The headline question to Tara's piece is exactly right: What comes next?
But rather than my normal plea for balance and coherency among ends, ways, and means, I would like to ask if anyone can describe what success looks like? Making the assumption that we care going to conduct a limited strike (both in terms of means and time), I would like to read a narrative description of a successful outcome. Not in terms of achieving the end state (assuming one can be determined) or various objectives but a description of what success looks like after we conduct a limited attack. This would be various versions of the vision that the leaders calling for strikes should have and be able to articulate. It can be described in terms of the instruments of power (diplomatic, informational, military, and economic) and from various perspectives: e.g., What doe success look like for the US, for NATO/EU, for the region, for the UN, for the rebels and for the Syrian people? It can be tangible and intangible (e.g. prevents future use of chemical weapons) Can anyone provide a narrative description of success? And then of course we should compare that with narrative descriptions of failure as well.
As a thought experiment I would like to see all the supporters of limited strike describe what failure looks like in various forms and all those opposed to limited strikes describe what success looks like and then compare the various versions before we decide what to do. I would like to hear administration, congressional, and military leaders describe their visions for success and failure.
V/R
Dave
29 August 2013 Last updated at 21:59 ET
What happens in Syria after the Tomahawks hit?
By Tara McKelveyBBC News Magazinehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/
US officials hope that any military assault on Syria will be surgical and limited. But what does the US do after the missiles or bombs have fallen?
It could go either way. The US may attack - or may not. "I've not made a decision," US President Barack Obama said on Wednesday.
Mr Obama has maintained that if the Syrian government uses chemical weapons, the US will act militarily.
And last week, according to US officials, President Bashar al-Assad's forces deployed poison gas against rebels in a Damascus suburb. More than 1,000 people, including women and children, were reported killed.
Syrian government officials say they did not use chemical weapons, but the US is ready to act.
'We are prepared'
UN inspectors are looking for evidence of a gas attack in the Damascus suburb, and plan to finish their work on Friday.
Meanwhile officials in Washington DC are laying the groundwork for military operations.
"We are prepared," Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel told the BBC.
If US officials proceed with military operations, they will likely be supported by Turkey and France, at least in some fashion. They will not have the backing of the UK, where Parliament on Thursday night rejected a government motion supporting intervention in Syria.
Nor is the UN Security Council expected to support an attack, because the Russians are opposed.
The US military would most likely use Tomahawk cruise missiles for an attack on the Syrian government forces. These missiles are now stored on destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean.
The missiles would not be fired at places where chemical weapons might be stored, since poisonous gas could spread or chemical agents could fall into the wrong hands.
Instead, military facilities would be targeted - radio centres, command posts and missile launchers, says Douglas Ollivant, who served as an operations officer with the Army's Fifth Cavalry Regiment in Iraq.
The initial military operation would be fast.
Public opinion
"It would be a fairly short, sharp action - much like Operation Desert Fox," a 1998 military operation in Iraq, says Peter Mansoor, an Ohio State University professor of military history who served as executive officer for David Petraeus, a retired US Army general, in Iraq.
(Continued at the link below)
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