No, not the particular details of any military action the U.S. might decide to take. Nor am I going to talk about the diplomatic efforts to put an end to the availability of chemical weapons. This diary is less about ending the conflict in Syria than it is about how Syria can be seen as a harbinger of the ending of civilization.
Hidden beneath all the military bluster, the diplomatic intrigue, the religious sectarianism, the human rights violations by authoritarian monsters, there is a simple story: climate change. Lately, a few in the media have looked past the politics to find the basis of the Syria conflict: the fact that thousands of displaced farmers in a poor country with nothing to eat and no jobs have turned to violence.
If drought is at the root of the Syrian conflict, bombs from the U.S. Air Force are unlikely to be a solution. Unless there is some sort of bombing program that will create a series of bomb craters that can be used as tiered water catchments. Even then, it could probably be done cheaper and more accurately by peasants with shovels.
What happens when the next country that suffers from a drought ends up with lots of displaced hungry people in the cities? Will we again be blaming the problem on Al-Qaeda or a violent dictator? What if that place with the drought is Kansas or Iowa?
The failure to understand the real reason for the Syrian conflict, that climate change has brought an end to the possibility of "free-market growth and development", is an omen for all of civilization. There are other countries with climate refugees. In Bangladesh, hundreds of thousands are having to cede their plots of land to the Indian Ocean and are moving to the big cities looking for some way to make a living. In addition to Bangladesh, millions of people in China, India, Nigeria, the Philippines, and Pakistan were displaced by severe weather in 2012. Either they find a new place to live and grow some food, or they too will take up arms looking for it.
In all of the examples above, there are factions that can be pitted against each other. Muslim vs. Hindu, Yoruba vs. Igbo, it really doesn't matter what the factions call themselves, what matters is that there is a faction with not enough food and another one that has food. That fact alone guarantees that conflict will arise.
The observation has been made that the next World War will not be about oil, but about water. While "Operation Iraqi Liberation" (OIL) was indeed about oil, any operation in Syria will be about water. Indeed, with tar sands and fracking, the world seems to have plenty of oil and fossil fuel. But all that oil is translating into less water to grow food, not more. To be stabilized, Syria needs to have agricultural water resources. To the extent that it doesn't, that just adds to the number of people that have to fight for food instead of grow it. So does every extreme climate event that displaces farmers. Unless governments anticipate climate change and prepare for robust agricultural systems to deal with it, more displaced farmers will mean more political instability.
Fighting climate change doesn't just mean stopping the Keystone XL pipeline. In fact, it may be a good idea to complete the Keystone pipeline, just not for its intended purpose. In another couple of decades, that pipe may be far more valuable to move water from where it is (Canada) to where it isn't (Texas).
In addition to trying to cut CO2 emissions, fighting climate change also means preparing for sea level rise and more rainfall variability. It means moving Miami and New Orleans to higher ground. It means being prepared to catch the flooding in Colorado and storing it for the next dry spell. It means investing money not in "business as usual" or the status quo, but in what climate models predict for 40 years from now. It means that China can quit investing in high-rise buildings in Shanghai and should put the money into catch basins in Tibet.
So the road ahead has two choices: cooperate and work together to grow food in a sustainable manner with the new climate, prepare for water shortages by building new catchments and water harvesting strategies, or watch as countries fall into the Syria trap one-by-one.