People will probably be surprised to hear this, but I am feeling pretty Hawkish on Syria and Iraq. The reason is Responsibility to Protect (R2P). This is a concept that came out of the international community’s failure to act in the Rwandan genocide of 1994.
R2P is a proposed norm that state sovereignty is not an absolute right and that the international community has a right and responsibility to intervene if a state fails to protect its citizens from genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing.
Clearly, both Iraq and Syria are in this boat. In the case of Syria, it is also the government itself which is perpetrating atrocities on its population.
It has led to one of the worst humanitarian crises in history.
I agree with the three-prong approach, military intervention is required.
The problem with the U.S.-led coalition’s response of air strikes is it simply does not go far enough. Romeo Dallaire, the Liberal ex-Senator who was the U.N. military commander in Rwanda has said we needed boots on the ground right from the beginning.
If we are going to commit to this thing, we need to be all in. Unfortunately, it is an extremely complicated situation.
On the one hand, there is the heinous terrorist organization ISIS, which has gained control of large swaths of both countries. There is also the civil war between the brutal dictator Bashar al-Asaad and more moderate rebel groups.
The international community should be intervening against both ISIS and the Syrian government, but the focus on ISIS has made Canada and the other coalition members into defacto allies of Asaad.
Then there is the Syrian president’s actual ally Russia.
The authority to intervene militarily against ISIS and Syria lies with the United Nations Security Council of which Russia is permanent member with a veto.
Now Russia appears to be setting up a military base in Syria to prop up al-Asaad against the rebel forces. This is making things tense and awkward for the United States and will undoubtedly not help the refugee situation.
A solution is not only going to require boots on the ground, but a supreme diplomatic effort.
