After six bloody years of civil war, Syria is a smoldering shell of a country. Of a pre-war population estimated at 22 million, 470,000 people — more than one person in every fifty — have been killed. Over half the populace have been forced to leave their homes because of the fighting. Five million Syrians have fled for neighboring countries, while 6.3 million are internally displaced within the country. It is a humanitarian crisis of heartbreaking proportions, and there’s no end in sight.
Briefly described, the war can be broken down into roughly four factions: the repressive Syrian regime under Bashar al-Assad; the butchers of the Islamic State; the Kurds, a stateless ethnic group controlling much of the northern border; and a hodgepodge of rebel militias, some of whom are pro-West and want to establish a secular state, others of whom are Islamist and would like to establish a religious state.
Further complicating things, foreign powers have inserted themselves into the mix. Russia, Iran and Hezbollah (a Lebanese anti-Israel militia) are backing the regime, and Turkey and the surrounding Arab states are backing the rebels. For years, the U.S. has looked on with concern at the degenerating situation but has been unable to advance any workable solutions. Under President Obama, the U.S. called for the removal of Assad, but we haven’t done much to help those fighting the regime. Instead, we’ve focused our efforts on the IS, working most closely with the Kurds to "degrade and ultimately destroy" the jihadist group.
With a new president at America’s helm, many in the region have been hoping for a change in U.S. policy. They got it April 6, when President Trump ordered a cruise-missile strike on a regime airbase in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack on a hospital that killed dozens of civilians. Many people, myself included, think this was a decisive response signaling that not only will we condemn this kind of horrific atrocity, but we will also back up our condemnation with action. But while this strike may have profound implications for our foreign policy in the region, especially with regard to our relations with Russia, it does not represent a strategy or a plan.
With so many actors in the mix, and so few palatable options, it’s no wonder Obama failed to make any decisive moves in Syria, although his administration’s indifference to the plight of Syrian refugees (the U.S. accepted only 172 from 2012 to 2014) was almost as egregious as Trump’s own. The callousness of Mr. Trump’s decision to take in only 50,000 refugees this year instead of the 110,000 Obama promised would be compounded if he refused to address the hellish circumstances in Syria driving the mass flight.
Mr. Trump’s strike seems to represent a shift in his America First thinking. He may be realizing, when thrust onto the international stage, the full weight of what America has striven to be and do in the world — a force for justice and liberty standing against those who would withhold or take these rights.
The world cannot afford for the U.S. to overlook oppression. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” While as a sovereign nation we do have to consider our own interests in acting abroad, we also have a responsibility to alleviate suffering and work for justice and peace.
Given the repeated collapse of peace talks between rebel groups and the regime, the ethnic and religious barriers that foster hatred and fear of reprisal, and the atrocities committed by the regime and its allies, the hope that a unified state might emerge out of this quagmire is increasingly unlikely. But, as we saw under Obama, passivity only lets the situation devolve further, so we need to take action to halt the bloodbath.
Some options are establishing no-fly zones where those fleeing the fighting can be safe, improving access for aid workers and supplies and perhaps even settling on a partitioned system of government for Syria.
The last of these is the most radical and controversial, so I’ll spend some time explaining how it represents an improvement on the current state of affairs. The partition model would be offered to the various factions excepting the IS, which would be subject to a combined effort to eradicate it. The lines would be drawn, taking into account current territory occupied but also ethnic boundaries. You might interject at this point that to do so would be condoning a mass murderer on one hand and jihadi groups ideologically similar to al-Qaeda on the other.
These are valid objections, but the situation is dire enough to justify extreme measures. With hundreds of thousands dead, millions displaced and peace no closer than it has been in the last six years, it’s time to think outside the box to restore peace. There is historical precedent — seven countries in the Balkans were until 1991 conjoined into the single nation of Yugoslavia. The Balkans did endure several years of violence as the new nations tried to purge unwanted ethnic groups from their territories, but with U.S. and U.N. oversight, it may be a feasible solution for Syria.
But will the powers accept this settlement? I think so. The rebels are reeling under Russian and regime bombing and no longer have much hope of taking over the whole country. The regime’s forces are overstretched, and it is relying heavily on its allies to prop it up, so it likewise has little chance of recapturing all its former territory (the IS’s recapture of Palmyra in December demonstrates how thinly Assad's forces are spread). And the Syrian Kurds, long marginalized under regional powers, would jump at the chance to become a recognized state or autonomous region.
It’s a solution that would make few people happy, and it would leave in place a ruthless tyrant and rebel groups that are uncomfortably close to our jihadist enemies, but if it could end the slaughter, it’s worth at least proposing. Perhaps a few years of distance from the bloodshed will cool the animosity. Reunification may not come about until the children or grandchildren of this beleaguered generation of Syrians assume positions of power, but with the help of a partition plan, we can take the first steps toward this goal today.