Special to WorldTribune.com

WASHINGTON — Civil war in Syria would endanger U.S. national
security, a report said.

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy asserted that Washington’s
policy against military intervention assured the widening of the civil war
in Syria.

The institute, in a report by executive director Robert Satloff, raised the prospect that President Bashar Assad could order or fail to stop the use of weapons of mass destruction by his army and security forces.

“If Syria descends into the chaos of all-out civil war, it’s not only
Syrians who will lose out, as [former United Nations secretary-general Kofi] Annan suggests,” the report, titled “Why a Syrian Civil War Would Be a Disaster For U.S. National Security,” said. “Very clear American interests are also at stake.”

Satloff, regarded as close to the State Department, outlined several
scenarios that could threaten U.S. interests. They included WMD attacks or seizure of biological and chemical weapons by Al Qaida-aligned militias.
Another scenario envisioned that Assad would assist the Kurdish Workers
Party for a campaign against neighboring Turkey.

Lebanon could also be forced to join Assad’s attempt to widen the war.
Satloff cited the prospect of Assad expelling hundreds of thousands
of Palestinians to Israel, Jordan and Lebanon, or attacking the Sunni
community in Lebanon.

“Syrian soldiers, Alawi thugs and their Hizbullah allies take their
anti-Sunni crusade to the Sunnis of Lebanon, reigniting a 15-year
conflict that sucked regional proxies — and U.S. Marines — into its
vortex,” the report said.

“Thousands of jihadists descend on Syria to fight
the apostate Alawite regime, transforming this large eastern Mediterranean
country into the global nexus of violent Islamist terrorists. None of this
is fantasy.”

Satloff, who visited the Levant in May, cited fears in Israel and
Jordan that Assad would widen the war against Syria’s Sunni majority. He
said the absence of U.S. intervention would enable the Assad regime to take
drastic measures.

“A slow, grinding conflict in which the regime continues its merciless
but ultimately futile whack-a-mole strategy is the most likely backdrop for
these nightmare scenarios,” the report said. “In contrast, swift and
decisive action to hasten Assad’s departure is the best way to immunize
against this set of terrifying outcomes.”

The report advised Washington to employ such tactics as cyberwarfare,
unmanned aerial vehicle attacks, the establishment of safe havens and the
training of Sunni rebels. Satloff said Washington must work with Turkey and
Arab states to plan a post-Assad Syria.

“In a post-Assad world, inter-ethnic reconciliation will be an uphill
battle, and the inclusion of some Islamists in a successor government is —
regrettably, in my view — a necessary fact
of Syrian life,” the report said.

“Still, policymaking is often accepting
bad outcomes when the alternatives are worse, especially when the worse
outcomes have the potential to wreak havoc on American interests.”

  Al Qaida-aligned militias, Alawites, Bashar Assad, Kofi Annan, Kurdish Workers Party, Report: Hands-off U.S. approach to Syria could lead to ‘terrifying outcomes’, Robert Satloff, Sunnis, Washington Institute for Near East Policy