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HKS211x: Central Challenges of American National Security, Strategy, and the Press

Graham Allison, David E. Sanger, and Derek Reveron

Practice Case: Syria

The world is as it was on September 11, 2013, except for hypotheticals that are specifically

introduced in this case. If there are material changes between September 11 and September 20,

you are not required to take those into account—though you may choose to do so. You are

writing as a trusted assistant to Susan Rice, President Obama’s National Security Advisor.

On August 31, the question President Obama put to Congress and the country was whether to

authorize a “limited, proportional” military attack on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime

for the purpose of punishing it for conducting a major chemical attack earlier that month,

degrading his chemical attack capabilities, and deterring any future use of chemical weapons.

Ten days later, he asked Congress to postpone this vote pending serious discussion of a Russian-

backed proposal that would prevent a military strike if the Syrian government agreed to place its

chemical weapons under international control. Whatever President Obama decides to do in the

coming weeks, the hypothetical case you have been assigned here raises larger and more difficult

questions. It asks what else, beyond deterring future uses of chemical weapons, the U.S. could

or should do to stop the killing in Syria, prevent the spread of violence to neighbors and the

region, and secure and advance other U.S. interests impacted by these developments.

The Situation in Syria

Since December 2010, the Arab revolutions have toppled regimes in four countries (Tunisia,

Egypt, Libya, and Yemen) and sparked significant revolts in two more (Bahrain and Syria), as

well as now one counterrevolution (Egypt, again). Having observed the fates of Hosni Mubarak

and Muammar al-Qaddafi, however, President Bashar al-Assad in Syria has vowed to fight for

survival at whatever cost.

What began as a non-violent uprising against a brutal regime has metastasized over the past

30 months into a full-scale civil war now claiming more than 5,000 lives per month. Since the

standoff began in March 2011, more than 100,000 Syrians have been killed. Six million more

have been forced from their homes. Of the now two million refugees who have successfully fled

the country, neighboring Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq have received the lion’s share. An

uptick in Syria-inspired violence in these countries signals the possibility of a widening war.

Inside Syria, the conflict has aggravated long-standing sectarian divides, roughly pitting Alawite

and Christian minorities against a Sunni Muslim majority. Taking advantage of the chaos,

Syria’s Kurdish population in the country’s northeast has made recent moves toward autonomy.

If a stalemate persists, some observers expect an internecine conflict akin to Lebanon’s 15-year

civil war, or, as Thomas Hobbes might have put it, a “war of all against all.”

Attempts to find a diplomatic solution, most recently a U.S.- and Russia-backed “peace

conference” proposed in May, have faltered as disagreements continue over the list of

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participants. Neither the Assad regime nor the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition

indicates a serious willingness to reach a settlement at the negotiating table.

Meanwhile, the Syrian regime—backed by Russia, Iran, and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters—has

achieved a series of military victories in recent months, including important battles at Qusayr and

Homs. A once-steady flow of military defections has slowed to a trickle, and the core of Assad’s

Baath Party loyalists remains largely intact. After many left Assad for dead a year ago, a growing

number of analysts now worry that the authoritarian regime may last for years to come.

The opposition to Assad consists of over 1,200 disparate groups that are ill-equipped and deeply

fragmented. The Western-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) claims to include more than 80,000

loosely-affiliated fighters, but disparate FSA militias are often confined to patrolling their own

neighborhoods. Moreover, the opposition’s most cohesive and effective combat fighting groups

are Salafist jihadists whose agendas are antithetical to U.S. interests. One important group is

Jabhat al-Nusra, an Al Qaeda affiliate blacklisted by Washington as a “foreign terrorist

organization.” Yet a steady flow of weapons and other equipment reaches these groups, mostly

through Qatar, which has bankrolled the Syrian opposition with around $3 billion to date. Saudi

Arabia, Qatar’s neighbor and competitor, has funneled even more to the more “moderate” forces

fighting Assad.

Finally, Syria’s chemical and biological weapons add a further dimension of complexity. In

August 2012, President Obama said, “A red line for us is if we see a whole bunch of chemical

weapons moving around, or being utilized. That would change my calculus.” Yet, reluctant to

act, the administration took its time in considering the evidence in roughly a dozen small-scale

attacks that appeared to involve chemical weapons. In June 2013, the Obama administration

reported with “high confidence” that Assad’s regime had in fact killed 100-150 Syrians with

sarin gas in a series of attacks. Around the same time, President Obama authorized a covert,

CIA-led operation to arm and train select groups of rebel fighters.

On August 21, a large-scale use of sarin gas killed more than a thousand people in eastern

Damascus, including hundreds of children. In response, President Obama and Secretary of State

John Kerry vowed to hold Assad’s regime “accountable” for this attack. After they publically

presented the case for limited, surgical cruise missile attacks on Syrian military targets—and the

Pentagon completed plans to execute that order—President Obama called “time out” at the final

hour. In a move that surprised the core leadership of his national security team as much as

outsiders, Obama delayed military action by referring the issue to Congress. The Obama

administration’s proposed resolution would authorize all “necessary and appropriate” military

measures to “prevent or deter the use or proliferation” of chemical or biological weapons and

protect the United States and its allies “against the threat posed by such weapons.”

The issue continues to twist in the wind. On September 9, Russian foreign minister Sergei

Lavrov seized upon an apparently offhand remark by Secretary Kerry in a London press

conference and called on the Assad regime to “not only agree on putting chemical weapons

storages under international control, but also for its further destruction and then joining the

Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.” Before the day was out, President

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Obama had called the Russian proposal a “potential breakthrough,” though he reiterated the need

to “trust, but verify.”

Yesterday, in a televised address to the nation, President Obama asked Congress to postpone a

vote on military action so that his administration could pursue this potential diplomatic opening.

As this hypothetical case is presented, it remains uncertain whether Congress will continue to

consider military action, and, if so, how “the American people’s representatives” will vote.

Assignment

You are a new, trusted assistant to Susan Rice, the recently appointed National Security Advisor.

As President Obama’s former ambassador to the United Nations and a member of the National

Security Council, Rice has been involved with Syria policy since the conflict’s inception. But she

is deeply uneasy about the course of events. As a passionate advocate of human rights who

served in the Clinton administration when it stood on the sidelines during the Rwandan genocide,

among her deepest core convictions is: never again. Reflecting on that experience, Rice said in

2001: “I swore to myself that if I ever faced such a crisis again, I would come down on the side

of dramatic action, going down in flames if that was required.”

As a relative newcomer to the Syria challenge, you have been chosen as a pair of “fresh eyes” to

produce new, creative ideas about how the United States can act more aggressively and

effectively to meet this challenge. Rice has told you that in her gut, she is certain that we could

and should be doing a lot more to stop the killing, prevent the metastasis of a cancer that is

spreading to the region, and secure U.S. interests—but the question is what.

President Obama remains focused narrowly and specifically on deterring future use of chemical

weapons in Syria. Neither the military options he has been considering, nor the diplomatic

initiative to disarm Syria’s chemical arsenal, aim to significantly alter the balance of military

forces on the ground or compel Assad’s government to negotiate.

Despite this swirl of events, the issue Susan Rice has asked you to address is the much larger

question of what else, beyond deterring future use of chemical weapons, should the United States

do to stop the killing, prevent the metastasis of a cancer that is spreading to the region, and

secure and advance U.S. interests.

Her assignment to you: an “eyes only” strategic options outline that she can share with the

President on where we stand now, what is likely to happen if U.S. strategy remains the same,

realistic strategic alternatives that could better protect and advance American interests, and your

best recommendations for moving forward. Strategic option 1 should characterize current U.S.

strategy. Option 2 should summarize what you judge to be the most promising military action the

U.S. could undertake. Option 3 should develop a third strategic initiative that is non-military but

harnesses other instruments of American power. For example, you are free to propose a strategy

for driving the Assad government and rebel groups to a negotiated settlement, for forcing regime

change, for compelling Assad to turn over his chemical weapons stockpile, or for triggering the

breakup of the country—or any other outcome that you see as desirable. But both option 2 and

option 3 must be designed to, at a minimum, fulfill Rice’s objectives.

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Logistics

Please enter your strategic options outline in the text box provided on the application form,

adhering to the SOPs and formatting guidelines provided. Note that outlines may not exceed 600

words.