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The “Kosovo Model” Doesn’t Apply to Syria

Radwan Ziadeh favors a “Kosovo model” for Syria as well, but he doesn’t seem to remember very well what happened in 1999: First, as in Kosovo, the international community – be it a joint UN-Arab League mission or a coalition of “Friends of Syria” – must designate safe zones to be protected by air power. […]

Radwan Ziadeh favors a “Kosovo model” for Syria as well, but he doesn’t seem to remember very well what happened in 1999:

First, as in Kosovo, the international community – be it a joint UN-Arab League mission or a coalition of “Friends of Syria” – must designate safe zones to be protected by air power. An air campaign would minimise the risk for intervening actors. The international community, though, must help enforce these havens, or risk their bombardment from a brazen and emboldened Mr Assad. Air-based defence from such a coalition could also be used to protect humanitarian corridors.

Except for the use of air power, this doesn’t describe Kosovo at all. The objective of the Kosovo intervention was to drive Serb forces out of the province, and in the end that involved making Milosevic withdraw those forces after a bombing campaign that targeted infrastructure throughout Serbia and Kosovo. In the end, Russian pressure on Milosevic hastened the decision to withdraw as the U.S. and NATO began contemplating a ground invasion. There was never a “safe zone” protected by air power. There was a mass exodus of hundreds of thousands of Albanians during the air campaign caused in part by the bombing. U.S. and NATO intervention contributed to the de facto separation of Kosovo from Serbia, which led to the later illegal partition of the country. If the “Kosovo model” were applied to Syria, that would involve carving out and detaching part of Syria from the areas that have not yet risen up against Assad. Applying this model would require the intervening governments to support the disintegration of Syria along ethnic and sectarian lines.

The situation in Syria is not really comparable to the one in Kosovo in 1999, and the “solution” that the Kosovo intervention imposed would not be desirable if it were repeated in Syria. There is also the minor problem that there is no political will among any of the relevant Western governments to wage yet another air war. The Kosovo intervention was possible because of a large U.S. and NATO commitment. For all its problems, the Libyan intervention was possible because of a substantial U.S., British, and French commitment. NATO wants nothing to do with Syria, and there is no sign that the administration is going to commit the U.S. to a new conflict. Intervening militarily in Syria would in all likelihood make things worse for the civilian population, but apart from that it would require much greater political will than what Western governments had to intervene in Libya. That political will simply doesn’t exist.

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