As Obama hits the airwaves to plead his cause for some sort of attack on Syria and an address to Americans on TV, it is not an unimportant question to ask what do the Arabs in the region think. FP steps up to the plate to in a piece "Trench Warfare".
"The extremely low level of domestic popular support for military action in Syria has loomed large as the Obama administration builds its case for war. Americans, for the most part, oppose getting involved in another quagmire in the Middle East which most -- wisely -- fear will be the end result of even a "limited" action. What about Arabs, though? Do they, at least, want the United States to take on this burden and enter the Syrian fray?
It would be easy to be talked into the idea that this time they do -- if you primarily talked to Saudi and Emirati royals. But Washington would do well to reflect upon the risks of relying so heavily upon the counter-revolutionary, anti-democratic autocrats of Saudi Arabia and the UAE to pay for or deliver a democratic Syria. Riyadh and Abu Dhabi just played a leading role in supporting the military coup in Egypt which destroyed the political process Washington had worked so hard for years to support. Their intervention in Bahrain proved devastating to the early U.S. efforts to support Arab democratic transitions. They may want the U.S. military to act badly enough to pay for it, but that doesn't mean that they share American interests in a negotiated settlement or its aspirations for the region.
Despite the intense efforts by these Gulf states over the past two years to build public support for the Syrian opposition, Arab public opinion remains sharply divided over what to do about Syria and broadly hostile to American military intervention regardless of views on other issues. The one thing which seems to unite this fragmented and intensely divided Arab public is a rejection of American meddling. Forgetting Iraq may be one of the 10 Beltway Commandments, but Arabs have not agreed to move on. Arab leaders may harp on American "credibility" and the costs of not acting, but those sentiments likely do not extend far beyond regime circles. It is exceedingly difficult to find any trust in American intentions or positive views of America's role in the region -- and hard to imagine how U.S. military strikes would change those views for the better. As former Al Jazeera boss (and strong supporter of NATO's Libya intervention) Wadah Khanfar put it, "this strong desire to eradicate the regime will never be translated into support for American military intervention."
"The extremely low level of domestic popular support for military action in Syria has loomed large as the Obama administration builds its case for war. Americans, for the most part, oppose getting involved in another quagmire in the Middle East which most -- wisely -- fear will be the end result of even a "limited" action. What about Arabs, though? Do they, at least, want the United States to take on this burden and enter the Syrian fray?
It would be easy to be talked into the idea that this time they do -- if you primarily talked to Saudi and Emirati royals. But Washington would do well to reflect upon the risks of relying so heavily upon the counter-revolutionary, anti-democratic autocrats of Saudi Arabia and the UAE to pay for or deliver a democratic Syria. Riyadh and Abu Dhabi just played a leading role in supporting the military coup in Egypt which destroyed the political process Washington had worked so hard for years to support. Their intervention in Bahrain proved devastating to the early U.S. efforts to support Arab democratic transitions. They may want the U.S. military to act badly enough to pay for it, but that doesn't mean that they share American interests in a negotiated settlement or its aspirations for the region.
Despite the intense efforts by these Gulf states over the past two years to build public support for the Syrian opposition, Arab public opinion remains sharply divided over what to do about Syria and broadly hostile to American military intervention regardless of views on other issues. The one thing which seems to unite this fragmented and intensely divided Arab public is a rejection of American meddling. Forgetting Iraq may be one of the 10 Beltway Commandments, but Arabs have not agreed to move on. Arab leaders may harp on American "credibility" and the costs of not acting, but those sentiments likely do not extend far beyond regime circles. It is exceedingly difficult to find any trust in American intentions or positive views of America's role in the region -- and hard to imagine how U.S. military strikes would change those views for the better. As former Al Jazeera boss (and strong supporter of NATO's Libya intervention) Wadah Khanfar put it, "this strong desire to eradicate the regime will never be translated into support for American military intervention."
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