Syria – I know what’s wrong; working out what’s right is rather harder

It is easy to work out what I disagree with on Syria.

The absurd politics of those on the left who have never lifted the smallest placard in protest against Assad’s widespread torture and murders but break out a garage-full the moment there is a whiff of US involvement in something.

Or those who talk about Syria with reference to Iraq but without references too to countries such as the Ivory Coast or Sierra Leone, where military intervention worked. Or without reference to countries such as the former Yugoslavia where the problem was not that military intervention took place but that it took so long to be sufficient. Or indeed Darfur, where its absence was followed by such horrific events.

Easy to disagree with too those who express shock that the Liberal Democrats, having opposed war in Iraq, could possibly support intervention in Syria – skipping over the long tradition of the Lib Dems, and before them the Liberals, supporting military intervention to prevent human rights atrocities. Remember not just Ashdown and Yugoslavia, but a succession of calls for forceful intervention over the years.

That’s the easy bit. Yet all that, of course, does not mean military intervention at this time in Syria is bound to be right and effective.

A notable pattern of relatively successful military intervention is that it involves a successful regime change shortly after, helping to bring quickly to an end the need for active military operations. I understand why those thinking seriously about military action in Syria are keen to dismiss talk of regime change, but I really can’t see how it plays out to any sort of half-decent (or, please, better than half-decent) outcome without regime change. Syria is too far entrapped in civil war – and Assad to murderous a tyrant – for no change in regime to work out.

Yet successful regime change is deeply problematic on legal grounds and far harder than simply removing one regime – as Iraq reminds us daily. It would be hopelessly optimistic to think a wonderful democratic society will leap into being even if Assad were to quit tomorrow. Creating stable democracies is a longer and messier business than that.

So there is no simple option that is guaranteed to make Syria a good place. Just messy options that may make it better. (Indeed, it’s such a messy range of options that even 38 Degrees – usually top of the form at making every issue into a simple, strident battle of good versus bad – has emailed supporters saying it’s complicated.)

For me, then, the key factor is that international law is there to protect the weak. The strong must follow international law – but the weak can only get their rightful protection if the strong help out. International law wilfully broken by the powerful is meaningless. But so too is international law where the weak receive no protection when it is broken and they are the ones suffering. That places an onus on those who are strong to use their strength to uphold international law.

That means any military intervention must be legal, must be based on strong evidence, must be properly authorised – but also, if others are breaking the law with impunity, must then however reluctantly take place.

Will Syria meet those tests? I don’t know. No-one does. Count me still as undecided.