Syria - weak Pulse on intervention

By John Hilley (Zen Politics)

Whatever terrible suffering prevails in Syria, no end or amelioration of it will come from more bombing or increased weaponry.

For much of the public, opposition to war on Syria may be motivated by domestic interests.

Yet there also seems a growing understanding that cruise missiles and more armaments only intensify the killing, displacement and all round misery.

It’s a core public reaction that disappoints war-extolling liberals like the Guardian’s Timothy Garton Ash, who decry both the left’s ‘narrow objections’ to intervention and the looming spectre of ‘US impotence’.

But there’s another more vociferous ‘leftist’ voice besides this, castigating ‘left infantilism’ and rationalising the case for war.

Here’s how Robin Yassin-Kassab of Pulse media caricatures the ‘alliance’ that’s helped contain such interventionist warfare:

Now that the glorious revolutionary alliance of the Stop the War Coalition, Sarah Palin’s Tea Party, UKIP, the BNP, Tory back-benchers and the (Iraq-invading) Labour Party has won its historical victory over the forces of imperialism, the western faux-left can go back to sleep while Bashaar al-Assad can continue and escalate his genocide of the Syrian people.

His Pulse co-author, Muhammad Idrees Ahmad, pursues the point in his debut Al-Jazeera US piece:

Opponents of intervention have rejoiced the outcome of the British debate. But in celebrating their domestic triumph, the implications for Syria have been forgotten. Commentary on the use of chemical weapons has been remarkably blithe. Those who oppose intervention claim that they do so because of its potential for escalating the ongoing civil war (a euphemism for state repression). But if the U.S. follows Britain’s lead, Assad can only take it as license for further escalation. In turn, the Gulf states will certainly redouble their support for the opposition. The consequences will be more sectarian violence and an expansion of the conflict. State authority will be harder to re-establish in Syria; the fragmentation of the country will become likelier. An externally imposed solution is less egregious than dooming Syria to prolonged war. [Emphasis added.]

Is this really so? Does Obama’s decision to halt the bombing (while still sending arms) really escalate the war and make things worse? Would intervention really stem Gulf support or sectarian violence? Would Syria’s state really fragment even more rapidly without intervention, dooming the country to intensified war?

An externally facilitated mediation based on genuine diplomacy and dialogue, with Western and Gulf states using their leverage to rein-in the rebels and jihadists, might be a more constructive and life-saving approach.

But for Idrees, there seems no realistic alternative to the “imposed solution” of Western bombing.

Similar rationalisations, alongside denunciations of the ‘new war truthers’, are made at Idrees’s New Republic piece:

There are perfectly good arguments for opposing military intervention—and some have been made persuasively, on moral or national interest grounds. There are also good reasons to be skeptical of humanitarian conceits that might be used to justify intervention. But there is more than a fine line between skepticism and cynicism—and not even the otherwise noble concern with preventing war, or the less-noble determination to oppose a president regardless of policy, justifies excusing the Assad regime’s well-documented crimes. While war must always be an option of last resort, and it is right to be concerned about its unforeseen consequences (as long as one is mindful that inaction too has consequences), the national debate over whether to wage it in Syria is not helped by spreading ideologically driven lies.

Here, Idrees has apparently ‘walked back’ somewhat in acknowledging the moral case for opposing war, while still falsely conflating it with the ‘left’s reticence’ to see Assad’s crimes.

Amongst those denounced in the article are the “eccentric Media Lens”. This is in sharp contrast to his glowing endorsement of Human Rights Watch, an agency which, as Joe Emersberger’s response piece to Idrees (still unpublished at the Pulse site) shows, has been in the effective pocket of the US war movers.

It’s also worth noting here the less studious language adopted by Idrees to denounce the ‘truther left’ and others at his facebook debates:

“There’s only so much stupidity and ignorance one can take. It isn’t enough that Syrians are being slaughtered by Assad; they also have to suffer the onslaught of the western left (and far right) which is waging an open war on them, turning their persecutor into victim, slandering them, and trivialising their suffering. [F…] you to all who’ve shown greater solicitude for preserving Bashar al Assad’s power than sympathy for the tens of thousands of his victims.” [Emphasis added.]

And:

“Man, you are hopeless. I’ve yet to meet a head that’s more immune to reason. What the [f…] was that Human Rights Watch report then? Not proof enough? The testimonies of witnesses? Not proof enough? The judgment of independent munitions experts? Not proof enough? The bodies of hundreds of dead children? Not proof enough? Because you find MAN ON INTERNET who has a different view? You’re pathetic. This communication is over.”

As with much of Yassin-Kassab’s other barbed responses, it’s a literal shame to see such writers descend to such savage invective.

While such outpourings are no doubt fuelled by an immediate humanitarian concern for suffering Syrians, the resort to fevered abuse and facile labelling suggests other problems of compassion deficit and intellectual intolerance.

The contrasting shift in Idrees’s more tempered AJ and NR pieces also suggests a sharp career-minded attentiveness in seeking academic status, approval of the ‘high’ policy commentariat and citations from the top liberal establishment media.

Is this kind of output and ‘sectarian’ exchange worth highlighting? I think so. As Edward Said argued in Representations of the Intellectual, once you place your views in the public domain, they’re fair game for rational challenge. It’s the very process of public activism.

There’s some notable thoughts here on the issues of intellectual incorporation and speaking consistent truth to power.

It also encourages reflection on how loaded and brutalised language in supposed defence of a humanitarian position only enhance power’s case for more violent and inhumanitarian action.