The terrible bloodshed in Syria has evoked mostly handwringing, but also a rather non-serious UN attempt at mediation. Neither substitute for hard political decisions. Neither have changed anything in Syria, where the killing of innocents proceeds unabated.
Now comes the West’s latest method for avoiding hard decisions: calls for tougher sanctions.
France calls for tighter sanctions against Syria. So far, sanctions seem to have halved Syria’s $20.6 billion in foreign reserves. It would be illogical to say, however, that more sanctions and less reserves will change Syria’s behavior. Every attempt in the West to squeeze Syria will be met with a counterattempt by Russia to help Syria. And it’s a lot easier to stoke violence via arms deliveries than it is to stop violence via sanctions.
Secretary of State Clinton exerts “pressure” on Syria with — with what? Mostly with statements, also with sanctions. In response, Russia supplies more weapons to Syria, and also other goods. Trade between the countries flourishes. Iraq and Jordan also trade with Syria. Clearly, the “tighter” sanctions that France now calls for loom as a substitute, a kind of mindless panacea, for the real work that needs to be done, and that work is political or military or both: delivering whatever quid pro quo’s it takes to get Russia to stop resupplying Syria with arms, or forcing Bashar Assad from power, or both.
Especially in the case of Syria, there is also an offensive, critical moral circularity to sanctions. Who will these sanctions hurt? Surely not the regime, with its secret stashes of cash conveniently placed around the globe. The real victims will become the masses of already suffering — and innocent — citizens. One could argue for the morality of sanctions if, alongside the suffering they imposed on the innocent, they also affected the guilty, but in Syria, that is not the case. Nothing stops Syrian brutality except force. Just ask Israel, the object of several aggressive wars begun by Syria, repulsed only with force.
The Syrian regime’s wanton murder and mayhem provides stark evidence — if, after decades of brutal Assad rule, evidence were still needed — that sanctions will make no difference. Hard decisions about Russia, or hard decisions about military intervention, seem to be the only realistic ways to end the terrible loss of life in Syria.
Syria will not stop killing its citizens on its own. Syria will have to be deprived of either arms or power. Tough talk or tough sanctions will effectuate neither.
Copyright © 2012 by the Intermountain Jewish News
