Former NATO Commander On The ‘Greatest Single Foreign Policy Mistake’
In part two of our conversation with former NATO commander Wesley Clark, Here & Nows Jeremy Hobson asks what we should do about the ongoing conflict in Syria, lessons we can learn from World War II, and why military solutions abroad wont work without political goals.
'On whether the United States should have sent ground troops to Syria
You know, until you have the political objective and know how to get there politically, you shouldnt put military force in there. In World War II, we responded because we were attacked and we formulated the political objective of unconditional surrender because, in World War I, we didnt occupy Germany and 20 years later, war began again. This time, there would be no armistice. It was unconditional surrender.
When we ran the operation I ran in Kosovo, we already had designed, before the first bomb fell, we knew the subsequent political activities. How NATO would deploy its occupational forces on the ground, what the rules of the occupation would be, what sectors the British and French and Americans would occupy. All that was laid out, and so we did the politics before we did the military.
When we went into Iraq, we failed to do that, and the operation fundamentally failed. We failed to think things through. Whos going to collect the garbage? Whos going to provide local police protection? Whos going to make the utilities work? We got rid of all of that, we had to start from zero. We had a society wracked by civil war and penetrated by terrorism. Its been the greatest single foreign policy mistake, certainly in my lifetime and probably in the history of the United States.
So, no, President Obama should not have repeated that mistake in Syria. He did the right thing by not putting U.S. forces in there because there is no agreement on what the political objective is. If we went into Syria today, took six months, built up a force of 200,000 troops, we could sweep through Syria in a few days. We would be chasing people that we cant speak the language of and cant identify. We wouldnt know friend from foe. We still dont speak Arabic, we dont want to stay there, its not our country. As soon as wed get there, one neighbor would say about another, He stole my bicycle, he poisoned my well, he owes me. Who is going to do the local police function? We cant do that function.
There has to be a government there. And if you say Well, lets just elect a government, then youve got the same stresses today. Youve got the Iranians pulling in one direction, the Saudis in a second direction, the Turks in a third. And when people dont get their way at the ballot box in that part of the world, what they do is they provide weapons and ammunition and training and bombs start to go off. Weve seen that movie, we dont want to do it again.
What can be done about Syria short of sending troops in?'>>>
http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2016/04/05/foreign-policy-mistakes-clark
I listened to both parts, worth the time.