by Patrick Appel
The Syrian conflict turned three on Saturday. Marc Lynch wishes the #WithSyria activists had clearer goals:
The premise of the “With Syria” campaigns is that the United States hasn’t acted to resolve the conflict in Syria because people aren’t aware of its horrors. But that’s probably wrong. To get a sense of how Americans think about Syria, I looked at every Syria question in the public opinion surveys collected in the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research database since January 2011 – 281 questions in all. Those surveys paint a pretty clear picture of an American public that knew perfectly well what was happening in Syria and whom to blame, and generally wanted to help, but absolutely rejected anything that smelled like military intervention. The activist campaigns might have more success translating a stand “with Syria” into meaningful action if they proposed specific ways for concerned individuals to make a difference without supporting war.
Borzou Daragahi expects the war to continue for the foreseeable future:
As the Syria war enters its fourth year, no question is perhaps more pertinent to the calculations of combatants inside the country and policy makers abroad than who is winning. Ominously for the prospects of ending the conflict that has left up to 140,000 people dead and displaced more than 9m in what the UN describes as the worst humanitarian catastrophe since the second world war, both sides claim they are.
“The fact that we’re in this intermediate situation where both sides can hope to win, but it’s not clear that they will, is the worst of all worlds,” says Jean-Marie Guehenno, former UN and Arab League deputy envoy to Syria. “Because all sides have an interest in continuing the fight rather than going for a political solution, all sides believe they can win.”
Vice is embedded with Syria’s rebels. Their first video dispatch is here.
The Dish 