What's Happening in Syria?

If you want to read a gripping account of the situation in Syria, take a look at Spiegel Online International's article, "Running from the Ghosts of Damascus."

For two hours, Nabil plays dozens of videos, including images even Al Jazeera won't show, images of heads ripped off, bodies torn to pieces, severed feet, targeted gunshot wounds to the ears, eyes, forehead. There are pictures of severely injured people being given basic treatment at improvised medical stations, which the resistance uses because people are often abducted from hospitals. In one scene, armed men jump out of an ambulance. "Shabiha or security forces," Awad says. "That's happened so often, people are afraid to take the injured to the clinics anymore."

According to the accounts in the article, the main source of terror and repression isn't the army -- although it is retaking control of cities, but the massive regime security forces and secret police, personally loyal to Bashar al-Assad.

the regime's true backbone is the security forces and secret services, believed to employ up to 400,000 people in their network of terror units, all competing to torture and kill. Their creator, former President Hafez al-Assad, managed all members as far down as mid-ranking officers.

If these forces remain loyal, and the army doesn't turn on the regime, Assad has a good chance of retaining power. There are, however, some signs of cracks in his control.

Hundreds of dead soldiers have been turned over to their families with bullet wounds and no further details about their deaths. Another 1,000 or more have deserted. In Deir ez-Zor, a colonel is said to have defected together with some of his troops. The regime is growing increasingly concerned about its own army, says a soldier in Damascus. "Until five weeks ago, you only needed a military ID to pass through checkpoints anywhere in the country," the soldier explains. "Now you have to have a permit for each leg of the trip, or they'll suspect you as a deserter."

If the conscript army decides to turn on Assad, that could bring him down. But so far it hasn't happened.

"Smart Power" Isn't Smart or Powerful

Hillary Clinton made the laughable claim that the U.S. is employing "smart power" with regard to Libya and Syria. With all the focus on President Obama's miserable handling of domestic policy, it's always worth reminding people that this administration is almost as clueless when it comes to foreign affairs. Here's Clinton on what she thinks we are doing in Libya.

Libya was a study in the use of "strategic patience," whereby the United States resisted the impulse for immediate intervention and instead helped to build support for the country's nascent opposition, which the U.S. now recognizes as Libya's legitimate government. She said the unprecedented NATO-Arab alliance protecting civilians on the ground was a key result of the tactics of smart power.

Here's what we are actually doing in Libya. Despite already being involved in two wars, fighting Islamist terrorists across the globe, and mired in an economic mess, we decided to intervene in the Libyan civil war. This intervention was completely unnecessary, particularly given that Britain and France were already going to intervene. Not only did we do so anyway, but we created a terrible precedent at the UN by signing on to a resolution that could easily be directed against America in the future. In addition, once in the war, we refused to win it by taking the obvious action of trying to eliminate Gaddafi. We are basically helping prolong a civil war, wasting money, and keeping forces tied down in yet another open-ended commitment. If that's a smart use of American power, I'd hate to see a dumb one.

In Syria, we are doing essentially nothing. In my opinion that's actually pretty smart. But it has nothing to do with exercising some sort of power. We are refusing to employ our power at all. Hillary Clinton even thinks it would be going too far if we called for Assad to step down. And then there's this gem from the Secretary of State that demonstrates yet again how Obama's foreign policy is based primarily on naivete and wishful thinking.

"I think this is smart power, where it is not just brute force, it is not just unilateralism," she said. "It is being smart enough to say you know what we want a bunch of people signing out of the same hymn book and we want them singing a song of universal freedom, human rights, democracy, everything that we have stood for and pioneered over 235 years."

Brute force is an actual application of power. It can be smart or it can be dumb. It depends how and why it is employed. Doing things unilaterally is sometimes necessary and can also be smart, and in American interests -- which aren't exactly a priority for the Obama administration. What is "universal freedom" supposed to be? Maybe it's the same thing as "a universal set of values and interests."

"The United States stands for our values, our interests and our security, but we have a very clear view that others need to be taking the same steps to enforce a universal set of values and interests,"

There is obviously no such thing as universal values or interests. But Clinton wants to "enforce" them somehow. Hopefully we can replace the Obama administration with one that at least grasps the basic fact that different states have different interests, and that values vary wildly across the globe.

Not Being Run Over by Tanks

This picture is from an article by Kelly McParland in the National Post. The caption reads: "Thousands of protesters march in Israel. Notice how they're not being run over by tanks."

The caption was my favorite part of the article, but the rest is good too.

I’ve been scouring the web sites of fearless critics of Israel — attention-grabbing authors, union bosses, self-righteous leftwingers, NDP deputy leaders, flotilla supporters etc. — for signs they are putting their famed organizing abilities to work to focus international outrage on the Syrian regime via marches, protests, demonstrations etc. And praising Israel for its democratic response to a national crisis.

Can’t seem to find any. Odd. But I’ll keep looking.

Good luck with that.

Wikileaks Strikes Again

In its continuing attack on U.S. interests and foreign policy, Wikileaks released more stolen diplomatic cables revealing secret U.S. financing operations in Syria.

The State Department has secretly financed Syrian political opposition groups and related projects, including a satellite TV channel that beams anti-government programming into the country, according to previously undisclosed diplomatic cables.

Wikileaks has again shown its callous disregard for the lives of anyone in Syria that might be targeted by the Assad dictatorship, and has contributed to propping up the regime. Assad can make a better case now, supported by these latest revelations, that opposition groups are under the control of hostile foreigners who are meddling in Syrian affairs. It's free propaganda that helps him paint himself as a true Syrian fighting against U.S. influence. None of this apparently matters to Wikileaks, as long as it is able to strike at the U.S.

It's long past time that the U.S. recognized Wikileaks as a dangerous and hostile non-state entity, that has already done more damage to American interests than most terrorist attacks. It should be targeted and destroyed by whatever means might prove most effective.

Syrian-Turkish Military Cooperation

Turkey has been conducting joint military maneuvers with Syria over the last couple of days. On Monday the two nations signed

a technical military cooperation agreement...in the fields of defense industries and the exchange of technical and scientific information.

Turkish sources have differing takes on the importance of this move. A Turkish Brigadier General from the defense ministry said,

The deal we are signing will form the legal basis of defense cooperation between the defense ministries of the two countries

But an analyst in Turkey called the move "inconsequential" saying,

Turkey has similar deals with more than 60 countries. Besides, the exercise involved at most a total of 60 men from both sides. If it is held only at the platoon level as reported, then really it holds only a symbolic value

So at this point it is unclear exactly what this Syrian-Turkish cooperation portends for the future. The Israeli defense minister called it a "disturbing development." But whether it is a trivial disturbance or something more serious remains to be seen.