Arming the Syrians

There has been quite a bit of talk lately, especially from Senator John McCain, about arming the Syrian opposition. Now there is a lot of debate as to which opposition faction should be armed, and so far nobody has come up with a clear answer. I for one am cautious about this approach. Not only is it short sighted and ignorant, but it could be very dangerous. Giving people the means to defend themselves is fine, but the consequences these actions could have in the future must be contemplated.

First of all, if the opposition wins the war and the Al Assad regime is ousted, a number of heavily armed factions and militias operating in a country with no stable government is not a good thing. This is presently clear in Libya. There, armed militias are presenting an obstacle to the Libyan Transitional Council's effort to rebuild and restore. I meant to make a post on this yesterday in response to Eastern Libya's calls for autonomy, but didn't have the time. And the prediction that was going to be included in that response proved correct in a new development today: Libyan leader Ahmed Zubair al-Senussi is denounced the call for autonomy and said he will maintain national unity with force. Basically Libya is now on the brink of civil war.

The next point holds an example from the Soviet era Afghanistan. During the Soviet invasion, the CIA supplied the Mujahideen with arms, including Sting Anti-Aircraft missiles, which were very effectively used against Soviet attack helicopters and aircraft. Once the conflict was over and the Soviets withdrew, the American Administration expressed concerns that the Stingers might be sold to terrorist organizations (as if the missiles weren't directly supplied to Jihadists in the first place) and used to shoot down civilian passenger aircraft. An operation was then initiated with the goal of buying back these missiles from Afghan war lords, at a cost of $80,000-150,000 a piece. By 1996 there were still six hundred unaccounted for, and most of the money spent to repurchase the missiles ended up in the hands of the very same warlords who reduced the country to rubble during the Afghan Civil War that followed the Soviet withdrawl. There have already been concerns that opposition factions in Syria could have ties to extremist groups, so this fact has potential to become a problem if handled incorrectly.

My stance is that simply giving the Syrians guns and hoping there will only be one shootout is irresponsible planning. I'm hoping that Russia will step up pressure on it's ally, al-Assad, and convince him to grant a cease fire and/or peace settlement.