LONDON (Reuters) - As Syria's death toll mounts, calls are growing for some form of outside intervention. But with few easy options, foreign powers who find themselves unable to halt the suffering could simply end up prolonging it.
Earlier this week, Senator and former presidential candidate John McCain called for US-led airstrikes to undermine the rule of President Bashar al-Assad. Government forces have been ruthlessly suppressing largely peaceful demonstrations since last year, in the last month pounding the city of Homs in some of the worst violence yet prompted by the "Arab Spring".
The United Nations says at least 7,500 people have died so far in the crackdown. The fledgling "Free Syrian Army" has begun to take the fight to Assad's forces, but remains outgunned and a mere shadow even of the haphazard opposition forces who faced Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.
With Assad believed receiving weaponry and support from regional ally Iran and long-term friend Russia, there are already signs the conflict may be becoming internationalized. The "Free Syrian Army" is also acquiring smuggled small arms across porous borders with Lebanon and also perhaps Turkey, with Saudi Arabia and Qatar seen keen to provide more.
"The longer Assad keeps up this shocking crackdown, the more likely it is that the regime's war against civilians will become a civil war," says Alia Brahimi, a senior fellow in Middle East politics at the London School of Economics.
"That internecine strife threatens to spill over and destabilize the region for a generation. This is because superpower politics will map onto regional rivalries, which are underpinned by sectarian ones... in a sense, the Assad regime holds the whole region to ransom."
Damascus says it faces an onslaught by terrorists backed by foreign powers. Long-time ally Russia refuses to back what it regards as a one sided Western approach to the conflict that blames only the Syrian government for the violence without criticizing rebel actions.
In Libya, France joined with Arab states in organizing weapons drops. Western powers seem reluctant to go that far in Syria, but seem ready to turn a blind eye to Arab arms shipments in the hope the Assad regime will gradually collapse. It might happen, but some warn such outside tinkering could ultimately end up making things worse.
GRADUALLY BUILDING OPPOSITION
"It is entirely possible," says former British Army brigadier Benjamin Barry, senior fellow for land forces at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies.
"Civil wars develop their own internal dynamics. The longer they go on, the more bitter differences become and the greater the risk you have of war crimes being committed -- by both sides," Barry, veteran of peacekeeping interventions in the Balkan wars of the 1990s, said.
Syria's uprising has long had a strong ethnic dynamic, with Alawites who have long owed their enhanced position to Assad's rule reluctant to abandon him for fear of losing out under any new order.
Syria's opposition say they have won some Alawites across and are having growing success in attracting defectors from the army. But they are clearly struggling.
Defense Secretary Leon Pannetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Of Staff Martin Dempsey this week defended their cautious approach but said that on the instructions of the White House some very basic preliminary planning was under way on military options.
Turkey and Tunisia have already said they oppose outside action. With their own financial and military resources overstretched, Western states would have limited ability to act unilaterally even if the will were there.
"There is every reason for the western nations not to tell the Middle East what to do, but ask how we can help," says former British Lieutenant-General Graeme Lamb, a former director of special forces who worked closely with U.S. commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan,
In the event of an Arab League or Turkish-led intervention, perhaps in creating a border security zone for refugees, there could be the option for Western states to provide airstrikes and even occasional on the ground support.
Lamb said that in the aftermath of the fall of Homs the main opportunity was to gradually build the capability and more importantly legitimacy and reputation of opposition forces and leadership.
Beyond the emergence of more credible leadership, requirements are seen as including anti-tank weapons and instruction on building the kind of crude obstacles that kept Gaddafi's tanks out of the centre of towns like Misrata.
But after the slaughter of Homs, Syria's rebels may be reluctant to risk trying to hold ground and switch back to more insurgent tactics.
JUSTIFYING BAD CHOICES?
Western powers would like to repeat the success of their sanctions strategy in Libya, starving Damascus of arms and oil revenue and his government of refined products with which to run their military vehicles. But such success would be almost impossible without the support of Russia, which continues to provide both arms and fuel.
Some human rights groups say they would like to see anything that would reduce the killing and relieve the pressure on civilian populations -- even a return of the heavily criticized Arab League unarmed monitoring group. While the opposition complained it did little to stop sniper attacks on civilians, with hindsight rights groups say that while it was in the country the killings did fall.
Turkish talk last year of creating some form of "humanitarian safe areas" has now largely dried up, perhaps on the realization that any such action would likely require the deployment of large numbers of Turkish troops. Some wonder whether it could come back on the table if very large numbers began to flee Syria, providing at least a way of keeping refugees outside Turkey's borders.
But even that would do little to tackle the real bloodshed taking place in Syria's interior.
"One of the reasons talk of airstrikes has come back on the table is that no one can really see any other immediate options," says Dave Hartwell, Middle East analyst at IHS Jane's. "But that doesn't mean that they are particularly likely."
With Assad's troops operating deep inside civilian areas, any airstrikes would likely hit largely symbolic targets such as command and control centers and palaces, he said, perhaps making little difference on the ground.
"The truth is that policy options are very limited but that should not be an excuse to justify bad choices," says Julien Barnes-Dacey, Middle East analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
"There is a risk that governments will jump into decisions that serve to aggravate the situation simply to be seen to be doing something. My view is that there has to be a political solution - and one that requires some dialogue with elements within the regime - but this will only be possible once there is international consensus."
(Reporting By Peter Apps)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syria-intervention-calls-rise-few-good-options-141011168.html
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