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Syria, Nonviolence, and Non-intervention

David Schenker objects to conditioning support for Syrian protesters on their continued non-violence: While the U.S. can be excused not for wanting to jump into another conflict, it is both strange and inappropriate for the administration to be lecturing Syrians on how they shouldn’t defend themselves. Moreover, the administration may be correct in its assessment […]

David Schenker objects to conditioning support for Syrian protesters on their continued non-violence:

While the U.S. can be excused not for wanting to jump into another conflict, it is both strange and inappropriate for the administration to be lecturing Syrians on how they shouldn’t defend themselves. Moreover, the administration may be correct in its assessment that a militarization of the revolt would be unsuccessful, but given the increasing number of regime-perpetrated atrocities a demand for pacifism seems neither realistic nor reasonable. Indeed, the ultimate result will be simply to place the U.S. in a tight spot should the opposition decide to take up arms. And in the meantime, knowledge that the leading international supporter of the opposition does not countenance, and in fact will penalize violent retaliation against the regime provides Assad and his cronies with a seeming carte blanche.

It’s not so strange. One of the many problems with the intervention in Libya was that it created the impression that the U.S. would intervene militarily against a regime once anti-regime protesters took up arms. That would have the unwelcome effect of encouraging protest movements to resort to violence, which would simply lead to a larger loss of life without much chance of success for the opposition. The administration seems intent on discouraging Syrian protesters from drawing that lesson, because intervention in Syria has never been a real option, and there is no reason to give the protesters false hope. Syrian protesters can and presumably will ignore whatever the administration says that doesn’t suit them, but the “lecturing” that Schenker finds so strange and inappropriate might discourage the protesters from taking up arms in a struggle that they are unlikely to win without outside support. Since outside support is not forthcoming, the “strange and inappropriate” lecturing may be designed to avoid making a mistake similar to the one that the first Bush administration made after the Gulf War. Urging people on to launch a doomed armed uprising just sets them up to be crushed, and it provides the regime with the excuse that it actually is fighting an armed insurgency.

Erica Chenoweth wrote an article revisiting some basic assumptions about non-violent resistance earlier this year, and she argues that non-violent resistance isn’t as futile or ineffective as most of us usually think it is:

The truth is that, from 1900 to 2006, major nonviolent resistance campaigns seeking to overthrow dictatorships, throw out foreign occupations, or achieve self-determination were more than twice as successful as violent insurgencies seeking the same goals. The recent past alone suggests as much; even before the Arab Spring, nonviolent campaigns in Serbia (2000), Madagascar (2002), Ukraine (2004), Lebanon (2005), and Nepal (2006) succeeded in ousting regimes from power.

The reason for this is that nonviolent campaigns typically appeal to a much broader and diverse constituency than violent insurgencies. For one thing, the bar to action is lower: Potential recruits to the resistance need to overcome fear, but not their moral qualms about using violence against others. Civil resistance offers a variety of lower-risk tactics — stay-aways (where people vacate typically populated areas), boycotts, and go-slows (where people move at half-pace at work and in the streets) — that encourage people to participate without making enormous personal sacrifices.

Chenoweth also disputed the conflation of non-violence and pacifism, and she specifically addressed the Syrian situation to argue that non-violent resistance still makes more sense:

Syrian activists have also so far largely avoided the temptation to respond to regime provocations with violence — a critical decision, not only because taking up arms may undermine their domestic bases of participation and support, but also because it makes security forces more likely to obey orders to repress the movement [bold mine-DL]. Because the regime has expelled journalists and cut off electricity in cities under siege, Syrian activists charge their laptops using car batteries and make fake IDs to get close to security forces so they can document human rights abuses and share them online. The continued mobilization resulting from these acts may help the opposition forge indispensable links with regime elites.

Taking up arms might appear to be the correct response to regime violence, but it would make it less likely that security forces will defect from the regime, and it makes them more likely to follow orders. Ultimately, without defections from the security forces, or at least a refusal on their part to carry out the orders they are given, the opposition doesn’t have much of a chance, but taking up arms eliminates what little chance they do have.

Schenker continues:

And when it comes to the possibility of intervention, there is little benefit to Washington in needlessly limiting its options [bold mine-DL]. After all, should the situation deteriorate further, there may indeed come a time when either multilateral or unilateral military intervention on behalf of the Syrian people is called for.

Now this is strange. I can see how someone could argue that there is little benefit to the Syrian protesters in ruling out U.S. military intervention, but the benefit to Washington and to the United States is significant: the U.S. will not be committed to a new war in a predominantly Arab country. The U.S. doesn’t need and shouldn’t want a full range of options for entangling itself in an internal Syrian conflict. Since the Syrian opposition leadership doesn’t want outside intervention, the only people who seem to be disappointed by the decision to rule it out are Americans who have never seen a foreign political struggle they didn’t think the U.S. ought to shape or direct in some way.

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