Richard Spencer goes into full alarmist mode on Syria:

In either of the second and third cases, we will also have to deal with this: a renewed, strengthened and invigorated anti-Western axis, to which not only Syria, Iran and North Korea but now Russia and China are fully signed up. They will have sensed Western and American weakness and indecision. Already confident in the failure of the Western “economic model” (without which their own economic revivals could not have happened, of course), they will then start to try to roll back the successes of what is so disdainfully called the “new world order” – the democratisation of Asian and East European states in the past 20 years.

The ease with which Spencer moves from the potential consequences of the Syrian conflict to this sort of grand statement about an “invigorated anti-Western axis” should make us all wary of the interventionist line that he recommends. If Syria remains divided between regime and opposition forces, the Syrian government won’t be strengthened or invigorated, nor will its patrons. Assad might still be in power, but it will be as the ruler of a much-diminished domain. Assad’s patrons will be steadily pouring resources down the drain as the conflict gradually saps the regime’s strength. China is formally opposed to Western intervention, but it has committed itself to doing nothing, so it’s hard to see how it is “fully signed up” as part of an “axis,” and North Korea has nothing to do with any of this. There is no such “authoritarian axis” that includes all these states, and to the extent that Syria and Iran constitute one they are very far from being “strengthened and invigorated.” Even a “victorious” Assad would be in a much weaker position than he was before the uprising began, and his allies will be preoccupied with propping him up for the foreseeable future.

I have no idea how Spencer moves from this poor speculation to the fantasy of authoritarian rollback in Asia and eastern Europe. To the extent that democracy has been in “retreat” around the world, it has been driven by internal political factors, but in many countries it is now well-established and isn’t likely to give way to authoritarianism promoted by Moscow and Beijing. Of course, thinking about this in terms of a hostile “axis” embarked on a policy of “rollback” treats modern authoritarian states as if they had a revolutionary and ideologically-driven foreign policy, when this is exactly what Russia and China today do not have. More to the point, Russia and China could attempt to undo so-called third-wave democratization all they like, but it wouldn’t succeed. If there’s one thing that China’s Asian neighbors and Russia’s eastern European neighbors do not crave, it is political tutelage from these governments.

Since these scenarios are so unrealistic and undermine the interventionist case, why do advocates of intervention in Syria so often indulge in exaggerations of the global consequences of avoiding greater involvement? The answer is simple enough: they know very well that Syria’s conflict doesn’t jeopardize American or allied interests, and so they have to find some way to link Syria’s conflict to things that might alarm people in the West. So we are treated to bad arguments that “inaction” in Syria could “embolden” North Korea or encourage Iran’s nuclear program, or, as Spencer argues, result in the supposed emergence of an “anti-Western axis.” This is a bit of rhetorical sleight-of-hand that confirms that even many Syria hawks know that the U.S. and its allies have no good reason to intervene in Syria, which is why they are forced to make up so many bad ones.