Comment: Taking on Syria’s army would come at a price

The question of armed intervention, whether to go to war or not, is being posed more starkly than ever by Syria’s boiling civil war this week.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has just reported that the death toll has now passed 100,000. And the scale of the refugee crisis was put into stark relief by images of the huge Zaatari refugee camp near Mafraq in Jordan, housing 150,000 people.

It is now thought that more than a quarter of Syria’s 22 million population have fled their homes. Refugees are raising tensions in Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and Iraq.

The dilemma of what the world can do, under the UN’s responsibility to protect innocent civilians, was set out by America’s top commander, General Martin Dempsey, in a letter to senators this week. Humanitarian relief, no-fly zones, and deterring Assad’s forces from using chemical weapons would come at a high price — up to a billion dollars a month if US air forces were involved.

His British counterpart, General Sir David Richards, warned in his farewell interview this week that almost any option involving military force risks real war. In the case of Syria that means confrontation with Russia — which has just upgraded the Syrian regime’s air defence missile system — and direct or indirect conflict with Iran. The experience of Bosnia, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq suggests that the “intervention light” option — peacekeeping troops, arming proxy militias, humanitarian corridors and the like — won’t work against a heavily armed opposition such as Bashar al-Assad’s army and police. Soft power demands the protection of hard power where battle is already joined.

One of the crucial elements in Syria is the endurance and adaptability of its armed forces – a factor largely overlooked by analysts and the media. Those forces will endure and adapt for some time yet – particularly if their Russian and Iranian sponsors continue to have a say in the matter.

The rights and wrongs of British intervention in Iraq in 2003 are about to get what one can only hope will be the their definitive airing, as the Chilcot Inquiry finally goes into its last lap. I understand that those about to be criticized — officials, commanders, Tony Blair — are about to get letters of notification. Then the report goes to No 10. The Prime Minister will choose when to publish, which could be some time next year, obviously with an eye on electoral advantage. But publish he must. The subtext to the Whitehall discussion is that never again will UK forces get involved in such tangled, lengthy, and often confused operations.

Never again? Don’t you bet on it.

And watch Syria.