Which made for an interesting panel discussion on Saturday, moderated by this writer, who was trying to drill down on the question of whether the United States had any moral obligation to intervene in Syria because a) there was (or at least it began as) an organic freedom movement trying to topple a repressive government that had been tacitly supported by America for years, and b) there is a growing human crises that stands to get worse, not just for Syria but for the entire region, which is already fragile from war, refugees and sectarian strife.<\/p>\n
This question is particularly salient today because the Obama Administration is expected to \u201cdecide\u201d this week <\/a>whether the U.S will start assisting the rebels with heavy arms (something my co-panelists and many in the audience clearly oppose). And while President Obama has already ruled out \u201cboots on the ground,\u201d there is an ongoing debate about the \u201cless likely\u201d option of helping to impose a no-fly zone and \u201cdeploying American air power to ground the regime’s jets, gunships and other aerial assets,\u201d according to an Associated Press <\/i>report on Sunday<\/a>.<\/p>\n With help from the Russians and Hezbollah on the ground fighting for Bashar Assad\u2019s Syrian Army forces, the government has in the last week taken back the city of Qusair and is on the march north to recapture Homs and Aleppo<\/a>, the very source of the rebellion\u2019s strength. The fall of Qusair blocks a strategic supply route for the rebels<\/a> and the fall of the two other major cities would reopen the government\u2019s access to the coast and a vital corridor of predominantly Shia-Allawite support. In other words, it\u2019s not looking too good for the revolution.<\/p>\n I was joined Saturday to talk about these developments and more by Gareth Porter, John Walsh, Chase Madar, Evan Siegel, and Lorraine Barlett, all of whom who would either consider themselves Left or libertarian, but decidedly anti-war and comfortable working with the Right end of the spectrum on national security issues. All save for Seigel have written for Antiwar.com or The American Conservative<\/em> magazine.<\/p>\n The audience was decidedly Left, and, judging from the exhibition hall downstairs, way more comfortable with Karl Marx and Leon Trotsky than Randolph Bourne or Ron Paul. But judging from many of the knowing smiles and murmurs of agreement throughout the nearly two-hour discussion \u2013 surprise<\/i> \u2013 we had a lot in common, at least on foreign policy.<\/p>\n First off \u2013 there seemed to be a hard line against intervention in Syria or anywhere else. \u201cBombs for peace\u201d didn\u2019t hold well with this crowd. \u201c(Intervention) will only complicate and cause more death than help in Syria,\u201d said Siegel, an adjunct professor at the New York City College of Technology and veteran peace activist. \u201cThey have to work it out for themselves,\u201d said Walsh, a microbiology professor who co-founded ComeHomeAmerica.us<\/a> and over the course of his own activism has shifted from Left, closer to libertarianism. He appeared the most unyielding of them all on the panel, saying any move to assist the rebels would be seen as imperialist in nature.<\/p>\n Porter agreed. \u201cDon\u2019t be suckers,\u201d he said simply. A mantra for our times. More seriously, Porter entered into an exposition in which he explained that the National Security State — the Armed Forces, the National Security Council, Joint Chiefs and Pentagon — were disinterested in a Syrian intervention anyway. “It’s not in the interest of the National Security State,” he insisted, “because they believe the cost of war to the National Security State itself would be greater than the benefit to the National Security State. In other words, it’s about their bottom line.”<\/p>\n
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