The Arab world is expecting the United States to inflict serious military damage on the dictatorship of Bashar Al-Assad, in retribution for its use of chemical weapons against its people. There is a clear expectation that the devastation that will be inflicted upon the Syrian military machine will permit the Free Syrian Army to finish the job that it has set about so heroically in two years of vicious struggle Yet reading between the lines of the statements coming out of Washington and London and Paris, there is no clear commitment to do anything more than punish Assad for misbehavior. It is almost as if the airstrikes, when they come, will be little more than a slap on the wrist for a naughty dictator who has been using poison gas on his own people. The intent would seem to be that with a few of his choice military assets blown apart by Cruise missiles, Assad will behave himself and continue to fight his own people without recourse to deplorable, terroristic tactics, such as the use of poison gas. If this is truly the analysis that is driving the plan for military intervention, then it is not only morally wrong but it also carries high risks of failure. A strictly limited, punitive military campaign that degrades only a small part of the Damascus dictatorship's capacity to slaughter its own people is absolutely not what is required. It may allow the Americans and their European allies to say that they have done something positive, but in fact it will have changed nothing. Indeed, given the angry protests that seem sure to pour out of Moscow and Beijing in the wake of a strike against Assad, any limited assault may actually encourage further gas attacks. This is because the dictatorship may well calculate that the United States will not risk the international consequences of a second, perhaps greater attack, even if Assad launches further poison gas attacks against the Syrian people. Therefore, what is required now is the destruction in detail of Assad's entire military machine. It is not the behavior of the regime that needs changing but the regime itself. That it has taken so long for the United States to act has been a disaster for the political opposition and the Free Syrian Army. The pace of advance has been slow, and indeed in recent months with the help of the terrorist organization Hezbollah, the regime has actually regained some lost ground. Thus the rebel military initiative has slipped from the main command of the Free Syrian Army to dangerous splinter groups such as Al-Nusra and Al-Qaeda in Iraq and Lebanon. Assad's people have been able to exploit the presence of these internationally-acknowledged terrorists among the rebel forces. They gloat that they have been saying all along that their rule has been under attack by “terrorists” and, for good measure, they have thrown in the extra word “foreign”. There can be little doubt that the Al-Qaeda fanatics now operating in Libya are in the main "foreign". Washington of course fears that destroying Assad's military capability will open the way for Al-Qaeda thugs to turn on the Free Syrian Army forces in an attempt to seize control of the country. Hence, we are faced with the clear danger that the US is about to pull its punches and not inflict the absolute destruction of Assad. This would be a disaster.
