate is in dispute.

Toujours dans le cadre de la recherche du légal dans l’illégal :

“We’re actively looking at the various legal angles”

▻http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/kerry-obama-determined-to-hold-syria-accountable-for-using-chemical-weapons/2013/08/26/599450c2-0e70-11e3-8cdd-bcdc09410972_story.html?hpid=z1

How President Obama Undermined His Legal Case for Syria Action | The Multilateralist
▻http://bosco.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/08/26/how_president_obama_undermined_his_legal_case_for_syria_action

Limited Strike on Syria Will Lead to Deeper Intervention - Room for Debate - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/08/26/is-an-attack-on-syria-justified/limited-strike-on-syria-will-lead-to-deeper-intervention

.. it is highly unlikely that such an intervention can be so narrow that it will not force a deeper U.S. military engagement in Syria’s civil war. Many have compared the potential upcoming use of force to the December 1998 United States and Great Britain attack against Iraq’s suspected weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile capabilities. In that four-day bombing campaign, only one-third of the targets were related to the production of weapons of mass destruction or ballistic missile programs.

Similarly, in the case of Syria, most of what the United States bombs would not be directly tied to Assad’s chemical weapon production, storage or weaponization facilities. Even a limited cruise missile strike will not be merely an attack on Assad’s chemical weapons capabilities, but an attack on the regime itself.

Subsequently, the United States will be correctly perceived by all sides as intervening on behalf of the armed opposition. From there, it is easy to conceive how the initial limited intervention for humanitarian purposes - like Libya in 2011 - turns into a joint campaign plan to assure that Assad is toppled.

If this is the strategic objective of America’s intervention in Syria, President Obama should state it publicly, and provide a narrative of victory for how the United States, with a small number of partner countries, can and will achieve this.