Arming the Syrian Opposition is a Bad Idea

The CIA arming a group to fight off an anti-American regime sounds awfully familiar. It has been over twenty years since the American and Pakistani governments collaborated to train and arm religious extremists so that they could be sent into Afghanistan to fight off the Soviet Union. The world, to this day, continues to live in a very dark shadow of that decision. Yet, it seems as though the Obama administration is willing to go down a strikingly similar route in Syria, fueling a traditional proxy war in what is already one of the most volatile regions in the world.

With at least 100,000 casualties (according to most sources) and almost 2 million displaced people, the bloody conflict in Syria continues to show no signs of ending. A surprisingly powerful minority regime led by the incumbent president, Bashar Al-Assad is allegedly being funded by Iran and, according to some sources, even Russia. The Obama administration is convinced that a level playing field needs to be created so that the rebels are not kept quiet with government resources.

The fact of the matter is that while it is true that Bashar Al-Assad may be using chemical weapons to suppress anti-government protests, there are much better options available to the international community to counter the aggressive tactics being adopted by his regime. It needs to be taken into account that Syria’s situation is complicated, and various powers have interests in this state. Iran, Russia and Hezbollah, a Lebanese political party are supporting the Shiite regime headed by Bashar-al-Assad.

While it is undisputed that key regional players such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia also wish to back rebels against the Syrian government, the situation on the ground is not quite as clear as one would have hoped. The rebels that Saudi Arabia and Qatar wish to arm are different from those under the leadership of Gen. Salim Idriss, who the U.S. is leaning towards. The former two countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, are looking towards arming Islamists, an idea hat the United States might accept so long as the regime is U.S. friendly. Such a scenario would be all too familiar to the installation of Taliban in Afghanistan, again under pressure from the Saudis.

President Obama, for quite some time, showed an admirable reluctance to get involved into yet another messy situation. However, he is under increasing pressure to act, as reports on casualties continue to emerge from the war-torn state. It is clear that the rebels cannot match up to the power of Bashar-al-Assad, but will placing them on a level battlefield mean that the death and destruction will reduce? Will it buy Gen. Idriss enough leverage to bring Assad onto the negotiating table? It all seems a little too unlikely. A move to arm the rebels is a shift away from the political solution that President Obama and much of the international community wants, and the ultimate losers will be those unfortunate civilians caught in the crossfire.

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