Center for a New American Security

Exum any US law enforcement

Exum any US law enforcement officer will tell you the most dangerous thing to walk into is a domestic dispute. The reason being is they have no idea of what will happen.

You are telling me in your column that the Middle East will wake up yesterday, today, and tomorrow in the same domestic dispute which has never known a boundary. I am not really sure how to respond to that.

Someone in Washington is asking me to get involved in the domestic dispute.

So in the meantime while Washington is waiting for the 2012 elections to pass, the American action today is to provide logistics solutions to Assad's opposition while the rest of the players in the domestic dispute purchase arms for both factions in Syria (The same crowd in Washington wants to limit Americans to one gun a month! That's a hoot and that once a month purchase doesn't come Full Auto or full of HE like what they giving away for free in Syria) . It is slow moving ramp to a guaranteed full up Civil War which whomever is POTUS in 2013 will have to respond to. The Lebanese have been ramped for war for a long time. Turkey has some of the best fighters in the region. Israel knows its business. Iraq hopefully still has some of the money and equipment that the US taxpayer poured (still is pouring, thank you US State Department) into it.

The region does not need a helicopter parent (aka USG) to tell them how to manage their borders. Washington doesn't know how to manage its own borders.

On "The View" Obama proclaimed himself the winner of the 2012 election. He went on to say, "Don't compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative". Obama just stroked an Executive Order on Yemen that is an open door to silencing any and all that oppose his Yemen policy in the US of A (G.W. Bush did the same thing few years back, Btw). All I hear is complaints from the administration that Congress is not doing their jobs.

Seems to me this administration is a Bush redux with a hell bigger EGO.

I don't see that the executive branch has done anything in the past three years ! Economy, my neighbors are still in recession. Banking system, Frank-Dodd passed a few months after Obama care "The Whale" is staying thank you for the change. Health Care, if I can get it, my rates are going into orbit. Afghanistan, some just told me that the US will be involved for ANOTHER TEN YEARS. Libya is a role model, not sure what for. Egypt is looking more like Iran everyday. Debit limits, Obama says there are no limits to what he can do he keeps layer on entitlements to buy votes. It is amazing to me that Obama said that he can not do anything about gasoline prices, yet they are dropping every day because of the election year (you can not drill your way out of an energy crisis, but you sure can ask Saudi Arabia to pump the F*ck out of it) !

Now Syria.

Seems to me there is not alternative to Syria involvement, like healthcare some one got me pregnant. The question is, will there be an alternative life style at home in the US of A.

I F*ing can only HOPE so.

Someone needs to lay the cost on the table of all the wants and needs of the USG, then we will discuss what to do next.

Want in one hand and Sh*t in the other. Not much of a choice or to brag about.

Firstly, it's a shame that

Firstly, it's a shame that the comments here have degenerated into the same old libruhl-conservative blah blah that plagues all too many message boards these days.

Second, while the spillover from Syria may not in itself be the spark that ignites the flame of all-out civil conflict in its neighbors, but it may well set the preconditions for the spark to happen. Scholarly evidence shows that refugees fleeing civil war can often ignite conflict in their destination countries (Salehyan and Gleiditsch 2006) and that this risk is conditioned by state capacity (Braithwaite 2010). Given this, one would think that Syria's neighbors (especially Iraq) are at particular risk for destabilization.

So let me see if I can pull out the causal mechanisms you identify for each country which will allow them to escape this risk.

Iraq: Capacity has been built to a sufficient degree by US forces, a long civil war has exhausted potential fighters, and the Shiites won so decisively that we are unlikely to see any re-ignition of conflict.

Lebanon: Recent fighting is relatively docile, and the existing power balance means that none of the major leaders within Lebanon could see the benefit of renewed conflict.

You may indeed be right here. However, I'm not as optimistic that nothing major will result from Syrian spillover. First, I'll defer to you on the specific knowledge of the ins and outs of the power balances within these two countries; You're the expert on that. But it seems to me that perhaps the most potentially destabilizing element in Iraq could be something that you identify later in the piece: "the concern will not so much be that extremist acts will actually challenge the balance of power or start a larger conflict in Iraq, but rather that such actions might cause Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government to adopt even more heavy-handed policies toward its political enemies."

For someone whose legitimacy is already somewhat questionable, in a country that still struggles to maintain any semblance of the monopoly of violence, isn't it possible that such a heavy-handed response might in itself be the spark that ignites conflict? And, following Przeworski's thoughts on path dependence, wouldn't that be the outgrowth of this spillover?

Similarly, refugees from Syria might not in themselves be able to upset the power balance in Lebanon, but they are another actor in the equation. And if we hearken back to bargaining theory, it doesn't require that one side or another is actually capable of gaining anything through conflict, just that they believe it is true. While refugees from Lebanon may not alter the actual balance of power, their addition into an already fragile situation may upset the perceived balance of power, which is (in terms of preventing the outbreak of conflict) just as important.

To me, this all raises an interesting academic question. We have evidence that displaced persons can spread conflict in the places where they eventually settle. Yet we have yet to break out just how this conflict is spread. Rarely in history are refugee populations large enough or influential enough to upset the balance of power in the countries they go to. Yet time and time again, low-capacity countries that experience an influx of refugees fall to civil conflict. Why? What is the causal mechanism here?

Queso Fresco May 18, 2012 -

Queso Fresco May 18, 2012 - 9:50am

Firstly, it's a shame that the comments here have degenerated into the same old libruhl-conservative blah blah that plagues all too many message boards these days.

Many men have failed when the only solution they keep validating is their own cause they only acknowledge one side of an argument. The Middle East exhausting itself if fighters (limited to Iraq?)? Must be good stuff you been growing. Lets face it, USA acts we are in deep doo doo and we don't the same. One of the ME or USA factions will spin the politics to their advantage no matter what we do. Yup, refugees spread the problem. Got evidence of that in the USA from the refugees we took in. Seems to me that we should be smart enough to have realized that before we imported the conflict. For the people that want to save the world, that import of the struggle just gets the rest of us pregnant. While Russia and China look like the bad guys, the US of A is going to the poor farm. Want an education? Look at what is happening in Greece, Italy, and Spain they are learning there is a limit to good will, it has to be paid for one way or other. We are ignoring the structural problems in our societies, for every person that takes from a system someone has to have be employed to give.

Elf May 18, 2012 - 12:11pm

I had to laugh, Hillary Clinton was preaching to Congress about Mek about a year ago. She was telling Congress how important it is to provide AID on that ground in the ME (treat it like a national security issue). Sounds more like an invention to spread the wealth to me. Part of the pitch was helping the people struggling for Democracy to write Constitutions for their new countries (think the Brotherhood would listen?). Problem I got is Clinton and her political party are ashamed of their own US Constitution cause it does not guarantee entitlements like a right to Health Care. Clintonism is a hard thing to support.

I really do not want to see people get hurt in the ME, sometimes looking into the abyss is the only way to realize your are human with weaknesses. The founding fathers of the US Constitution realized human weakness and gave the US of A checks and balances to the weaknesses of a popular government. Entitlements would destroy the ability for the government to function.

We now have a government that can not function with a POTUS running a popular campaign.

Yup, a lot of people need to wake up and look in the mirror.

Draw a picture:

"Two" people arguing Religion, beliefs that are founded on years of social reinforcement. Enter a third party with an completely different religion and belief of government telling the "two" there is a better way.

What do you think will happen? Be it a domestic dispute or religion, the beliefs are organic. That is a hard thing to change. The ME has a right to what the believe in and a right to determine their own futures.

Queso Fresco on May 19, 2012

Queso Fresco on May 19, 2012 - 9:05am

Interesting, I sent the above to 50 professional and intelligent people and they understood without explanation.

Why is it they can understand and you find it unintelligible?