Americans are reluctant to get involved militarily in Syria: Security expert

Senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Washington-based think-tank, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Dr Steven A Cook, who  visited India recently as part of a US Consulate outreach program was in Mumbai. dna’s Yogesh Pawar caught up with this expert on Arab and Turkish politics as well as US-Middle East policy for an interview.

Did US President Obama make the right move in going to Congress for authorisation to use military force in Syria?
In my view, yes. There’s tremendous concern and reluctance on the part of many Americans to get involved militarily in the Middle East. The President’s decision to bring the issue before Congress was also a recognition that the House and Senate have roles in foreign policy making. As a result, there was a vigorous debate in the US about the wisdom of intervening in the Syrian civil war.

Is there a unique legal significance for intervention in Syria, compared to, let’s say, US conflicts over the past decade or so?
There is a principle involved, of course. The Syrian government used chemical weapons against its own people. I’m not an expert in international law, but as President Obama said many times, the use of chemical weapons is an egregious violation of international norms. Despite this, when you look at details and complexities of the Syrian civil war, my view is that there is no benefit of a military intervention.

At a time when Washington felt Bashar al-Assad will fall on his own and an intervention wouldn’t work, you’d advocated intervention in January 2012. But you now say the US and its allies should understand that even limited intervention would hasten Syria’s demise.
I’m glad you are reading my work. Indeed, in January 2012 I wrote that if the US and international community were going to take their declarations “Assad must go” seriously, the only way he’d fall was through military intervention. Once more, I argued that if there was no intervention, Assad would kill tens, perhaps, hundreds of thousands. Never have I been so distressed about being so correct about something. Yet the way in which the Syrian conflict has evolved into four different conflicts, I’m not sure that there is much positive that the US can do.

Some experts like Michael Young have said Russia is more concerned with guarding its strategic interests in Syria than sustaining the rule of Assad, who eventually may overburden the Kremlin.
Moscow sees Syria as its last toe-hold in the region and is determined not to allow the country to fall into the hands of those who will not maintain a strategic relationship with Russia. That’s why the Kremlin is supplying Assad with weapons and diplomatic support.

As Ankara argues for more than limited strikes against the Syrian regime and Tehran warning that whoever strikes President Bashar al-Assad must bear consequences, are we now seeing the creation of a new Middle East order?
There are a variety of countries in the region vying for leadership--Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel, even Egypt which have pretensions of restoring its previous power and influence.

None of them have the capacity to lead or bring an order in the region in ways that benefits them exclusively. In the Syrian crisis, for example, the Turks, Saudis, and Qataris have consistently encouraged, begged, and cajoled the US into more action precisely because they themselves cannot lead.

The war in Syria has forced violence across the border into Turkey, along with more than half a million refugees. What are the challenges for the country?
The challenges for Turkey are clear: managing the flow of refugees, preventing violence from spilling over its border, containing the domestic political fallout from Prime Minister Erdogan’s Syria policy, which is unpopular among many Turks.

Many feel US President Obama’s decision to delay a military strike in Syria has left others like Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan politically more vulnerable at home. Would you agree?
Erdogan has been vulnerable since the Gezi Park protests turned violent last May. He has had to contend with an increasingly unpopular Syria policy at home, but I’m unsure how a strike would’ve helped him. I know that people say it would have, but to the extent that a US intervention would’ve accelerated the violence in Syria, the Turks would have been faced with greater refugee flows and potential retaliation.

How do regimes in the Middle East which have traditionally enjoyed close ties with India see its alignment with the US policies in the region?
As far as I know, India hasn’t been part of the regional debate about US policy and New Delhi’s alignment with Washington on some issues is not an issue that is given tremendous attention.

Many feel it was US pressure that made India back off from the project to get piped gas from Iran. Apart from hurting Iran this also made the nuclear lobby in the US happy.
I don’t know much about the “nuclear lobby” in the US, but I do know that Iran’s nuclear ambitions are a threat to its neighbours. As a secular, successful democracy I’d imagine that India would look upon Iran warily.

Like Africa, both India and China are trying to increase their footprint across the Arabian peninsula too. Your take on the dynamics between the two Asian rivals in the region.
Clearly, China’s far more engaged than India. To the extent that both countries are more dependent energy from the Middle east than the US, I’m certain that there will come a time when US forces drawdown from the region--without withdrawing completely--and there will be pressure on both New Delhi and Beijing to become more directly involved in regional security.