Unfinished business

The war in Syria now threatens conflagration and dominates a presidential campaign. It has unclothed our foreign policy at its weakest—witnessed recently in a one-week cease-fire that came apart when U.S. forces by mistake fired on Syrian forces and Russian bombers destroyed a UN aid convoy.

For all the blunders, the hapless shuffling of John Kerry capital to capital, all is not lost. Two points of action and policy turnarounds by a new president could bring this war to a conclusion, stop the civilian bloodletting, and deal a badly needed setback to Islamic jihadis.

Military intervention—which earned a bad name after Afghanistan, Iraq, and the more recent failed effort in Libya—has worked in the past and in situations as far gone as Syria. Take Bosnia in 1993, where half a million residents in Sarajevo were under the longest siege in modern warfare. A NATO-led no-fly zone immediately saved lives and allowed humanitarian aid to penetrate urban areas. Had Serbian forces continued to bomb Sarajevo with impunity, the world likely would have seen in Bosnia two decades ago the rise of ISIS-like extremists threatening the world.

The United States is a country formed as an outpost for the persecuted and disenfranchised. It is time to merge once again American foreign interests with American values.

A no-fly zone in Syria could begin as a no-bombing zone, with cruise missile strikes launched at offending aircraft from U.S. naval vessels in the Mediterranean. That’s the recommendation of Muhamed Sacirbey, a delegate to the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords and Bosnia’s first ambassador to the UN. Once Syrian (and allied Russian or Iranian) air forces know the United States means business, a no-fly zone can be enforced as it was in Iraq in the 1990s (for a decade). This should’ve been done three years ago, but here we are. We should base such an effort out of Europe and stop coddling Turkey and Saudi Arabia for their toxic friendship. The key is unflinching prosecution of air superiority: History shows it will save civilian lives and force dictators and militant holdouts to the negotiating table.

That the United States and its allies haven’t taken such steps isn’t because we can’t, but because we won’t. Our military superiority stands head and shoulders over the next military power, yet we negotiate with Russians as our equals. We have 10 aircraft carriers, more than the rest of the world’s navies have altogether.

The price of our inaction has grown too high: ISIS spillover threatening Western cities and a hysterical debate over Syrian refugees when a full-on humanitarian crisis is underway. All to say nothing of the serious threats now facing Jordan, perhaps our best Arab ally in the region and a regime not at war with Israel. Are we willing to risk Jordan, too?

The second turnaround is to stop pretending the genocide against Christians and other non-Muslims in the region isn’t taking place, to stop “tossing Christians under the bus” as a strategy, as Armenian leader Aram Hamparian recently pointed out in Washington. With the benefit of hindsight, ignoring what was happening to Christians in Iraq throughout the Bush-led war not only led to the genocide, it was strategic suicide. In 2006 an Assyrian priest handed me a list of typed names of Christians killed or kidnapped—and it ran to 24 pages. Had we taken seriously protection of Iraq’s minorities—those building businesses and communities, not bombs—Iraq might look different today. The United States is a country formed as an outpost for the persecuted and disenfranchised. It is time to merge once again American foreign interests with American values.

In 2011 then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton formally designated as a terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the current leader of ISIS, and put a $10 million bounty on his head. Baghdadi and ISIS are the unfinished business of the Iraq War, the boil the United States left unlanced.

Our leaders knew this before his jihadis conquered Mosul and nearly a third of Iraq, long before Baghdadi himself raped Kayla Mueller and his followers beheaded James Foley and other Americans. The weak efforts of the current left leave us less safe, and so too will the strange prevailing populism of the right, a toughness symbolized by walls, and fear. Smart engagement and a values-based foreign policy remain within our grasp.

Email mbelz@wng.org