PETER BROOKES
In a now widely reported private meeting with U.S. lawmakers at
a Munich security conference last weekend, Secretary of State John
Kerry told them the administration's policies toward the bloody Syrian
civil war weren't cutting it.
That's a striking admission on the part of our chief diplomat.
I agree with Kerry that things are going horribly for our interests
in Syria, but I do draw the line at the idea that Team Obama even has a
real policy for a positive ending to the three-year conflict that has
taken nearly 140,000 lives.
Despite President Obama's happy talk in the State of the Union
address about the removal of chemical weapons from Syria - a
well-intentioned effort that seems to have stalled - the situation in
the country is only getting worse.
First, after lots of chatter about a hopeful political solution to
stop the conflict, the just-concluded Syrian peace talks between the
regime and parts of the opposition that droned on for days in Geneva
achieved nothing.
That's right: zero, zilch, bupkis.
The talks couldn't even get the Bashar Assad regime to allow
humanitarian aid to millions at risk, in need or displaced by the
conflict.
A U.N. official reportedly said recently that the Syrian refugee
flows are causing the worst humanitarian crisis since the outflows
surrounding the 1994 Rwanda genocide. A startling - and troubling -
comparison.
Equally alarming is the continued rise of al-Qaeda and other
militant Islamists in Syria. Some estimates put the number of violent
jihadists at more than 25,000, including some 7,000 fighters who have
flocked there from as many as 50 countries.
In recent congressional testimony, Director of National Intelligence
James Clapper reported that Syria is a "huge magnet" for extremists
and is used by al-Qaeda affiliates to "recruit, train and equip" other
terrorist wannabes.
Clapper & Co. noted that some terrorists in Syria aspire to
"conduct external attacks." That means undertake terror strikes beyond
Syria, including against the West and our homeland. There are training
camps in Syria for this purpose.
You might say that Syria is becoming pre-9/11 Afghanistan.
The war's effects aren't contained to Syria, either. Surrounding
countries such as Jordan have absorbed millions of refugees, putting a
significant social and economic strain on the U.S.-friendly country.
Lebanon, due to Hezbollah's fighting on the side of the Assad
regime, has been rocked with violence. The high levels of terror
attacks in Iraq are in part related to al-Qaeda's resurgence in Syria.
If the Syrian regime holds on - and it may very well - the other big
winner will be Iran, its closest ally in the Middle East. Of course,
if the regime falls, the security vacuum could be filled by al-Qaeda
and other assorted militant extremists.
The future for American interests in Syria doesn't look bright - to say the least.
I'm sure the administration would insist that they have some sort of
Syria policy. But the question is: When are they going to realize that
"muddling through" and "hoping for the best" isn't really a policy for
protecting and advancing U.S. interests?
Peter
Brookes is a Senior Fellow for National Security Affairs at the
Heritage Foundation and is a member of the U.S.-China Economic and
Security Review Commission. He writes a weekly column for the New York
Post and frequently appears on FOX, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, NPR and BBC. He is
the author of: "A Devil’s Triangle: Terrorism, Weapons of Mass
Destruction and Rogue States." Mr. Brookes served in the U.S. Navy and
is now a Commander in the naval reserves. He has over 1300 flight hours
aboard Navy EP-3 aircraft. He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy;
the Defense Language Institute; the Naval War College; the Johns Hopkins
University; and is pursuing a Doctorate at Georgetown University.
Peter Brookes is a Heritage Foundation senior fellow and a former deputy assistant secretary of defense.
peterbrookes@heritage.org
Read more:
Family Security Matters http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/syria-a-failure-for-us?f=must_reads#ixzz2t1Myu398
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