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Will this be the Straw that Break the Back of Non-Intervention in Syria?

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by Dan Nexon

21 August 2013, 1316 EDT

There are gruesome reports out of Syria today of a chemical weapons attack in a suburb of Damascus. If they are accurate, the chemical weapons inflicted mass civilian causalities. As David Kenner reports at Foreign Policy:

The information coming out of the Ghouta region, where the rebels enjoy significant support, is still unconfirmed by independent observers. But videos allegedly taken Wednesday in the area showed Syrians lying on the floor gasping for breath, medics struggling to save infants, and rows of bodies of those who had reportedly died in the attack (warning: the footage above is graphic). Syrian state media denied that chemical weapons had been used, attributing such stories to media channels that “are involved in the shedding of the Syrians’ blood and supporting terrorism.”

The opposition Local Coordination Committee, however, reported that at least 755 people had been killed in the attack. If that figure is true, what is happening on the outskirts of Damascus today is the worst chemical weapons attack since then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein unleashed poison gas on the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988, killing an estimated 5,000 people.

The pro-rebel website, The Revolting Syria collects videos that, frankly, I had to stop watching. If this is propaganda, then it is incredibly effective propaganda.

Assuming the veracity of these reports, will it prompt a consequential US intervention? My gut reaction, is no.

  1. Intervention remains, from a domestic political perspective, high-risk and low-reward. The dysfunction in Washington makes it rather difficult for the administration to get political cover from the opposition. With the Republicans threatening to inflict an economic crisis over fiscal policy, the effects of the sequester, and the spiraling revelations over the NSA, the politicos in the White House have plenty of reasons to argue against such a step.
  2. There is no significant political faction agitating for intervention. In the 1990s, Clinton worried about Dole flanking him on intervention. Right now, the GOP is too divided on foreign-policy issues to put the screws on.
  3. The chemical attacks change very little about relevant ‘facts on the ground’ that have so far led to little appetite for intervention, nor that have inclined Russia to block UN sanction for action.

On the other hand:

  1. There is interesting polling data that suggests widespread dissemination of this kind of information might shift public opinion on the subject.
  2. It is possible that White House operatives will embrace the “diversionary theory of war” and conclude that acting in Syria will strengthen the President’s hand with the GOP.
  3. Each episode like this may make it harder for Moscow to dissemble on the chemical-weapons front [update: nope], and it is vaguely possible that the Snowden affair has changed Putin’s political calculus.
  4. Public proof of such attacks might be sufficient to trigger “discursive entrapment” for Obama and his team and lead them to conclude that they must hew to their statements.

As Daniel Drezner would say, what do you think?

[Update: in comments, Cheryl Rofer points to her own post on the subject, which she is keeping updated.]

Daniel H. Nexon is a Professor at Georgetown University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Government and the School of Foreign Service. His academic work focuses on international-relations theory, power politics, empires and hegemony, and international order. He has also written on the relationship between popular culture and world politics.

He has held fellowships at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation and at the Ohio State University's Mershon Center for International Studies. During 2009-2010 he worked in the U.S. Department of Defense as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. He was the lead editor of International Studies Quarterly from 2014-2018.

He is the author of The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change (Princeton University Press, 2009), which won the International Security Studies Section (ISSS) Best Book Award for 2010, and co-author of Exit from Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2020). His articles have appeared in a lot of places. He is the founder of the The Duck of Minerva, and also blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money.

3 Comments

  1. Cheryl Rofer
    Cheryl Rofer on 21 August 2013 at 13.28 EDT

    Here’s what I wrote earlier today and am continuing to update. It includes links to White House and UN Secretary-General statements that deplore the incident. There’s also a link to a statement by General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Bottom line (and lede):

    “The Obama administration is opposed to even limited U.S. military intervention in Syria because it believes rebels fighting the Assad regime wouldn’t support American interests if they were to seize power right now.”

  2. Ardeshir
    Ardeshir on 21 August 2013 at 14.45 EDT

    My gut reaction is also ‘no’, the US will not intervene. Part of this has to do with the reasons you mentioned and the another part has to do with not wanting to be the boy who cried intervention. Still, there are reasons that the US might strongly consider changing its current stated policy. To begin, there are the largely domestic reasons you mentioned, but there are also reasons of the international kind. If such an attack took place, Assad would be blatantly violating both international law (see https://goo.gl/zZ2l9q) and norms (see https://goo.gl/iSMWpH) that prohibit the use of chemical weapons. Failing to live up to “red lines” and punish defectors can pose risks to the normative reputation of the US which could adversely affect US interests in other venues.

    In the end, I think at least two interesting questions emerge from the most recent suspected use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime: 1) “will it prompt a consequential US intervention?” and; 2) if it *could* prompt a biased third-party intervention, why do it? The first was rightly asked and speaks to the dynamics of decision making in US foreign policy. The second, *I think*, addresses the rational actor model in studies of intrastate violence and how international laws and norms governing the use of force and the protection of civilians might impact the actual conduct of violence. Regardless of which one seeks to answer, the effect of applicable international law and norms should be considered.

    Note: I’m a graduate student just beginning to think through the second question.

  3. Lou Spanos
    Lou Spanos on 25 August 2013 at 03.29 EDT

    As horrific as this conflict has become, I cannot see a single event being able to garner sufficient response from the West to launch an intervention force.

    With more than 100,000 people already dead, why respond now?

    Inaction and not action is the global norm. Syria will continue to burn, unfortunately.

    Politics and not military is the only solution here.