Crossing the Red Line: What If We Had Invaded Syria in 2013?
The Syrian Civil War is the most important global event since the end of the Cold War. Nearly all major news stories in the last two years are related to the war — though they may not appear so at first.
February, 2011. The Arab Spring. Egyptian President Mubarak is gone. Ghadafi is on his way out of Libya.
A 14 year old boy paints red graffiti on a school wall in Daraa, Syria.
“Doctor [al Assad], your turn.”
On August 18th, 2011, President Obama echoes the boy’s graffiti: “For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside.” Many Americans had no idea who Bashar al-Assad was. To most, Syria was just another middle eastern country caught up in the Arab Spring.
Government statements from the time seem naive in hindsight, with an optimism that is almost nauseating. The Geneva Communiqué of June 2012 contains a six point plan in which a global coalition encourages a peaceful abdication of power by Assad. Its demands are bizarrely hopeful considering they have no military force behind them. For example:
“All parties must re-commit to a sustained cessation of armed violence in all its forms and implementation of the six-point plan immediately and without waiting for the actions of others.”
One would think that this sort of optimism would fade quickly. However, six years and 470,000 casualties later, there is still talk of safe zones and ceasefires. Anti-interventionist attitudes in the US have led to euphemistic attitudes that downplay the realities of war — as if you could have had safe zones on the Western Front or ceasefires in Vietnam.
But what if things had gone differently? What if, after Assad used chemical weapons to kill 1,500 people on August 21, 2013 and crossed Obama’s red line, the United States had made a concerted military intervention?
Now, the discussion of whether the USA had the potential to succeed in 2013 would take another blog post entirely (although some experts do believe it was winnable). This post is not meant to be pro-intervention, but rather, a thought exercise to explain the massive significance of the Syrian Civil War.
Regardless of your beliefs or skepticism in American intervention, I want you to imagine that America had sent in armed forces in 2013 and stabilized the region by 2016.
Then what does 2017 look like?
1. There is no refugee crisis
It’s difficult to overstate the importance of the refugee crisis. It has redrawn borders and toppled administrations. The 12.5 million displaced Syrians have served as a lead domino in the tectonic global shifts we’re witnessing. The 1.3 million refugees that the EU accepted in 2015 alone changed the political and cultural landscape of the country — truly, “crisis” is an apt word to describe the plight of both the refugees and the countries accepting them.
Had America provided assistance to the Free Syrian Army (one of the most moderate forces) and ousted Assad, would we still have some refugees? It is certainly possible, but not nearly to the same extent we see now. War naturally creates refugees, but the scale of the refugee crisis has been largely driven by the indiscriminate attacks on civilians, forced conscription in Assad’s military, and ISIS territorial advances taking advantage of the region’s destabilization.
2. Brexit doesn’t occur
It doesn’t take much of a jump in logic to connect the refugee crisis to Brexit. Just take a look at Nigel Farage and this campaign poster (his arm is covering up “of our borders”:
YouGov polls from the time clearly show immigration as a top issue for Brexit voters. The refugee crisis loomed so large over Brexit dialogue that it is hard to imagine the “Leave” vote winning without it.
3. ISIS is much weaker
The world of Islamist terror groups is decentralized. Many organizations differ in name alone, but still follow similar agendas or even leaders. Kind of like Carls Jr vs Hardees.
As a matter of fact, ISIS was originally known as AQI (Al Qaeda in Iraq). However, ISIS was disowned by Al Qaeda in 2014 mainly because of one glaring difference in ideology: ISIS seeks to establish a physical caliphate, whereas Al Qaeda actively sought to prevent the organization from owning territory.
This makes ISIS much different from classic terrorist organizations. ISIS stands for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. At its height, it controlled a territory the size of Belgium. It created laws and taxed local populations (diversifying its funding). The ownership of this territory and establishment of a pseudo-state has been instrumental in ISIS’s exceptional recruiting and ideology of a manifest destiny of sorts.
But why were they able to conquer so much territory so quickly in the first place? Well, because of instability due to the Syrian Civil War. They were opportunists and took advantage of the chaos.
However, ISIS’s principal strength is also its Achilles’ heel. Their ideology is deeply rooted in the territory they control. Because they operate like a state, on some level they can be defeated like one (much more so than other decentralized terrorist groups). American intervention in Syria would have prevented ISIS opportunism and given America a strong position to carry out operations against them in Iraq. Keep in mind this also would have been in 2013, before ISIS had the kind of funding and infrastructure they currently do.
4. Donald Trump does not get elected
This is a bit more of a stretch than the previous three, but I think in many ways Donald Trump’s support was a reactionary response to a perceived lack of global control and a weak Obama administration. Trump consistently positioned himself as the candidate who was tough on terror. He advocated waterboarding and his first week in office, closed America’s borders to seven predominately Muslim countries. I think it is a fair assumption that, similar to Brexit, anxiety over migrant issues and terrorism were a significant factor in Trump’s surprise victory.
It would be tough to call the Obama administration weak on terror if it had carried out a full scale war on ISIS. With success in Syrian intervention, those appeals would fall on deaf ears. If anything, we may have had a reactionary candidate in the other direction — someone dovish rather than hawkish, tired of American war. But we almost certainly would not have had Trump.
5. Russia is weaker geopolitically
Supporting Assad in Syria was one of the smartest geopolitical Judo moves Putin has executed in a long time. In mid-2015, the Assad regime looked ready to topple. After previously providing only political support and arms to Assad, Russia began military operations in Syria in 2015 and strengthened the regime.
Brexit, the EU migrant crisis, Donald Trump’s election, and a destabilized middle east all are net positives for Russian geopolitics. Although Russia is committing war crimes, they position themselves as fighting ISIS to make their sphere of military influence more palatable globally. Russia is in a better position than it has been in decades, with a weakened NATO, EU, two largely unchallenged invasions (Syria and Ukraine), and the potential to have US sanctions lifted.
In conclusion
The Syrian protests started in 2011 because a boy and his friends were arrested and tortured for writing graffiti. At the time, no one could have known that an isolated power struggle in the city of Daraa would have such an outsized global impact.
But can anywhere be considered isolated in today’s modern world, where a can of paint can topple governments, redraw borders, and burn countries?
A butterfly flapped its wings in Syria, and we’re still dealing with the consequences today.
